Christian. Black. and Fed Up.: A 3-Part Response to the Unjust Killings of Black People

Part I. This is How I Feel

It’s nearly 2am and I am awake...watching… waiting… praying----mostly groaning and aching… but praying. It’s nearly 2am and I am reeling… appealing to the Lord and truly wrestling. I know what the scriptures say. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against... spiritual wickedness in high places…" Ephesians 6:12. My flesh and my spirit are warring right now. This too was foretold. 

This pain is excruciating. It. Hurts. So. Badly. My core weeps. My chest is tight. I can’t breathe. It’s nearly 2am and I am awake. Watching. Keeping watch. Patrolling… Literally and Spiritually. My husband and newborn son are asleep in the next room. I too have access to that sleep--- a privilege afforded to me as one reborn. Yet, as they sleep, I wrestle. Like Jacob of old, I gutturally beseech the Lord, “I will not let go unless you bless me.”

"... I need a Word. Lord, send a rhema," I beg. 

I need manna from heaven. I need meat that is good for me for this day… in this hour. 

I am tired. Not sleepy… but exhausted.

I can't stand any more... And, as a disciple of Christ, I am supposed to.

I am made of lead, heavy, but weak.

God chose this body for me. God chose to put His Holy Spirit in this black body. Battered and bruised, in all of my blackness, I’ve never desired to be anything else. In all of my blackness, I mostly occupy spaces as a racial minority-- the dark thread in an otherwise unstained tapestry. I’ve held my tongue more often than not. I try to move with precision. I am always on guard. Walls up. Hands up. Eyes sharp. Vigilant but not quite a vigilante. Watching, listening, waiting, hoping for the best but all too familiar with the wickedness of (fallen) man. I fight against, “what-ifs” and “when they” often. I generously give the “benefit of the doubt” and I've extended more "passes" than I can count. And with each pass, I clench my jaw a little tighter...teeth grit...realizing that I've been holding my breath the whole time. Anger and forgiveness have an ol' school schoolyard brawl. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, eight minutes and forty-six seconds, seventy times seven. Can't hardly breathe now. Can't slumber nor sleep now. Got to watch.

In through the nose, out through the mouth... calm, steady breaths... chest on fire... heart racing... breathing shaky... but there. Thank God. There is still breath.

My husband and my six month old son are asleep in the next room. I can hear them breathing---now. How often will they be the only black males in the room? How often will they be hyper-visualized-- fewer in number yet more seeable...still unseen... unknown? Simultaneously microscopic and viewed telescopically. How often will they be vilified on sight? Frequently pulled over while driving, how long will I have to consider the possibility and probability that this is it--- the final time that I will see my husband? How soon before my son will be deemed a thug? How soon before he is no longer, "cute" but just "black" and "other'd"? How often will his hair be an open topic for discussion...and unsolicited touch? How soon before his speech is deemed dialect and dissected? How soon before his father and I can no longer shield him from the first intimate shock of prejudice? Injustice? How soon before we have to have the "talk"? You know the one... How soon before hatred slithers around his tiny neck, threatening to choke away the laughter that is his first language? How long before the summer sun tints his skin, increasing his threat level with every ray and hue? How soon before the violence against him is analyzed and synthesized and simplified and justified---concluding with, "he should have known better (than to)..."?  

How soon can we teach him the beauty of color? How soon can we infuse in him that he is black, and comely like his parents and theirs?  Can he learn this if he does not see blackness around him? Can he see the beauty if there is no blackness? Intrinsically, they have always been so synonymous-- even if the world does prefer the a-la-carte featurette version of us--- What a privilege it is to "not see color" and just be. Understand, that your fellow man, 3/5s and all, does not share in this privilege. Can we infuse transcendent love into his responsive melanin, heart transplant in tow? Or will he be torn asunder? 

After a night of anguish...a city, a country, a world, a soul on fire... the sun has risen. With daybreak comes the promise of joy and a reminder of the power of love perfected. 

In through the nose, out through the mouth...calm, steady breaths...

The sun has risen. Full disclosure: this is not the conclusion... only the changing of a shift...

Exasperated we exhale, "When will it end?"...

 

The conclusion arrives riding on a cloud. 

Until such a time, I HAVE to choose joy today. In the midst of so much pain... I just HAVE to. 

To those who are uncomfortable by these reflections, I will not rescue you from that discomfort. Sit in it. To those who are complacent, comforted by the false insulation of perceived distance or difference--- you too are as complicit as the three. If you feel yourself an ally, then stand with your loins gird. Or kneel, even interceding before the King. If you feel alienated, wear that for a day. If you feel my words incomplete or unaccomplished, of course they are-- I'm a Spirit clothed in imperfect flesh. If you feel compelled to critique, I disinvite you from doing so. Your scrutiny is not welcomed today. This is how I feel--- Moved to compassion where a stony heart once beat, today, I weep. The end goal is reconciliation and a nigh, nigh, gait. But today, I weep as my Daddy wept. To those who are called by His name... you know what to DO...

I leave you with words that have unfortunately, proved timely after so much time:  

"I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead."

~ "To the Public", No. 1 (1 January 1831), quoted in Todras, Ellen H. (1999). Angelina Grimké: Voice of Abolition. Linnet. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-208-02485-5.

---------------End of Part I: "This is How I Feel"------------

Coming soon....

Part II: "This is What I Know" 

Part III: "This is What We Do" 

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