"The first duty of love is to listen." - Paul Tillich
This past week I took a step back and I observed, read, and listened to a lot of people who have posted and shared and this is what I've seen.
I've seen a lot of statistics, videos, and explanations supporting the idea of systemic racism in our society.
I've then seen a lot of people attempting to disprove those statistics and videos with statistics and videos of their own.
Then I have seen my friends, colleagues, and even strangers of color speaking up about their own experience. Expressing their pain from their own experience of prejudice in our society, expressing their anger for how long their voices have been ignored and expressing their fear of the probability that their children will have to face these issues one day.
I have heard these emotions spoken out by people at work, on social media from people I went to Bible school with, from fellow students in my current course, from old friends from my childhood, etc. These same emotions have been expressed by people from all walks of life and beliefs. They are not all democrats nor are they all republican, many are Christian but some are not. The only thing they all have in common is that they are people of color and they have experienced prejudice throughout their life.
What saddens me the most, is how many of my friends, many of them Christian, who state that they love and respect all people, completely ignore the people speaking up about the pain, anger, and fear that they are feeling. They dismiss the experience as a conspiracy by the media or the politicians and fail to recognize the real people who are speaking up.
Even if you deny the existence of systemic racism doesn't love mandate that we take a moment to listen?
Doesn't love mandate that we try to understand?
How can we love our neighbor when we refuse to listen to what they have to say?