It's Complicated

Now before I lose you let me explain why. Let me first say without a single doubt, hesitation, or addendum: Black lives matter. They do, they really, really, really do. Until we can make that statement with out following it up with a "but.." or "all lives..." or some other diminishing formulation, black lives will not truly matter as much as mine at a systemic level. We have to be able to claim emphatically that black lives matter.

Here's what I know to be true:

I have never, as a driver, been pulled over by the police. I have never been stopped by the police for any reason, I have never been questioned by the police about another suspect, nor have I been given any more direction from an officer of the law than when they are directing traffic. The last time, and really only time where I was old enough to be aware of anything while I was in a vehicle that was being pulled over was in 2008. I was a Sophomore in college and my friend and I had driven out to his home town, about an hour and a half away from our college to pick up the latest Halo game that he had reserved. It was after midnight when we were driving back to school and we were so excited to play this game, we had planned to stay up all night to beat it, that my friend was driving about 20 miles over the speed limit on the freeway.
We were pulled over.
The officer asked for my friend's license and registration, and then asked why we were going so fast. Rather than simply tell him, I pulled out the Halo game and energy drinks from the bag down by my feet.
I didn't think about it.
I didn't think at all about the fact that the officer could not see what was in the bag, did not know who we were, or would think anything of it. When I reached down into that bag, that officer did not tense up, he didn't move his hand to his gun, his hand wasn't already on his gun when he approached the vehicle. He let me pull out the game and drinks without giving me any orders, he was relaxed, he was calm, he thought it was funny. He then let my friend and I go with a warning, "just drive safer."
At that time I did not think anything of that incident. I did not analyze it. I did not question it. I did not think about how that encounter would have played out differently if we had not been college students or if we had not been white.
I know that that encounter would not have been the same, even though I know that thousands of young black men encounter the police in a way that does not threaten their lives, I know that over 400 have lost theirs so far this year. I know that Philando Castile was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop while he was still buckled into his seat, with his girlfriend and child in the car, just after he was asked for his license and registration. I know Philando was somebody's child, parent, friend, parishioner, boyfriend, role model, reason for breathing.

I know that our perspective can get distorted by the stories we tell. I remember hearing the way the media and police officials described 12 year old Tamir Rice. 5' 7" 195 lbs. He was big, almost like a man. He was too big, too scary, too threatening. Tamir's size justified in some way the actions of two officers who rolled up and shot him in under 3 seconds. That one hit me differently. I remembered that when I was a kid, my friends and I liked to play with airsoft guns around our neighborhoods and parks. We dressed up in "tactical" gear and played soldiers. We had organized formations, strategies, we played war together. Then I remembered those numbers. 5' 7" 195 lbs. Tamir was about my size when I was 12. And never before in my life had I ever thought to consider the consequences of my actions. Would someone have thought that 12 year old 5' 7" 185 lbs Ben was wielding a real gun? Would someone have thought that my friends and I were real soldiers, man sized soldiers, coming to take over their neighborhood?
I don't think 12 year old me could have been a threat to any adult. I don't think I ever really was. No one would have killed me and used my size as justification, nor would my size have been repeated in the news, or be immediately pulled up in some vague google search.



I know that Tamir was somebody's child, friend, parishioner, reason for breathing.

I know that just last night, at a peaceful protest to the violence and fear that many in the black community feel when encountering the police, several people planned, organized and carried out an attack that seems to have targeted the police.
I know that today, tomorrow and years from now this shooting will not bring healing, it will only bring more pain, more fear, more death. I know that some people will use this as an excuse for fear.
I know that five police officers have lost their lives. I know that they too were somebody's children, parents, friends, parishioners, spouses, role models, reason for breathing.

It's not complicated because there is moral ambiguity. It's not complicated because some people aren't perfect victims. It's not complicated because the law is unclear.

It's complicated because the sin of racism, of hatred, of fear makes us believe it is so. Every life that is taken is felt in ways that extend far beyond an individual. Every life that is taken has the potential to drive us farther apart, into deeper divide, into more alienation, more rhetoric, and more pain. My soul aches for those officers killed while trying to protect citizen's rights to peacefully protest police actions.
My soul aches for every young person who is killed, especially those who are black and killed by those sanctioned to protect and serve their communities. My soul aches for those who are killed and whose families will find no trial for their killers.

We do not survive a sinking ship by making more holes, or by ignoring the ones we have. We have to brave the deluge, work together to mend, to repair, and to heal. We have to be willing to face scrutiny, criticism, and questioning. We have to be willing to abandon our desire to be right so that our sisters and brothers can simply breathe, and we all can live. We have to be willing to deal with this complication, this racism, this hatred, and our perception of it.

