The Friend

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You Can See If You Want To

Open Letter to White Christians “Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord, I want to see,” he replied. Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭18:40-41, 43‬ Thank God for ‘White Allies’. Seriously. The task of convincing a nation of white people, who have never known that their being white was weaponized against people like me, is tedious and honestly, very unfruitful at times. While there are so many white folks who choose to adopt the spirit of ‘Luke 9:23-25’ there are many who do not know they are ignorant and in need of a reformation of values. ‘White Allies’ are tangible and real examples that white people can go through a reformation that leads to lasting change. Yet, there are other kinds of white people who, not only being ignorant, weaponize that very thing that has led to so much pain

Recommended Movies for New White Learners

Hey, White Friends: While I know that gathering around the television, curled up in a blanket with a slice of avocado toast and a cup of coffee with an organic sweetener, to watch, “The Help” sounds like a great idea, I would like to suggest several different movies to watch first. It is not that, “The Help” is a bad movie, it’s rather good, but it is emblematic of the problem. Too often movies dealing with race are centered around a ‘white-hero figure’ (Emma Stone) and a black person unable to help themselves (Viola Davis) without a ‘white hero’. It creates this narrative, in some newly learned minds, that this is the path towards racial justice. So I am providing a list of movies to watch instead, that promote a much more accurate picture of the struggle for freedom, to help you in your journey. EVERYONE please feel free to share and add (preferably people who have been doing this work) below: Netflix When They See Us 13th Dear White People Amazon Prime Just Mercy I Am Not

Do Black Lives Matter to Jesus?

As black people, we have gone through 400 hundred years of pain and suffering that is unlike anything else in human history. We have been taken from our land, beaten and chained. We were forced into slavery by people who called themselves Christians. For 246 years our women were raped by white men because they could be. For 246 years our men were killed by white men if they fought for their humanity. For 246 years our children were born into a world that viewed them as commodities and then stripped from their parents as soon as they were of working age. After the emancipation in 1865, our people were forced into violent segregation while white Christians rode around on horses dragging burned black bodies by a rope. In 1921, our haven, Greenwood, Oklahoma, was burned down because of white jealousy and 300 of our people were killed for thriving. In 1954, a 14 year-old Emmitt Till was wrongfully accused of whistling at a white women and because of this lie he was beaten,

White People Want Something From Black People They've Never Given to Us: Mercy

The issue of ending racism is much more complex than simply hugging a police officer or ‘hugging the hate away’. The issue is not a ‘lack of love’ from this black person to a police officer but a lack of justice. How can I hug someone (ultimately an institution) who is withholding justice from me? We have been hugging white people since Trayvon was murdered in 2012. We have been hugging police since Michael Brown was murdered in 2014. Yet to this day the same racist system remains in place. I do understand the sentiment of communicating an ethic of love that embodies the best of humanity. This black person hugging this officer is powerful. But the ONLY redeeming quality of this photo is that, time and time again, black people are inviting our perpetrators to a better way of living and being. Black people are CONSTANTLY and incessantly asking white people to take their knee off of our throats. Year-after-year we we meet white violence with black grace. Year-after-year white

For My Friends Who Are Donald Trump Enthusiast

There is so much more to our Christian responsibility than our views on same-sex marriage and a child’s right to life. If I can be honest both of those areas are legitimate concerns but lazy excuses for wholeheartedly supporting a political party (or person) on either side of this democracy. For far too long we have allowed the conversation of political Christian ethics to be driven by the limiting (and debilitating for Christians of color) perception of single-issue voting. President Donald J. Trump has, by any stretch of the imagination, been a flawed representation of the American political process (at the very least) and who he is as a man has superseded his responsibility as the leader of the ‘free world’. I think it is also limiting (and politically lazy) to make his character and his presidency two mutually exclusive topics when we are voting for the person just as much as we are voting for a set of policies. What must be challenged, in the middle of this #impeachment, is not

Reparations Are Necessary for Justice in America

Reparations is a conversation about a ‘debt that is owed.’ Reparations is NOT a handout NOR welfare. Reparations is an OWED payment to an entire people group who literally and figuratively built the United States with its own hands. Reparations is biblical, just and it is necessary. Reparations is as it is implied: A repairing of an unjust action against African peoples that lasted for 244 years, 100 plus years of Jim Crow, domestic terrorism, police brutality and an unjust criminal system. Reparations is a restorative process that enacts a repayment process to men who were lashed, sold, beaten, castrated, mutilated and subjected to slave labor until the day their heart gave out. There was no escape from slavery. Reparations is a restorative process that enacts a repayment to women to were taken, shackled, used as human bed-warmers for house guest, raped, taken from their families and forced to produce children who were fathered by their oppressors who wanted nothing to do with