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My eyes fill with tears
Bitter, pain-filled, sad-hearted
Flowers in the snow?
***

I am beyond words. As are so many. Racism sucks. It punishes everyone, and has a hugely detrimental effect on society. It breaks my heart to know how hopeless and powerless “ism”s make so many young people feel, in my birth country and elsewhere around this planet. Young people should be feeling passionate and enthusiastic, not alienated.

Racism is a human construct, and WE are the ones who can deconstruct it.

So let’s do it! I type these words habitually. Today, I am not up to it. Today is a day of mourning, of licking the painful wound. I sit at my desk this morning, unable to work. My heart and mind are filled with a confusion of thoughts and emotions. Then, one of my automatically scheduled blog posts is published, on the topic of bananas! I am horrified. How can such a lighthearted topic be published on our blog on a day like today?

Yet, it is somehow fitting. The banana post speaks of world hunger, another societal inequity. This morning I read that the richest 85 people in our world have as much money as the 3.5 BILLION poorest! These billionaires could give away a million dollars a day for the rest of their lives and still not run out of cash! While people go hungry. Just a bit of perspective; I’m not intending to vilify anyone. We are all innocent; we are all guilty. We all have our bits to play. In addition to talking about world hunger, that same blog post shared a training activity designed to help us value our differences. But…

***
“Many black families woke up this morning knowing that the lives of their children are worth less than the lives of white children in America. The deep distrust of law enforcement in their own communities that so many African Americans feel just got deeper last night.”
—Jim Wallis
***

• How can anyone ruling on a case filter out, or factor in, how society has taught a white police officer in a given suburb to see, perceive or feel about an unarmed black youth?
• Would Michael Brown be dead had he been white? We punish African Americans every day for society’s larger guilt, the guilt that we, collectively, are plagued with given our history and our choices.
• Would the ruling have been different had Officer Darren Wilson killed a white youth? Whites reap the privileges every day of living in a society with our history and choices, whether we experience it as privilege or not.
• Violence is wrong, burning buildings and looting is wrong; but we can surely understand the frustration born of feelings of outrage that provoke such violence, after decades of failing to understand, failing to empathize with the pain, and a collective unwillingness to change. There needs to be a release to decades of built-up tension. People seek justice, it is human nature.

***
”A riot is the language of the unheard.”
—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
***

***
“Hurting others or destroying property is not the answer.
I do not want my son’s death to be in vain.
I want it to lead to incredible change, positive change, change
that makes the St. Louis region better for everyone.”
—Michael’s Brown’s father
***

This morning in my failure to be able to get my work done, I came across a wonderful tool on the USA’s Public Broadcasting System website, called Race: The Power of an Illusion. You may know that race has no genetic basis. Did you know that there is more variation within a race than between races? And that race is a modern construct? Racism evolved to justify social inequalities as “natural.” Please, bookmark the tool and spend some time clicking through and learning with it. I found it very helpful.

***
“Indifference to injustice is
more insidious than the injustice itself.”
—Cornel West
***

There were several pieces I read this morning, amidst the welcome cacophony, that helped me make some bit of sense of what’s happening, that helped me glimpse a constructive path forward.

1. One of my favorites, as usual, was written by Jim Wallis, author of God’s Politics. It is entitled A Sad Night for America, and focused a call to action to subject our criminal justice system to the requirements of racial justice. “How law enforcement interacts with communities of color raises fundamental, legitimate issues that must be addressed by the whole nation if we are to move forward. The changes we need in both policies and practices must now be taken up in detail. Our neglect has led to anger and hopelessness in a new generation, but their activism will also help lead us to new places. It is indeed time to turn Ferguson from a moment to a movement.”
2. If, like me, you are white, or born to a privileged socioeconomic bracket, class or caste, there is a terrific article that you might find helpful: 12 Things White People Can Do Now Because of Ferguson. While I consult most of the resources noted therein, it is important to actually read them, to reflect on them, to make personal sense of them, on a regular basis. Only then can we have a hope of living our beliefs and convictions. I’d also encourage you to subscribe to Cultural Detective Online, to examine your personal values via CD Self Discovery, and to overlay those personal values with those of different ethnicities, nationalities, ages and religions.
3. Finally, I found sense in Barbara Francella’s article, Skittles and Race in the Workplace. Short, to-the-point, and frank, I found it an excellent empathy piece. An organization can not get the best work out of an employee if that person has to leave a major percentage of who she is outside, before entering the workplace.

May we listen to one another, value one another, hear each other’s experiences as “truth,” and work together to build societies that are ever more just, equitable, and sustainable.

—

Linked to the My Global Life Link-Up at SmallPlanetStudio.com