Somebody Please Teach White People to Be Better Neighbors
In the two weeks since a black man was murdered by a white police officer, so many things have happened.
I could have written this same phrase last year or last month.
I could have written a version of it after the killing of 17 year old Trayvon Martin.
I could have written this in 2010, or in 2000.
I could have written it in 1991 after Rodney King suffered permanent brain damage.
Do you remember that?
The Rodney King video was something. Can you believe it was almost 30 years ago? Certainly, it was a turning point. But yet three decades later, nothing has changed.
Of course, I can’t speak for the black community. They remain a minority in our country. But it makes me wonder, what caused so many white people to finally stand up?
I would like to say it’s because so many of us began imagining our own child or a loved one put in this situation.
I would like to say it’s because since 1991 we’ve forged friendships with our African American neighbors. And because of those friendships, it has become personal.
I would like to say it’s because of these friendships that we have come to love not only our friends but their families as well.
We’ve watched their babies grow up. We’ve struggled with them during their tough times and we’ve exalted them during their successes.
I would like to say we’ve spent time in thoughtful consideration of this issue. I would like to think we spent time studying the Watts riots of 1965. Or the migration of the African American population to the cities and the subsequent “white flight” to the suburbs.
I would like to say we all understood about Jim Crow laws of the south.
I would like to say we all understood the ramifications of two hundred plus years of slavery prior to that.
I would like to say all that. I would hope all that was true. We should pray all that was true.
But unfortunately, we just aren’t all that, just yet.
No, the truth, for white America, is we have to be metaphorically slapped upside the head before we wake up.
In 1991 all of us were aghast at the violence with which the multitude of police officers descended upon King. The numerous baton swings, the numerous kicks and punches and the resultant broken bones, teeth, skull fractures as well as brain and kidney damage shocked us.
But surely, this was an isolated incident. Surely this didn’t happen everywhere.
And then it did.
Because it had already been happening. This was just the first time we saw it for ourselves. Seeing is believing.
On May 25th we saw it again. And we saw it plainly. We watched someone be murdered in front of our own eyes, a million eyes, 10 million, 300 million, until the world saw it too. And now billions of eyes have witnessed the murder of a man for a minor mistake. And the murder was by those who were supposed to protect…who were supposed to serve and protect.
This is not an isolated incident.
We must stand up for our friends, our families, our neighbors, and our coworkers. We must kneel as well. We must reach out. We must be willing to humbly submit our help.
Black lives matter, too. So does your black neighbor.