Remember, it is not distance, or fear, or violence, or distrust, or suspicion that will save us. It isn't body armor or a weapon. It isn't increased security, it isn't more boots on the ground.
It is love.
It is love.
It is love.
It is love.
It is love.
We were made in love, by love, to love. It is only by surrendering to love that we will dismantle this racism, this fear, this hatred and this violence.

God give us your love, that we would take your grace and never look at one another the same.

φόβος οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ ἀλλ’ ἡ τελεία ἀγάπη ἔξω βάλλει τὸν φόβον 
(There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. - 1 John 4:18a)

How Long O Lord?

"Lord, how long will I call for help and you not listen? I cry out to you, 'Violence!' but you don't deliver us. Why do you show me injustice and look at anguish so that devastation and violence are before me? There is strife, and conflict abounds. The Instruction is ineffective. Justice does not endure because the wicked surround the righteous. Justice becomes warped." - Habakkuk 1:2-4

Last night the verdict was read in the case against Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson police officer who shot and killed an unarmed 18 year old black youth named Michael Brown.
That verdict was the product and the result of hundreds of years of racial oppression, subjugation and segregation that underlines, scores and marks the fabric our nation, our communities and our relationships to this day.

This day, Today.
Today is a painful reminder of just how long the moral arc of the universe really is.
Today many brothers and sisters of color have woken up from the hope of justice and returned to the bleak reality of systemic racism that puts a price on their life and a millstone around their neck.

Today many continue to remark that #blacklivesmatter. However, making the proclamation more often than not feels like shouting into the void.
Yes, #blacklivesmatter.

Yes, #blacklivesmatter. They matter to black people, they matter to me, they even matter to other white people even in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of that proclamation. That even while I proclaim #blacklivesmatter I know that the devaluation of those lives is a very real, persistent, and present threat.

As a nation we need our "come to Jesus" moment. We idle in the sin of racial injustice, too many made comfortable by its false promises. For most white folks, today we wake up and it is business as usual. No assumptions have been challenged, no hearts convicted. We continue to idle in sin while our brothers and sisters cry out, and many of us have the audacity to discount their cries, as if their pain is the true violence which shakes us.

So warped has sin made us that the reality of trials such as this one is that it is in fact the dead who are put on trial. Those who cannot respond for themselves are assessed of their innocence or guilt. Those who cannot give testimony to their version of events are expected to have their full perspective represented by the one who killed them. The result, more often than not, is that the dead are found guilty. The dead deserved to die. Michael Brown needed to die. He was dangerous, though he was unarmed, he was a threat to white lives, and he had to die. What other conclusion can be drawn from a refusal to indict?

By affirming Darren Wilson's decision to kill Michael Brown, the Grand Jury asserted two very powerful messages: Michael's death was justified; #blacklivesdon'tmatter

What other lesson is there for young people, white and black alike, looking in to discern how they should best relate to one another?

That's what hurts the most. Black lives are devalued every time this happens. Black lives are proven to be less valuable than those of their white neighbors, and thus the cycle of violence, systemic violence, marches on.

Indeed, Justice does not endure because the wicked surround the righteous. Justice becomes warped.

Today justice has been warped, delayed, subverted, denied.

Today we again wait for the moral arc of the universe to bend toward justice.

But now it's not for Michael Brown, not for Eric Garner, or Trayvon Martin, Ezell Ford, Orlando Barlow, Oscar Grant, Renisha McBride, Dante Parker, Jordan Davis, John Crawford, Alonzo Ashley, Kimani Gray, Danta Price, Steven Eugene Washington, Victor Steen, Sean Bell, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Wendell Allen, Aaron Campbell, Kendrec McDade, Bo Morrison, Timothy Stansbury Jr., Timothy Russell, Jerean Blake, Jonathan Ferrell, Amandou Diallo, Ervin Jefferson, Angelo Clark, Steven Rodriguez, Johnnie Kamahi Warren, Nehemiah Dillard, Stephen Watts, Michael Lembhard, Tendai Nhekairo, Manuel Loggins Jr., Rekia Boyd, Melvin Lawhorn, Marquez Smart, Patrick Dorismond, James Brissette, Jersey Green, Ousmane Zongo, Duane Brown, Justin Sipp, Christopher Kissane, Raymond Allen, Travares McGill, or Sheron Jackson,

Now we wait for Tamir Rice, a twelve year old black child killed by police.

How long O Lord?