I have been appalled by the far too frequent news reports and shocking videos of blatant murder of innocent black men by white men. And even as I typed those last five words, “black men by white men,” I cringed. I didn’t want to type the transparent truth, because in doing so I admit the ugliness of the race I share, but the time for sweeping under the rug or hiding your head in a hole has passed. I think I used to tell myself, I’m not racist, therefore I’m good, despite the atrocities abounding. But I believe God is bringing the obvious evil to the forefront as of late so we can all make the change. Not just pass it off to those we feel are responsible. That’s not what God is calling us to do.
In wanting to bring light to an ever present problem I knew I must use my platform to speak, but I didn’t want to just make some flowery post on Facebook, that while it got a few hundred “likes,” did about as much for the issue as the same digital, blue thumbs could do. I wanted God’s heart for me personally on this issue, and I prayed to Him for what I should say.
Immediately after asking I felt the Lord say, “think about this like a mother would.”
As far as mothering goes, I had experienced an exhausting week. My eldest child had unexpectedly experienced a grand mal (tonic-clonic) seizure. She had been hospitalized, gone through all the testing, been diagnosed with epilepsy, and placed on maintenance medication. We were now going through the aftermath of medication side effects, and the worst part, me trying not to worry to death for her. That’s what moms did, though. We worried about our babies.
At the Lord’s prompting I tried to imagine how I would respond to recent events in a motherly sense. If my child wasn’t the pale, Caucasian young woman she was, how would that change things for me? Could I trust all my social media contacts not to murder my black son if I had one?
Although I’m a Floridian now, living in a multicultural melting pot, I was most recently raised in Mississippi. There are a lot of good people in the South, who love their neighbor like themself, but there also still exists a prevalent attitude of racism. We want to think it’s not an issue anymore, like, since it no longer resembles the film Mississippi Burning, or the plantation isn’t worked by slaves, that a long-held stigma has been erased. It hasn’t.
Even though I was raised by a woman who had traveled the world, teaching me the color of a man’s skin didn’t define him, I was impacted by the small minds around me. It didn’t matter my very first friend had been named Tanisha, or that my Dad has bucked the system of his family’s belief. My father had been in the army, standing in battle with men of every color, who would lay down their life for his. If that doesn’t change your mindset, not much else will. Their support enabled me to go out with a black guy in high school, but my own regrettable fear of ridicule caused me to break it off.
I can still remember the gruff voice of a stranger on the phone the day following my date, “are you dating a nigger?!”
But even my personal brushes with racism hold little water when compared to the gravity of living in the midst of it. I may think I’ve experienced racism in my life, and could share a handful of stories like the one above, but in reality I have no clue. I don’t know personally what it’s like to be the target of hate simply because of the color of my skin.
I can sympathize related to still existing racism I’ve seen in the South, but in the end I can’t empathize; I can’t even imagine. I cannot understand the fact that even though I’m an intelligent, well-spoken, college-educated, professional, that I could be murdered despite all those things if my skin was any color but white. I mean, the idea is ludicrous, am I right?! And those of us privileged enough to think it doesn’t happen that way, are even being shown that it does. I suppose if there’s anything that the enemy has meant for evil, that God can use for good, it’s the evidence and awareness that racism is real, that it still exists, and that it can kill.
So, this morning, while I had the privilege of only being able to imagine, I did make the conscious effort to imagine. To imagine what it must be like to be the mother of a black child. I have just experienced the stress of illness in my daughter, and I found that difficult. I was pushing away thoughts that they put her on the same anti seizure medicine my mother had been on. My mother, who died of a seizure in her sleep. I had what I considered to be a sizable amount of faith in Jesus, but worries for the life of my baby, those thoughts rocked my soul. Imagine if every time your child left the house you had to worry about the chance of them being murdered? Not because of anything they had done wrong, but just because of the assumption they had or would based on how much melanin their skin contained.
I will confess ignorance. In the past I have said things were better. I’ve stood safely in my white skin and said it’s not that bad. I’ve tried to relate, even, stating all the ways I had been judged on outward appearance. Not that my inconveniences could even compare to fear of death, but in my self-centered, narrow vision, I was sure it did. But the thing is, as God brings to light the evil of man and the injustice out there, we can’t claim ignorance any longer. As we see the blatant disregard for human life, especially aimed at men of color, it’s an affront to anyone with eyes to claim racism doesn’t exist. To claim anything other than the fact it does, is an exercise in denial to the worst degree.
I hate that racism is real. It was easier to tell myself incidents were few and far between, but pretending we live in a better world just doesn’t make it so. Times are changing, and God is bringing light to the evils of mankind. Our job as Christians is to see what He is bringing to light. It’s to admit we see it, and not hide our heads in the sand. Our task as followers of Jesus is to stand firm and speak up for those who are persecuted. It’s to call out injustice and evildoers. It’s to help carry the burden. Your friends of color have been carrying it on their own for far too long.
Galatians 6:2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
I would encourage you to stop and consider your life. Consider how it would change if your skin was a different color. Imagine your life as a mother, or a father. How would it change if you realized being pulled over for a traffic violation could get your child shot? Or even jogging down the road could end tragically. What if the talk you gave your teenager wasn’t just about the birds and the bees, but about the utmost importance of respecting authority figures who carried guns?
