American racism

Dear Son,

History, as you’ll learn in school, is infected with human injustice. You are right to be horrified by the fires of Auschwitz and enraged at the bombings of the Twin Towers. These are unimaginable and public evils that scar the fabric of our society for generations; eternal monuments to the brutality of humans who cast off their humanity and descend into beastly chaos. In the shadow of these tragedies, a person may overlook the numerous smaller memorials to unrighteousness which litter the graveyard of American history. By collecting in one place disparate crimes under a single theme, I pray you will perceive that the cancer of racism which infects our nation is no less egregious than history’s most public horrors.

As I write to you, two events have shocked our nation. In the first, a jogger named Amaud Arbery was tracked and gunned down by two assailants. The second, a man named George Floyd was strangled to death by a police officer before a crowd of witnesses. The pattern that connects these two crimes is that the murdered were both black men. These are not isolated incidents, but the latest exposure of rampant American racism. An unknown author summarizes the plight of black Americans in this poetic confession:

• We can’t go jogging (#AmaudArbery).
• We can’t relax in the comfort of our own homes (#BothemSean and #AtatianaJefferson).
• We can’t ask for help after being in a car crash (#JonathanFerrell and #RenishaMcBride).
• We can’t have a cellphone (#StephonClark).
• We can’t leave a party to get to safety (#JordanEdwards).
• We can’t play loud music (#JordanDavis).
• We can’t sell CD’s (#AltonSterling).
• We can’t sleep (#AiyanaJones)
• We can’t walk from the corner store (#MikeBrown).
• We can’t play cops and robbers (#TamirRice).
• We can’t go to church (#Charleston9).
• We can’t walk home with Skittles (#TrayvonMartin).
• We can’t hold a hair brush while leaving our own bachelor party (#SeanBell).
• We can’t party on New Years (#OscarGrant).
• We can’t get a normal traffic ticket (#SandraBland).
• We can’t lawfully carry a weapon (#PhilandoCastile).
• We can’t break down on a public road with car problems (#CoreyJones).
• We can’t shop at Walmart (#JohnCrawford) .
• We can’t have a disabled vehicle (#TerrenceCrutcher).
• We can’t read a book in our own car (#Keith Scott).
• We can’t be a 10yr old walking with our grandfather (#CliffordGlover).
• We can’t decorate for a party (#ClaudeReese).
• We can’t ask a cop a question (#RandyEvans).
• We can’t cash our check in peace (#YvonneSmallwood).
• We can’t take out our wallet (#AmadouDiallo).
• We can’t run (#WalterScott).
• We can’t breathe (#EricGarner, #GeorgeFloyd).
• We can’t live (#FreddieGray).

Image courtesy of #BlackLivesMatters

Some in our nation will assume these men were somehow guilty. When confronted, most will agree these two men’s guilt did not warrant public execution, but the presumption of guilt is a common sedative for the consciences of a majority who harbor apathy towards those who differ from them. I sense this Novocain in my own soul, rotting my volition and excusing my silence. For this reason I write to you, that by breaking silence I may shake off the deadening apathy that threatens my soul, and that you may know the present evils which, long kept private by institutional corruption, are rising to the light of public scrutiny.

Where news coverage bows it’s head in despairing silence over a land wracked with human evil, we who pledge our allegiance to King Jesus raise our eyes to a horizon of hope. Today we pray and act to bring into reality that beatific vision which our Lord Jesus set before himself on his march into the jaws of evil - the renewal of all things which is called the Kingdom of our God. Here’s a foretaste:

The abuses against the black community receive the most press coverage today, but I am convinced Asian, Mediterranean, Latinx (edit: 🧡 Stephanie) and Native American populations could enumerate their own lists of racially charged events. If you possess or know of such a list, email me.

To consider how you might respond, check my related series on privilege, starting with privilege definition.

Thanks be to God for Miles McPherson’s plea to raise our voices, for Amy Buerke’s social media integrity, and her source, John Pavlovitz.

May your Kingdom come,
may your will be done,
as in heaven, so on the earth
Amen