“It doesn’t have to be this way. Black and white people COULD come together and make a stand against the Kingdom of Darkness and the racialized oppression it has promoted within our world. It will not happen unless there are white people willing to count the very real cost.” (Kyle J. Howard, “Rioting and the Overflow of Racial Trauma”)
This point in a longer article moved me to this question: How can we come together to stand against this darkness? A better question is, how can I do something … and WHAT is that something? I feel like the religious leader passing by on the other side of the road, rubbernecking the man beaten up and the burning buildings in Minneapolis, theorizing as to why it happened … but then rushing on to get to the temple to worship … when the opportunity to worship (to love God by loving my neighbor) is lying on the road and what I need to do is kneel over that broken body and worship through deeds of costly service.
But in this situation, I am at a loss as to how. To address my own question, Is the “very real cost” I need to be willing to spend mean that I enter into finding out WHAT is the something I can do and then stopping the routine, comfortable trajectory of my life and stepping into the life of my neighbor, taking no thought of the cost?
I do know this, if that were my son with a knee to his neck, nothing would keep me from finding out how I could bring a stop to this injustice.
Bob Emberley
Northfield