I have a Black son, that's the scary
part about all of this. Because in looking at Mike Brown or Trayvon
Martin or Tamir Rice, all I can see is Zachary Palmer, my son. And, I
know I live in a world where other's don't care about my child. But, I
care about my child. And so I worry...I worry about the world in which
my child must live. I worry about what he will endure. How many times
will he be called a Nigger? What happens if teachers or police see him
as threat? How will he rebound when he discovers that others will see
his race as a problem? How will I provide support, counsel, and
understanding to him and the people he will come to love? These are the
questions that keep me up at night, and are making it hard for me to
sleep.
I
know I'm not the only one up at night (and early in the wee hours of
the morning) thinking through the nagging question, "what if my child
was Rekia Boyd or Dianna Showman?" Millions of Black Parents are asking
these kinds of questions, in the middle of trying to fix turkeys and
make Christmas lists. It's enough to make you forgo the Holidays, and
turn into one of those people who stockpiles guns, water, and canned
food.
And,
what's worse, is that any of us, any Black person in this country,
could be killed by anyone at anytime for anyone reason by any other
race, and there would never be any justice. Now, some will say, "Oh,
Sean, you are exaggerating." But, in my mind, it certainly feels like I
have no right to life...as I watch child after child, man after man,
woman after woman be shot, while their killers participate in kangaroo
trials with absurd verdicts. And, it seems like no level of our
response (or of our responsibility) provides for us a measure of
humanity. What I'm saying is that me nor my child can't pull our pants
up high enough or speak in perfect American diction (enough) to shield
us from both bullets and the lack of access to justice. Black people
KNOW this, and white people know this too...so why the charade about
responsibility and let's just follow the law...obey the process.
History
doesn't show African-Americans getting the change, justice, equity they
need without a good extended fight. And that fight isn't always pretty
or legal or dignified in the eyes of others (or in step with America's
jurisprudence). And why should Black people fight without force,
violence, or a dash of anger/rage? No one else is. When cops,
supported by local and national government, and a legal system that is
interested in property (and not people), throw tear gas into crowds of
American citizens, shoot unarmed Black people (and say they would do it
again), or fail to indict the real perpetrators of crime, why should we
not use whatever necessary to address the problem? Why should Black
people walk down the street clad in our Sunday's Best with signs in our
hands in a single file line singing, "we shall overcome?" Why should we
be "once upon a time when we were colored?" Why should we look like we
are walking out of a 1960s church rally, when American institutions are
almost prepared to use drones on African American citizens...in
America? Black people have never won anything when we've operated in
support of those who govern, waiting on systems of politics to support
us or work for us.
No
matter who we've voted for en masse, no matter A "Black" President, no
matter our commitment to participation in the Military, no matter our
commitment to community and social organizations, we still get the
crumbs from an abundant table (and told to wait our turn). Nothing has
seemed to work...and everybody knows this.
However,
too many Americans would rather the peace of a pragmatic inequity and
inequality, than the brilliant beauty of justice, restoration, and
access. And, I for one, am tired of being told that it is okay for
Black people to be poor. I am tired of being told that we should blame
ourselves for the prison industrial complex. I am tired of being told
that this President who was voted on by FAR TOO many trusting African
Americans, is indeed, NOT the president of Black America. I am tired of
educational inequity, employment disparity, cultural misappropriation,
and wealth and income gaps! I am tired of all of this...and then you
want us to sit idly by as folk shoot Black kids down on the pavement of
Main Street America.
A
major problem is that people like Darren Wilson, George Zimmerman, and
Robert McCulloch don't value my children in the same way they see
themselves or their families. That's a real problem! But its not just
them, white people in general can't fathom loving Black people
collectively, for real. It is that problem that produces the kind of
injustices and inequities that we see creating nightmare scenarios for
far too many Black people. My good friend who passed a few years ago,
always said, "White people like and love us individually, but they
despise us collectively." I'd like to hope that his statement isn't
true, as I know this movement is broad in complexion. But, if there was
love, more of my white brothers and sisters would be outraged by what
they see too. I'm just not so sure they are.
But
while I have your attention, and since we are in the season that
commemorates Jesus' birth, let me head over to a book that might
illumine what I'm thinking in terms of a radical departure from what we
have here. I'm pushing right past Jesus' birth to go straight to Jesus
on a cross. It's at John 19: 26-27 that I bring your attention. Jesus
is about to die...and he looks out at his mom, and over at a disciple.
He proclaims something both strange and wonderful: "Ya'll be family!"
It's in this moment that we see the first Foster Care experience. It is
Jesus, near death, that radically changes his own family to help us
understand how we should live in the world. Two unlikely people, both
witnessing and grieving Jesus' death are proclaimed by God to be
family. I don't know why Jesus did it, but I just believe that if we
who love Christ, could just look across the street, down the block, over
in the other county...and proclaim (and live into) that we are all
family (even as we follow Christ), we might be witnesses to fewer Black
children's deaths. I'm not trying to go all Hallmark channel on
you...what I'm trying to say is that my brothers and sisters...the
radical thing is to imagine yourself as me, or as your own child, or my
son as your own son. And, then, imagine the world that you would want
that child to inhabit.
If
it is this...well, I guess, you probably stopped reading a while ago.
If its something dramatically different...then you might need to have
sympathy for people who destroy property in an effort to radically
change a world that sees them (and me) as the enemy of the state...even
though we'd all like to go out and buy Christmas presents, rather than
wrestling internally and with our families about how the ills of Ferguson
could show up on our doorsteps.
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