Dear Susan,
How can I hope to bridge the gap and promote meaningful conversation in regard to race?
How can I make my white brothers understand what a black mother fears these days?
I fully agree “All Lives Matter,” yet it is the blood of black people staining the streets.
I know you may be tired of hearing it.
Trust me, blacks are even more tired of living it.
My husband and two sons mean the world to me.
I pray they stay safe and unharmed every day.
Every day, the kind of day where your car breaking down leaves you slain in the street.
Hands up, but dead anyway.
Every day, the kind of day when a kid walking home wearing a hoodie dies because a madman thought he “looked” suspicious.
His killer walks free while yet another mother becomes imprisoned by grief.
When a man chooses to take a stand, or in this case, a knee, why is he ridiculed, threatened and viewed with disdain.
He is a brave voice for those long silenced, aware it may cost him everything with very little to gain.
Why can’t people see there is a difference between an “idol” and respect.
The God I serve commands we love one another, not reverence a song.
And of that song we sing, “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
If only everyone was allowed to walk free, pursue happiness and live as God created them to be.
The rockets’ red glare?
The bombs bursting in air?
Black veterans fought and still fight for those freedoms of which you sing.
I understand if you think it’s not “your problem.”
But the problem arises when you don’t object; you permit injustice to continue and entrench itself even further.
Hate is often disguised as patriotism.
It worked for Hitler.
Is that what America has become?
I know there are no easy answers.
It is not as simple as black or white.
I know this topic makes people nervous.
Defensive.
You don’t have to be.
I don’t blame you personally for the sins of our nation.
My prayer is that blacks and whites will do better.
Try harder.
And eventually become one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 NKJV
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Mathew 22:37-39 NKJV
***Our journey continues. Join us as we discuss race relations. You can find our first conversation here. Comments Welcome!
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness—”
B Is for Blessed! 