It's Time to Listen

"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?

Some Thoughts on Recent Events

"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends,

than that good men should look on and do nothing."

John Stuart Mill

I do not condone violent protests. I think that they take the focus away from the situation at hand and give fuel to people who want to criminalize the protesters.

That being said... I understand it.

I understand why the frustration has built up to the point of violent protests.

I understand why the anger has built up to the point that it boils over in this form.

I do not condone but I understand.

Our African American community has been trying to speak out against continued oppression for decades and we have ignored them. 

They've written songs about it but we didn't listen, they made sit-com episodes about it and we took as a joke. They've tried to build diversity groups in our workplaces and we took it as another requirement to sit through and then go on with our lives. 

I say "we" because I did the same thing. I grew up listening to Christian Hip-Hop but skipped over songs like "Tears of a Black Man" by Gospel Gangstaz. My favorite show has always been "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" but I never really listened to the message portrayed in the episode where Will and Carlton were arrested and accused of being car thieves just because they were driving a fancy car. Both of these examples were peaceful attempts to get the message across almost 30 years ago and we never listened. 

Recently, the media has finally been picking up these real life events of unjust killings and we made it into a political issue. We made it into an either/or issue with the African American community pitted against the cops. Despite their being unarmed, the victims were consistently criminalized and the perpetrators were let off with a "slap on the wrist" at most. 

Each time the African American community cried out against the injustice and the majority of white America ignored them. Those who didn't criminalize them, remained silent.

In the last month, three innocent African Americans have been killed largely due to racial profiling and prejudice.

Ahmaud Arbery was killed by the son of a former police officer while going on a run,

Breonna Taylor was sleeping when police performed a raid on the wrong house and killed her in her own home,

and George Floyd was killed by an officer's knee while trying to tell him that he couldn't breathe.

This is not even mentioning the incident with Christian Cooper.

These are the ones that have been caught on video or shared in the media, but how many more are happening? 

It is time to stop being silent. It is time for us to speak up against the injustice that is happening towards our African American brothers and sisters.

This is not a political issue, it is a life issue.