One summer during college, a friend of mine hitchhiked his way to visit Wendell Berry at his homestead in Henry County, Kentucky. Inspired by Berry’s writing, my friend had decided it was finally time to meet t...
There is a certain amount of community guilt that comes with all the benefits of being an American. As Christians, we should know this. Did you eat the fruit in Eden? I didn't eat the fruit. There is no way I would have eaten the fruit. Everyone says the same thing when it comes to slavery.
For every time we preached about the blood of Jesus and did not talk about the blood of Breonna Taylor…George Floyd…Ahamad Arbury…Jacob Blake…and so many more…[Say all their names!]. We repent and we turn toward justice.
I want our political system to treat every life as precious and to protect people from oppression and violence. We can then argue about different strategies, but that's what I think we need to be about as a country.
Politics, however, is not synonymous with partisanship. Politics is the conversations we have with each other about the decisions we make about how the polis will be led. In fact, our founding president told us that if it ever gets to be too partisan, we will no longer be able to govern. We are at that point.
If white people can only learn antiracism in siloed experiences, centered in whiteness, that ignore the contributions and ongoing work of people of color and women, we are doomed.
When it comes to systemic injustice, we must deconstruct, defund, demolish, dismantle now and with courage. But when it comes to people? We can’t destroy the wheat for the weeds before the harvest.
Beyond participating in daily protests, and advocating for local and state legislation, we are working to birth a grassroots movement for a Federal Truth and Conciliation Commission.