This morning as Aaron and I were relaxing in our sweet, hotel room we were flipping through the channels and landed on CNN and watched with our jaws dropped at a story that they were telling.
Apparently in a small LA town there is a problem with racism and six black men may spend 50 years in jail for a crime that normally gets you 3 days suspension. A few months earlier at their school nooses had been hung around a tree by white kids and these kids received a slap on the wrist.
Please go here to read the whole story.
I can not believe that this is 2007 in the United States of America and this CRAP (believe me I wanted to use another word for this subject matter, but I will keep it clean) still goes on. Seriously.
As the mother of a black child, I am astonished that this is something that our sweet, Little Boy could encounter in his lifetime. Oh how I desire to shield him and protect him from any of this absurd talk and behavior that some people find normal.
When we moved to TN we encountered more racism than we had when we lived in TX. It could be the move, or it could be the make up of our family. We have a trans-racial family and so we could be more aware of our surroundings then we were before.
A few years ago when the guys were traveling they took a high school boy from the church we then attended along with them to help out with product, sound and set up. While driving in the van this boy told them that he and his family were not racist, but that his dad would NOT allow a black boy to spend the night at his house. I wish that I could have seen the guys faces as this guy was convincing them that he did not have anything against other races. The guys “lovingly” told him that he indeed did have a distorted view of God's people. That he did value his white race more than the black race. That he justified this in his mind and that then gave less of a worth to someone that God also made in his own image.
This is middle TN in 2005 – WOW is all I can say. What an injustice this kids parents have done for him. What a screwed up view of God's love this kid has. This is not healthy. I pray and hope that this boy can break the cycle that his parents have passed down to him from his parents.
this absolutely makes my blood boil! i can’t believe that i’m reading this in a news article. it breaks my heart to see that the church in that town with their 450 members has only 1 black member. and people want to say that there isn’t racism in church! UNBELIEVABLE!
i pray that these boys will get a fair trial…when in all honestly there shouldn’t have to be a trial.
i feel like i’m stepping back into 1950 when i read this… and even THEN, racism was utterly disgusting! reading this article makes my stomach turn… i just don’t understand.
this pissed me off. I live in NY so i color of your skin and/or ethnicity only comes into play if you piss me off 😉 ( just like every other new yorker ) anyways back to seriousness, this is rediculous. I cant stand the behavior of small southern societies. I posted and linked you to my blog.
Unbelievable.
I live in a pretty progressive corner of the world (Seattle), so I tend to think this kind of thing isn’t happening in the world anymore. But recently our ladies Bible study (about ten or twelve women) was discussing racism. We all sort of implied that we didn’t think this was an issue around here. Things seem to be divided more among socioeconomic lines. Finally one of the women in my group spoke up and I was so ashamed. a) she is biracial and I didn’t even notice that about her – duh. b) she shared some of her concerns about incidents that reveal racism is still alive and well, even here. We just don’t know it because we aren’t on the receiving end.
I wonder how many incidents or comments or looks or attitudes people of color experience. I’m just so unaware, of course. I also wondered what it’s like to be African American when a waitress is rude or a store clerk is dismissive. It would be difficult because they won’t know if it’s because the person is impolite to everyone or if it’s a racial thing.
I can only hold out hope for the future the the next generation recognizes the sheer stupidity and smallness and cruelty of this kind of thing.
Sorry to write a book, but it makes me so angry…
If you want to read about more crap like that, especially in the church, you got to read this stupid and sad story about blackface in a church in NC.
I posted it here:
http://provocativechurch.blogspot.com/2007/06/is-blackface-at-church-ever-appropriate.html
I would appreciate your thoughts and comments on it.
bill
Unfortunately, until the day Christ returns, we will have to deal with this crap. Satan is alive and well and will use any device (be it race, income, …) to divide us and pit us against each other. It is sad to see it happen, but I don’t think it’s going away either. I feel like, as a body of Christ, we just pray through it and do what we can to SHOW the world that we are ALL created in His image.