I typically stay away from the news because, well it’s depressing and terrible most of the time. So biased in one direction or another.
So, I’m usually one of the last people to know when something terrible happens. That has become less the case of late. A friend whom I consider to have one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever seen has been informing me of such atrocities as Ahmaud Arbery, and most recently George Floyd. I am thankful for her heart and for seeing me as an ally to come to with such heart-rending news, along with her honest, angry, feelings about these travesties. That honesty has sparked in me a desire to no longer sit back and think and say to myself that these atrocities are horrible, but to really do something about them.
So, here I am. Doing something that I hope and pray is of some help. I can’t undo what happened to these men. I can’t undo the heinous crimes committed against them simply because they were black men.
I can’t…
I can’t….
”I can’t breathe!”
George Floyd couldn’t breathe because an officer of the law; a public servant whose function is to serve and protect all human life….ALL HUMAN LIFE put his knee on a subdued, compliant, non-violent black man’s carotid artery for more than 8 minutes, slowly suffocating him to death.
F*** my “I can’t.”
Let me take a step back and tell you just a few stories of memories I have of the hate I saw cast upon two of my black friends in college. I will leave their names out for their anonymity, referring to them as Jay and Kay.
The first memory is of driving back from Tyler, TX where we went to see a movie and hang out. Jay was driving. We were pulled over in a small town between Tyler and Nacogdoches, and a white cop walked up to Jay’s window. Right away, the three white friends in the car could feel Jay’s uneasiness. The officer was disrespectful to Jay from the start. This disrespect unnerved the rest of us in the car, but what could we do? Would saying something make things worse for Jay? These were the thoughts in our heads as the situation unfolded. Thankfully, the officer only said “mildly disrespectful” things to Jay, and let us go without a ticket being written, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion that the only thing that saved Jay from a much more frightening experience was that he was driving three white people around.
Another time, Jay and a group of us were hanging out at the Theatre House and we decided it was time for a Whataburger run, when a friend of a friend said “Oh, you mean ‘What-a-‘n’word’?” What came next was a taken aback silence from all of us, followed by this person being escorted out and our friend telling them they needed to leave, while we just sat there in stunned silence. We were completely floored by such a flippant use of a word that should never be uttered, especially in such a blasé faire way.
Still more involving Jay. This one involves Kay too. One night they came into Walgreens, where I was working at the time. I said hi, hugged both of them and they headed to the back of the store to grab what they needed…what they were going to pay for. Not five minutes later, one of the supervisors, and a man I have carried a great deal of hatred for in the past, came up to me at the front register and told me to keep an eye on the two people on aisle blah blah blah. I looked down that aisle to see my friends standing there. Then I looked at him with an erupting volcano of anger and vitriol behind my eyes and defiantly said, “You mean my two friends, Jay and Kay? Do they look like f***ing delinquents to you?” At this response, he shut up and walked away. It took everything in me not to tell Jay and Kay about it when they got to my register. Of course I look back, and think maybe I should have. But whenI told them about it later that night, as we were hanging out, I did not see the righteous indignation in them that I felt. Instead what I saw was two people; two of the most wonderful human beings I’ve known, reacting as someone who is used to such treatment. What they said to me was that it would have been my word against his, and it wasn’t worth losing my job over.
“Wasn’t worth losing my….It was a minimum wage college job. F*** him and his ignorant, bigoted f***ing racism!”
Lastly, is the first time I truly saw the hideous face of racism in what seemed like its fullest measure. God, how wrong I was.
A group of us went to our favorite Karaoke bar in Nacogdoches, Texas. It was Jay’s girlfriend’s birthday. We were warmly welcomed as always, because we were there to entertain the rest of the usual bar patrons. Before we went up there, Jay had already told his girlfriend they couldn’t kiss while we were there. See, his girlfriend was a white woman from England. She had no idea what racism looked like, and could not understand why this had to be, but she went along with it. As the night continued on, they both had some drinks, and forgot about safety. They jumped on the dance floor, which caused the usual patrons to perk up. Then Jay gave her a kiss at the end of the song. As soon as I, my roommate and another friend saw this happen, our eyes started scanning the room. The tension was growing, and we knew we needed to act. We grabbed Jay and everyone else and got them outside as quickly as possible. There were enough of us to form a caravan of vehicles with Jay’s truck in the middle and so we did. This was done as we saw many of the bar patrons come out with hatred in their racist, ignorant eyes. We drove off, one car after another, and someone else driving Jay’s truck, with him in the back seat. This is the only thing that kept the patrons from figuring out which vehicle was his. One friend at the back of the caravan actually broke off and led the other patrons away, and thankfully managed to get away unharmed.
