I always question whether I should say anything personal in the public sphere. I will say a few things. If you are viewing this on my page, let me make something clear. I am not a fan of uninformed opinions. I do not live in an echo chamber. I have family members of many races and with many different perspectives and politics. I have family members who are police officers.
I have family members who have served our country in various branches of the armed services.
I have family members who have been incarcerated, and I have family members who are lawyers and judges.
I have family members who have voted for different parties and have intellectual and moral reasons for doing so.
I am Christian, but that is not the case for all my friends and family members. I don’t only know the names of people who look different and think differently than me.
How many of you know I had the police called on me 25 years ago? And that the police officer stood up for me and shamed the clerk who instigated the racist encounter? The police officer was White.
I am from Mobile, Alabama. I have many friends/associates from high school in my friend list. Some may remember I stood up and gave a personal speech after the LA riots.
I spoke on what I had learned about being Black, and that I feared for my father as he took his daily run through our predominantly white neighborhood.
Some of you were touched. I was not part of the social scene in my high school. I was not invited to parties. I did not date. I was the only Black student who took ONLY advanced and honors classes. It showed me something.
I did not learn about racism on TV. I LIVED it. And as much as I encountered it, I saw my experiences discounted and my reality fail to be acknowledged.
By most measures I have done everything right. I am an MD. I am married with a family. I am a home owner. I am law abiding. I am a professed Christian with a profound respect for those in my sphere who follow other faiths – or none at all.
I have seen many Christians post thought pieces from Christians and non Christians that excuse the current state of affairs, or deny their existence. Riddle me this: why do you assume if I had seen a 46 year old person of any other ethnicity, nationality, race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or health status (you name your difference), that I would be less horrified, less concerned it could happen to me or someone I love? Please do not bring these assumptions to my page. They say more about you – they are not about me and my considered viewpoints.
If something harms any segment of our society (police brutality or any other), when is racism/evil justified? Why must a challenge to a societal problem mean a discredit to everyone involved? It is hard to change systems whether from the inside or outside. Credit to anyone who is doing the right thing, but it is not an excuse to uncritically support institutions that are failing all of us (as many have perhaps unintentionally pointed out).
I was not raised a lemming and I am not one now. I will conclude with these:
Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail. Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease.
Proverbs 22:8, 10 ESV
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
James 2:14-17 ESV
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