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In Response to the Silence of My Colleagues

Please encourage. Plead to those in our seminary to speak on our behalf. On my behalf. Read the words that I have wirrten if need be. Silence is the same as opposition. The white moderates have always been the ones who have caused the most frustration in our plight. Always. Dr. King framed parts of the letter from the Birmingham jail based upon the response he had received from moderate white Christians.. You have to speak. If you choose not to it only further proves that our plight in inconsequential to whites and white clergy members. How can someone be my brother but not stand for me? Let me not be insincere and be brash with you because it will cost you. Standing with me with cost you frienships. It will cost you security. Yet that is the gospel. Here in America blacks are like the Israelites in the land of the babylonians and assyrians. Yet in the academy our professors can teach about the 1st century church but not show adequate care and compassion for the people that are under the authority? Are we that unimportant? Was my time and effort at Truett really of no value? Because that is what I hear in the midst of the silence. That is what I see through the hallows of inconvenience. That is what is said and reverberated in the darkness of silence and indifference. Because there are plenty of white people who look down on me and voice that. There are plenty of white people who hate my soliloquy and writings. Truly it seems that there are more who hate what I have to say than those that share  my convictions. Yet that is what happens when people do not speak up. We are being picked off one by one and the systems and institutions in place threaten to silence us if we complain. Yet our 'brothers and sisters' stay silent because they fear repercussions and the possibility of being offensive. Perhaps after my unjust death my friends will be convicted enough to be honest and offensive (if need be). Yet based on the response we have seen to the unjust death of blacks in all of American history, by a majority of white Christians,  that is a myth of dragons and unicorns. This pipe dream of mine has not actualized itself regardless of who has bit the bullet. Quite simply because my life does not hold the same value as yours in this country. So ultimately silence condemns me to death and persecution. While my friends are silent I am being carried around in chains awaiting my execution and the plundering of my goods. So what is silence? Condemnation.

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