Hello, My Chickadees.
I recently received a text message from one of my very dear white friends and sister in Christ who reached out to me with concern about why Blacks were burning and looting their own places. Because I know her, I know her heart, and know that she meant well (and although I do not condone violence), I felt the need to respond to her in a letter to address something we have never talked about in our over 30 years of friendship – the issue of race.
I am sharing this letter because I feel we all must have the dialogue about what legislation is unable to change: the heart. As you read this letter it is my hope that you will also feel compelled to have this uncomfortable discussion about race with some of your friends of another color.
My Dear Friend and Sister in Christ,
I am writing this letter because what I need to say is too long to respond in a text. As the mother of two African-American males, I pray first for their lives to be rooted and anchored in the Lord, and then, with fervent prayers, I pray for their safety. The title of “Endangered Species” has been attributed to our black men who live under the threat of being killed by other disenfranchised men – often black – because they don’t see any other way to get their needs met, either because of the choices they have made, the choices thrusted upon them, or because of police officer operating with the racial bias of seeing all black men as criminals and treating them as such, whether they did anything or not.
As much as we love and respect one another, we have never had a serious discussion about race, perhaps because it was too painful for both of us. I grew up in an era in which I had to be taught by my parents the social etiquette of interacting with white people while visiting relatives in the South. Growing up in Washington DC, such social instructions were necessary to ensure my survival. I recall the trip I took to visit my grandmother in South Carolina right after 14-year-old Emmett Till had been murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman and saying, “Hey baby.” My mother sent me and my cousin down and informed us that when we got below Richmond on the train, we may be told we would have to give up our seats if a white person needed one. I recall her telling me not to look a white person in the eye while I was there, despite the fact that she raised me to look all people in the eye while talking to them. We were told to respond, “Yes sir,” and “Yes ma’am,” when they spoke to us.
I grew up in an America that judged me by the color of my skin and not the content of my character, and they told me what I couldn’t do because of it. Every black person in America carries in our DNA the psychological chains of slavery and the symptoms of post-traumatic stress from both slavery and Jim Crow. All we’ve asked for was that promise due us of justice for all as deemed our right by the Declaration of Independence. After all, we are fully human, not really 3/5 of a human being. (How crazy was that assessment?)
The unfortunate thing, my sister, is yes, we have come a long way in my lifetime, but we have not arrived, as evidenced by this conversation we are having in 2020 after an unarmed, handcuffed, black man was murdered by a police officer for the world to see. Thank God for modern technology and cell phone cameras that exposed the evil reality African-Americans live in, and have lived in, every day.
Mr. George Floyd was only the latest in a series of killings of black men – who were mostly shot and killed from behind by police officers. The clamor is over the fact that nothing was done. When there were no cameras rolling, it was just another black man killed in the line of duty. The word of someone in blue against someone black always won out before cameras were able to record the truth. Ask any black man in America if they have ever been pulled over by police, frisked, searched, and forced to sit on a curb for no reason – most will tell you yes.
My youngest son attended one of the most prestigious universities in this country. On one occasion, he and a couple of his fraternity brothers were walking across campus when they were stopped by the campus police and made to stand against a wall. When he asked why they were doing it, he was told it was because they were loitering. Another time, while out for a run, he was stopped and frisked for no evident reason. It didn’t matter that he told them he was a student there, because they said he fit the description of someone they were looking for. Mind you, the person they were looking for was a tall man with a dark complexion and dreadlocks – none of which fit my son’s description. Furious and in the moment, wanting justice for all, I told him that the next time it happened to get the badge number of the officer. As soon as those words came out of my mouth, a chill went down my spine, because it hit me – I had just set my kid up to be a target by the police.
My husband is a mechanical, nuclear engineer and loves exotic cars. Since we couldn’t afford the real thing, he built a replica of a Ferrari and a Lamborghini. I can’t begin to tell you the number of times we were stopped in those cars and had our license plates run… just because. I shudder to think about what would have happened if the cars would have been real instead of a replica.
To get a glimpse into how the system treats Blacks in the “just us” system, I urge you to watch the Netflix documentary called “True Justice” by Bryan Stevenson, a man who has been on a life crusade to expose the fact that there are black men on death row for charges that did not warrant the death sentence. Or, watch one of Ava Duvernay’s films, “When They See Us” or the documentary “13th’’, which sheds light on the loophole in the 13th Amendment that has allowed for the mass incarceration of black men since slavery and paved the way for the current prison industrial complex we have today, stocked with black and brown men. Watch the movie “Just Mercy”, or better still, read Michelle Alexander’s book entitled The New Jim Crow to shine a better light on what the African Americans’ experience is like in the just us system.
My dear sister and friend, my reality of America is not yours, but it is one I dream of, and I have taught my son to believe in. I am reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King’s letter to his fellow clergy entitled “Why We Can’t Wait” – a letter from a Birmingham Jail. We have waited for over 400 years for the just us system to become justice for all. I don’t know why in our pain and frustration we destroy our own things. Maybe it’s because we know if we release our frustration in a white neighborhood it would result in death and ruled a justifiable homicide, or would be the start of another Red Hot Summer race war. But I can tell you that seeing black men hunted down like they were hunting deer or kneed to death while pleading for their lives, has to stop. I think we all need to have a dialogue about how we see each other and the elephant in our lives, which is race.
If the God in me sees the God in you, I am not going to think the worst about you because you look different from me. If the love of God resides in me, I am not going to think I’m better than you because I’ve had privileges you have not had. I am not going to hunt you down like an animal because you are in my neighborhood, and I am not going to kill you because I assume you are a criminal. Instead, I am going to seek to understand, love, and respect you, even if I don’t agree with you. I am going to respect you for the human being that you are and call you my brother or sister, even though you look different from me. I am going to do what Dr. King charged all of us to do – to judge, if you must, by the content of my character and not the color of my skin.
Racism is embedded in the fabric of our country and distorts the lens that we view each other through. We need new glasses so that we can see clearly – one in which the only prescription is God’s love.
With love and blessings,
Gail
My Chickadees, I challenge all of us to have a candid conversation with our brothers and sisters of another race about the issue of race, with the goal of seeing beyond color to reach character and the Christ who lives within.