Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is 'White Supremacy'?

The events in Charlottesville, Virginia were tragic as a domestic terrorist group sought to incite violence and instill fear into the hearts of all non-whites on August 12th, 2017. If 2017 has taught us anything, it is that many members of the white majority have displayed a learning deficiency in regards to the actual black experience, the actual historical degradation and the actual suppressive ideology of white supremacy (beyond the factions of 'white supremacists' who appear on our television screens). The reason I have labeled white ignorance as a 'learning deficiency' is because I have found that many whites are simply unable to empathize with the black experience and much of this is ignorance is because their realm of existence is so distinctively different than that of black Americans. When someone is diagnosed as having a learning deficiency it is sometimes due the inability of the brain to receive or process information. Many blacks have found that when exp...

Violence Against Our Youth Who Protest Police Brutality?

The announcer of a high school football game said, "If you don't want to stand for the National Anthem, you can line up over there by the fence and let our military personnel take a few shots at you...." to any high school student-athlete who kneeled during the National Anthem in protest of police brutality against African-American citizens. It never ceases to amaze me that there are people (apparently a majority of people) who would rather continue on in their presumptuous and oppressive ways than to acknowledged the pain, fear and helplessness that many of us feel due to the injustices we have experience at the hands of police and a policy system that is built to empower the majority while suffocating the voice of the minority. Not only did this announcer say this aloud but many people in the audience (I am willing to bet that most of these applauders were White) apparently cheered, in a rambunctious roar, for the announcers audacity and bravery in the face of such ...

Why Do You Want To Kill Me?

"Why do you want to kill me?"   Does a gold grill justify a black man's death? Does a darker and sweaty complexion in Oklahoma summer heat warrant a black man's execution? Does a muscular physique require lethal force to be used against a black man? What is it about me that makes you want to kill me? Does the bass of my voice make you feel inferior? What is it about me that warrants death? Is it my athletic figure? Does this make you want to kill me? Is it the pain of my eyes? Is the burden too heavy to bear? It is the brokenness of my soul? Does it bring you shame? It is my strength? Does it make you want to conquer me? Is it my disposition? Does it make you feel threatened? Is it my displeasure with the way I've been treated? Should I stay in my place like a 'good boy'? What is it about me that makes you say, "he looks like a bad guy?" Is it the way I walk? Please help me to understand. What is it about me that m...