Every one of these memories has come rushing back into my mind since the heinous murder of George Floyd. I keep seeing Jay and many of my black brother’s and sister’s faces in place of George’s. I keep thinking “what if it was…?” I have a feeling many of us are thinking the same thing. But I can’t even fathom what is going through the minds of every black person in this country right now. We can sit here and think “What if it was this friend, or that friend?” because we are finally fully seeing just how heinous racism and hatred can be. But who really cares what we think? We’re having these thoughts most likely for the first time in our lives. Our brothers and sisters of color have had them constantly. We cannot empathize with them fully. So stop trying. Stop trying to feel sorry for them and stop asking what we can do to help. It is not their responsibility to answer that question. It is our responsibility to see them, acknowledge them, remind them they are loved, and if necessary, stand in the gap; stand between them and danger, take the tear gas for them, take the rubber bullets for them, and be FOR them.
This is what I’ve heard my black friends ask for. To be seen, and heard. To know that they are loved, and that we stand with them
And, so I come back to George Floyd…Ahmaud Arbury…to so many names that should not have to be spoken of posthumously.
The acts perpetrated against them are sickening. They are acts that we can’t even fathom. Sure, they could happen to a white person. But we don’t live with the very real and present fear of that EVERY day of our lives. It has never been our normal.
My friends, we have to do and be better. And when I say that, I mean we have to be FAR better than we have been. This can no longer be pushed aside. We need to stop looking at every video of police brutality of a black person and saying things like, “Yeah, but what you’re not seeing is that guy resisting arrest.” Why does that even matter? If I resist arrest, odds are I would not face death or brutalization. Nor do I worry about losing my life when I get pulled over. I don’t carry around a life-long existential fear of law enforcement, because experience hasn’t beaten one into me.
My thoughts on the protests, the vandalism, the violence…they are as follows. I in no way condone violence or vandalism. Protest works when it is peaceful. That said, the opportunity for that has not really been afforded those protesting the grievous injustices committed. That does not warrant looting, vandalism or violence. But my friends, when rubber bullets and gas are fired at you without provocation, which has been the case in at least some instances, what do you expect people to do? More to the point, take yourself out of your white privilege mindset for just a moment, and think about yourself in their place. How would you react? And don’t for one second entertain the idea of giving the insincere answer of, “I would never react out of violence.” Maybe you wouldn’t. But that’s a pretty cheap assumption from someone like me, who’s never spent a day in those shoes, much less my entire life.
This is not US against THEM. If you really love your fellow man, if all lives really do matter, then listen to them. Take a moment. Take a breath. And listen. Listen to understand, not just to spew back rhetoric when it’s your turn to talk.
As I write these words, I feel more and more spent. This situation is becoming increasingly more divisive with each passing moment. The anger, the vitriol, the hate, the violence…none of this solves a damn thing for either side. But this is on us to step forward and extend the olive branch. Where we have seen that done, we have seen the best of humanity shine through the darkness.
One more story before I close. My roommate recently told me that he was reading a book about black soldiers during Vietnam. They were hated and treated horribly. One man in particular had a deep visceral hate for them, and constantly berated the men of color in his platoon. The day came when that racist white man found himself stuck in a minefield and taking fire. With no way out, he found a savior in someone he least expected. The black soldier he had berated most. That man acted with courageous, selfless, agape love and ran into the minefield, toward the shots being fired to save a man who hated him. From that day on, the white soldier’s attitude toward his black comrades did a complete 180. The black soldier remarked that “that was all it took.”
“That was all it took.”
I don’t know about you, but I’d certainly be given pause to save someone who probably wouldn’t care if I died.
“F*** him!”
Am I right?!
NO!
”F*** him” is why we are where we are. Stop having that mentality. Christ Jesus never had that mentality. He hung on a cross in agony, after being severely scourged, mocked and demeaned in every possible way. And he looked down from that horrific instrument of torture and death, and cried out “Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do.”
That is agape love.
That is the love shown in the previous story.
That is how WE survive this.
I will not at any point say “If you don’t like what I have to say, unfriend me.” Nor will I condemn those who have said that. I get it. There is so much in me that wants to say that. But now is not the time to allow ourselves to be shattered and strewn about like shards of glass from a fallen mirror. That mirror IS broken, but not beyond repair.
So instead I say this. If you disagree with me, let’s talk. Let’s sit down and have a civil, intelligent conversation, and seek to understand each other. And let’s give each other grace when we interrupt, or listen only to respond. Let’s lay the ground rule that we can call each other out on such things. How’s that sound compared to the alternative?
Guys, I believe with everything in me that we can find peace in this. But we, all of us, have to choose it. We have to trust one another. There is light shining in the midst of this darkness that threatens to engulf us all. That light will never be extinguished. And as long as there is a spark, that light can be ignited and light our way out of the darkness.
So choose love.
Choose courageous, selfless, sacrificial love…Agape love.
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus Christ (John 15:13)
AGAPE LOVE!
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched as surely as they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Abraham Lincoln
The Random Musings of a Nerdy Christ Follower 