What do you see?
Being heard is one way to treat someone with dignity and respect. Riots and violent protests are a signal that concerns are not being heard let alone addressed. Over and over again the cry of injustice rises up from the Black community and little changes. Maybe, just maybe, being heard is not as powerful as being seen. The recent videos of Ahmaud Arbery being shot on May 10th and George Floyd pleading for his life might be a turning point for all of us to see. Could anyone not see what was going on when a white woman called police on a black man who was just bird watching? Can we see all the racial stereotypes this white woman was appealing to? Could white people not see the story of Emmett Till in her motives? No one can deny the human dignity of these men, as well as countless other black men over the centuries, were not respected as INHERENT. Each and every person has value and is worthy of great respect because of what they are (human) not who they are. The United States of America has far too long both heard and seen the disregard and contempt for black men and this has resulted in barbaric acts that outrages the virtuous human conscience and tears at the soul. Equal protection under the law is foundational to an orderly American society. Unequal protection compels the last alternative, the last resort, to rebel against such cruelty and oppression. Who can’t see that?
In April, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King and many other protestors, civil right leaders, were arrested after leading a Good Friday demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama. The objective of the demonstration was to bring national attention to the brutal, racist treatment suffered by blacks in one of America’s most segregated cities.
It was in that jail that Dr. King penned his letter in response to criticism from local clergy. In this letter, he says he is in Birmingham “because injustice is here” and like the Apostle Paul and other early Christians, he must answer the call for justice. Do we who call ourselves Christian today see the need for justice? Dr. King confronts us just as he did back then when white moderates supported from afar while rejecting all attempts at direct action to stop racial injustice. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Do we not see this? He questions the council to wait, “For years now I have heard the word Wait! It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This Wait has almost always meant Never. We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
In 2020, the delay of justice is the affirmation of its denial for the black community. The higher moral law (no law enforced by government is moral unless it conforms to universal principles of fairness and justice) calls for creative extremists to see white privilege as a lever to pull for racial justice for all. Are we going to be extremists for love or hate? Can we see the choice before us? We heard segregation in America has been abolished in an official manner, although we still see discrimination in other ways. Is almost 60 years enough of seeing this crap? Well, for 55 years, The Dakota Center has answered Dr. King’s call to “meet this decisive hour” to be a place that sees “people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Join us in love of neighbor, for in love there is no fear because love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). See, where there is love there is no fear because they can’t exist together. We just need to see that one is real and the other an illusion. Can you see that?