We often argue when injustice comes to light, thinking if we can put the center point on cops or guns that it will shift the focus. We say police aren’t bad, or that gun laws need to be reformed. But these are just distractions from the truth. In my opinion, there are a lot of good police! My white cousin was murdered by bad cops, but I still say the majority of police are fair and upright. But we’re not talking about police lives, or the fact that they also matter. We won’t lessen any brother or sister by distracting from their life. To say racism is real, and to say someone shouldn’t be treated differently based on the color of their skin, isn’t to say one kind of people deserve better treatment. I think they just want equal treatment, and I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
I would like to think we’re finally headed in the right direction. Eyes are being opened and heads are coming out of the sand. You can’t deny something any longer that blares itself outside the shadows, yet sadly, people still do. It’s up to us, the followers of Christ, to stand and speak out against evil. It must be held accountable, and no longer be allowed to hide. True change doesn’t happen on Facebook, or even at the hands of a well-thought blog post. It comes by the hands and feet of people everywhere. It starts in the hearts of every man and woman. We must admit there’s a problem, then work to resolve that issue in our own thoughts and feelings. To personally place ourselves in the shoes of another. Change continues as we impress that heart change to our children, and to everyone in our home. Change prevails when we carry that heart of Christ into our communities, onto our job sites, and into our every conversation and interaction.
It comes down to me to be a sanctity of life issue. All life is precious to our Lord, and our job is to see our fellow man as He does. It’s not a goal to not see color, but rather to see each color as precious, equal, and designed precisely, uniquely, and with a great purpose by God. Who are we to thwart what He has created? And who are we to ignore the attacks of Satan to divide and destroy mankind?
Michaela says
I agree with you wholeheartedly. One sentence caught my attention. You said here that your Mom died of a seizure in her sleep. But years ago when I found you and was asking about your Mom ( I went to nursing school with her ) you told me that she was killed in a car crash while driving her Porsche. Now what is it ???
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Sorry for the confusion. She lived for ten years after the accident, with traumatic brain injury and uncontrollable seizures. The cause of death was a seizure, but related to the TBI from the accident.
Michaela says
Thank you . So very sorry . I keep you and your family in my prayers ??❤️
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you ☺️
Nancy Obrigewitsch says
An excellent and thoughtful post. It is heartbreaking that we as human beings can not get past the color of skin in accepting one another. I live in the Northwest where people like to think they are pretty accepting but the reality is hate crimes, racial profiling etc. still occur among every race and gender. I had the opportunity to see the movie Just Mercy before COVID 19 shut everything down and it is an excellent portrayal of not only racism but injustice in the prison system toward black men. I highly recommend to any adult. I pray that someday we can all look at each other and just see that we all were created the same.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Amen. So do I.
Tony Rice says
I saw that Brant Hansen posted on this issue early yesterday morning. Then later, the pastor, Jeff Jones at my church posted on this issue. Both posts mirroring your sentiments. In both of those cases, yesterday, white men like me immediately jumped into the comments section with rationalizing and questioning, “We don’t have all the facts, blah, blah….” Those comments broke my heart. My church is quite diverse, I can’t imagine being African American and seeing something like that from your fellow church members.
I posted a response(below), there were several likes from my African American brothers and sisters:
Jeff, you are right, and there was no other way to end your post. I can’t think of a spiritual nugget that can provide a tidy closing to your post, because I don’t think there is one.
I saw that Brant Hansen had also posted about this earlier today, and the first commenter that followed was one who suggested, we don’t know all the facts here, don’t resist arrest, etc., etc.. I am not judging those sorts of posts, because that was my reliable response for decades of my own life. I am not proud of this.
And this was after, at the age of 15, I experienced the loss of a man named Macon Ramsey. He lived down the road a couple of miles from our little farm in Alabama, he was kind, wise, full of the love of Christ, and he made anybody who got near him smile.
One day he let my 4 yr. old brother sit on his lap while his big shiny blue Ford tractor plowed a garden plot for us. It was a very happy moment. Two weeks later he disappeared. Three days after that, he was found tied up, face down in a creek in the woods behind his home. The persistent rumors were about the Klan, and there was very little investigation from the Sheriff’s department. We learned that his father had met the same fate 20 years earlier.
And yet, that wasn’t enough to fully change me.
As a white guy in America, I have only experienced the slightest wisp of prejudice. It was when I was in divorce court 18 years ago, and the issue was about custody. The court had a prejudice about me before they ever met me.
I draw no parallels here. I won’t lie, I was terrifying to me. I experienced, only briefly, what it feels like when a massive, indefinable, even indiscernible, power has damaging assumptions about you that you cannot challenge. You can’t wrap your hands around it, you can’t corner anybody who will admit it, or who can fix it, it is just there, and you can’t touch it. That situation opened my eyes.
With respect to my fellow white Americans, we cannot possibly know what is real about this to the African American community. We can only honor its authenticity and its reality, and we can only ache for what we truly do not understand. Even if my kids had the worst of days, involving legal issues, resisting arrest, whatever, there could be no justification for a 10-minute suffocation and death. This is something that I would not rationalize. Of course not.
At Chase Oaks, we know of a Guy who would forego any element of politics or of legal justifications in this tragic situation. His heart would weep for the loss and for the brokenness. He would lift up those who live in fear and mourning. He would wrap them with love that is beyond measure.