Sitting with my 3 year old last night after she woke up from a nightmare, my heart just stopped as I read the news, the nightmares are outside our front door in this sinful fallen world, and I wish I knew how to protect my babies from it.
I have avoided these topics, continued to shy away, not wanting to get into any real discussion, and then this week, something hit me between the eyes as I watched those videos of those men being shot, and now the stream of people peacefully protesting and running as LEO’s are being gunned down, I am a part of the problem. For me to avoid these conversations for fear of what people may think, is my complete fear of man taking over. For me to sit back and not say anything is standing idly by as innocent lives are taken, so after so much prayer and a lot of thought, I am done being silent.
We have become a nation of keyboard warriors. We us social media for our platforms, we don’t sit down and speak with others anymore and genuinely listen to one another and their thoughts, view, beliefs and ideals, to maybe learn something, gain a new perspective. We stick to people that act like us, believe like us and have the same thoughts we do about politics, world issues and so on, but aren’t we supposed to be iron sharpening iron? How do we expect to grow, learn and understand if we shove our heels into the sand and refuse to listen to one another?
I will never understand what it is to be a black person in this nation, and we can no longer sit here and say racism isn’t as bad as it was, that’s like saying this murderer wasn’t as bad as the last. We can no longer be silent, there is evil everywhere and just like we don’t want to be sitting back having our LEO’s (who the majority are out to protect and serve every day) being grouped together because of the actions of a few, we cannot continue this path of grouping an entire race together because of the actions of a few. Just like I will never understand what if is to be a black person walking through this scary and crazy time, I will never understand what it is to have a loved one be in law enforcement and wonder if they will make it back that night, because the tensions in this country are just too high and people on every side are on edge.
Just because I stand up for LEO’s doesn’t make me a racist who condones the actions of some of the men and women who wear that uniform, and just because I stand up for my friends who are black does not mean that I am against LEO’s and the people who defend us. That is where the problem comes in, we have to be one way or another, we cannot admit there is major injustice and legitimate fear for our black brothers and sisters, because apparently that makes us against LEO’s, and that is not the case.
My baby girls have the most amazing people in their life at daycare, church, from Gainesville and everywhere and I love that they don’t see skin color, they see another human who gets hurt when they fall, cries when they get sad, and laughs when they are happy. Demi loves her Uncle Giddy, Aunt Ashley and Uncle Max and sees them the same way she sees her Uncle Jobie and Uncle Stephen, no different. #blacklivesmatter isn’t negating that all lives matter, or saying their lives are more important than ours, if you really take the time to talk to someone, you would find out the alarming rate at which blacks are killed each year (spare me the actual numbers because you need to look at the percentages of black men and women who live in this country compared to everyone else), you look at the Stanford rape case and the minimal sentence that 19 year old got, and then go back a few years to a USC Football commit who was told to plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit because it’s better than going in front of an all-white jury. If you can’t see that there is a serious problem in that, then we are part of the problem, and repeating over and over that all lives matter is truly like Cain saying in regards to Abel, “I am not my brother’s keeper,” because we don’t want to admit to ourselves that a group of people is experiencing discrimination, and we don’t want to have to admit we may be a part of this issue.
I pray my children grow to love unconditionally, no matter who the person is. I pray I am helping create a country that can cross these divides we have for our children’s sake. I pray when we adopt a child from foster care, that maybe just MAYBE something has changed so if he is of a different ethnicity I don’t have to have a different conversation with him then I do my girls. I pray I watch my tone, the way I speak and the words that come out of my mouth in these events, because hate, discrimination and division start with me, Michael and what we teach in our home. Most of all, I pray for our nation, I pray we can come together, arm in arm, and mourn with each other the terrible loss of life that has occurred this week. I pray we remember first and foremost, we are American, we all bleed the same color and no one should be treated differently because of their beliefs, gender, skin color or anything else. I pray for our law enforcement officers and their families as they go out every day and the greater majority defend their communities and country. I pray for my black brothers and sisters in Christ, that I am no longer a part of the silent majority who may fear to speak up because we are such a divided nation right now! With unity, evil cannot win, we must come together and talk about these things, have a dialogue, or we will continue to fall down this rabbit whole that only leads to destruction, more racism and more innocent loss of life.