There’s so much to say but I also know that I don’t have the right words. I’ve struggled with this for the past few days and have finally decided to just share the few imperfect words I do have.
What happened to George Floyd isn’t just sad. It’s sickening. I don’t have to know “all the details,” because unfortunately, this happens so often to black men and women in our country it’s predictable.
To disagree isn’t simply a difference in opinion, it’s a difference in experience which is exactly the problem. The truth is, most of us have never had to experience anything close to the kind of injustice experienced by George Floyd and so many others like him.
“Entitled to your opinion” works just fine if we’re talking sports teams or music preferences, but we’re not. We’re talking about the value of a person’s life and that isn’t something to be argued or debated.
If you haven’t yet, take 30 seconds and imagine that it was your son, daughter, wife, or husband’s neck under the knee of the police officer in that horrifying video.
That gut sickening feeling you just had is what so many black men and women in our country must live with every single day, simply because of the color of their skin and the broken systems that we’ve allowed to continue go unchecked and grossly unbalanced.
I don’t have the answers but I’m committed to listening and trying to understand. What I do know is that there’s injustice. There is systemic racism. There is pain. And there is heartbreak. And to that, we each have an obligation to acknowledge and respond in whatever way we can.
Now is the time to share from your perspective and raise your voice. I could’ve left this blog post as a private journal entry in my notes app, but I believe there’s power in publicly sharing from your perspective, especially if that perspective has the potential to challenge an oppressing one and show solidarity with an oppressed one.
I pray that now, and in the days to come, you’ll join me in exploring what that should look like for you. Micah 6:8 beautifully describes an approach that I think we can all choose, “do justice and love kindness.”
This doesn’t require choosing a side, forming an opinion, or being the answer. It simply means loving and listening for the good of your neighbor.
Lord, help us, help me, help our country and its systems do this better. We need you. Amen.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Micah 6:8