Soooo it is the day after Black Friday, coming close to closing out a week joyously that we might all well just want to forget as we continue our hope that things “just get back to normal”. We seem to hope that everyone just returns to their place, away from our place and stops complaining and protesting. Al Sharpton can fly out to Philly where some poor rookie cop made a gruesome mistake and take the tourist protesters with him and we can get back to good old fashion St. Louis segregation (economic and racial) and be safe by empowering an underpaid group of primarily white males (whose lives are at risk every day) to profile and “broken windows” police the rest of us to peace and safety and bliss.
We are so afraid of the questions that have been raised…. again. Forget about Michael Brown (with my apologies to the Brown family for their loss) and forget Officer Wilson (who whether he knows it or not will be haunted for the rest of his life). Michael Brown is inevitable in our society. Over and over again Michael Brown will continue to be gunned down. Not every day. Not every week, but certainly every month, year after year and the fact is that we as a society have decided we don't give a shit. Let our underpaid police worry about it and take of it. If they make a mistake we can crucify the poor cop and feel better about ourselves and if they don’t make a mistake then killing people to keep us safe is just their job.
It is 2014 and the “wrong side of the tracks”, or highway still prevails in St. Louis and every adult who pays attention knows where the borderlines are. We stay on our side of the tracks and the poor and the non assimilated stay on their side. If they kill each other or occasionally one of our policeman kills one of them… it is what Richard Nixon would have called “acceptable losses”. We pay our police better on our side. Our kids occasionally take their parents high powered automatic weapons and go on a killing spree. Then and only then our police need to shoot them down but otherwise God and only God can protect the officer that kills one of our fair and precious children.
We self identify as the most Christian nation on earth. “In God We Trust” emblazoned on our money (think, just for a second how wrong that referencing God on our money should be for a Christian), the Ten Commandments chiseled into our courthouses, but we have totally rationalized the existence of an underclass that lives mired in cycles of poverty, violence and lack of education. How can this be? And don’t, PLEASE DON’T, for all that is Sacred quote Matthew 26:11 “The poor will always be with you.” as some kind of justification. READ YOUR SCRIPTURE IN CONTEXT! Christ was admonishing the law observes that since they had a brief opportunity to spend some time with their God incarnate, that perhaps they should take an opportunity to do so.
So we are afraid. We say we are afraid of violence. We say we are afraid of lawlessness. We say we are afraid of REVOLUTION! So we buy guns, we board up windows and we call out the National Guard. We berate our politicians and leaders for not keeping us safe. We cancel parades. We don’t go “downtown” because it might not be safe.
HOW MANY LIVES HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE FERGUSON RIOTS!?
I am not perfect about it and I could be wrong but I do read the paper every day and I think a strong case can be made that the number is zero. I pray for the business owners and people of ferguson who have lost property and might lose their businesses. It is a tragedy, but no lives have been lost despite all the burning and looting and protesting. But we, in Clayton are afraid. There is also no reason that our police should be subjected to bricks, bottles and batteries being thrown and fired at them and I pray for their safety as well because they are our mercenaries in an undeclared war against whomever threatens our status quo.
I think if we would pause and be honest with ourselves we are afraid of the questions raised by the situation.
Why are we comfortable with an underclass?
Why is it OK when they kill each other as long as they don't do it on our streets?
Why are their deaths only memorialized in the Law and Order section of the Post Dispatch?
Why hasn’t the privileged Christian Community lent their time and attention to their brothers and sisters?
Could the government do things differently to assist the suffering?
Why can’t we change the situation?
Why is it so hard?
Why can’t they just be like us?
Why do we want them to “be like us”?
Why do we need so many guns in so many hands?
What am I supposed to do as a Christian?
Are the government programs making it worse?
Why can’t the black community raise up leaders that are not self promoting?
Why can’t the white community raise up leaders that are not self promoting?
As a Christian, as a human, what am I supposed to do?
Sorry, these are my questions. I pray that you have your own set and I pray it is not a set of questions about why “those people” are causing so much trouble. As a Christian I beg you to remember that those people are God’s children and we are called upon not to turn our backs. I am an old man (in my head I am perhaps an old Jewish man but that is neither here nor there but I am old enough to remember not only when Dan Fogelberg was alive but I remember when he was relevant.
“You better change, before the sun goes down.
You better leave, before you are, the last in town.
You better raise your fortresses, or tear them down,
tear them down.”
What a difference it makes when a community steps up. On South Grand they actually had property damage. They had protesters. They got out of hand and broke windows...a LOT of windows. They didn't board up in the face of loss that never happened, but when it happened they came out and made something beautiful. Something... thoughtful.
I am not asking for anything other than we not accept a return to the status quo, Think and pray about what God is calling you to do in response to the pain and suffering that he is showing to us. Talk with people about it and stop being afraid of violence and looting and burning and property damage and start being afraid of why we cannot seem to work together and pray together to find answers.
PEACE!
