Skip to main content

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 people must be convinced that racism is a problem and reassured that, “Not all white people are racist.” Do you know how tiring it is to ask your oppressor to love you when they keep killing your family in the street? 
The problem is not a lack of love from black people. The problem is white people’s refusal to share power at the cost of their own comfort. The problem is that white people always expect to receive a level of mercy they have never holistically shown to black folks. 
You will get no hug from me if:
You refuse to undo this racist power structure 
You refuse to address racism in your own life
You refuse to address racism in your church
You refuse to address racism in your school
You refuse to share political power 
You refuse to share economic power 
You refuse to stop suffocating black people with your white negligence
You refuse to arrest police officers who kill black people in cold blood. 
I have no need to hug my oppressor. 
I have no need to hug those who hate me.
Give me justice. Give me justice. Give me justice. 
Or keep your hugs.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more