When Racism Is Subtle

"Why can't those animals protest without being so violent and tearing people's property apart?"

"Why are those black people protesting? Don't they have jobs?"

These are both things that have been shared in my Facebook newsfeed recently and no one seems to realize that saying such statements and holding such beliefs are in fact a catch 22. It's a trap, a trap in which people of color lose 100% of the time. If you gather together to peacefully protest you're automatically labeled as unemployed, entitled, and "race baiters." If you don't peacefully protest you're labelled as unemployed, entitled, and "race baiters"...and also, of course, animals. 

It baffles me that people think they have to take sides in matters like this, as if we have to choose between valuing life and condoning violence. There is no choice that has to be made. The deaths of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, and countless other unarmed black men by police were horribly wrong and never should have happened. At the same time, the rioting that took place in Ferguson and Baltimore was wrong and never should have happened. There is no side to choose here other than what is just and what is right. That's all. Choose justice. Choose love. Choose what is true. Choose what is right.

The truth is that black lives DO matter. And all of the thousands of African Americans that you see protesting under this mantra aren't doing so because they don't have jobs and they aren't doing it to race-bait, they aren't doing it because they think white lives or police lives DON'T matter, but rather they are doing it so that we will finally LISTEN and be advocates in CHANGE. And if anything is evidence that change needs to be made, it's my Facebook newsfeed. So, will you listen? Will you be the change? 

If you're interested in learning about what "all those people"are protesting about, here are a couple of books you can read that illustrate how prevalent racism still is in our society, and how subtle and hard to recognize it has become for those of us on the outside of it:

So seriously, if you really want to know the facts and understand this movement, what are you still doing here? Why are you still reading a white girl from Kansas's blog and why are you still watching commentary on Fox news? Go...listen to what people in these hurting African American communities are saying. Listen to their stories. Listen to their experiences. Don't take my word for it, take theirs.

http://blacklivesmatter.com

Hidden God

I just finished reading Lauren Winner's book Still: Notes on a Mid-faith Crisis. Of course, the fact that it had the term "mid-faith crisis" in it is what caught my attention, because I don't think any other term could better describe where I'm at right now. There were many things she said that I found myself able to relate to, but I think the most profound thing is what she quoted a rabbi as saying during the Jewish holiday of Purim:

“All throughout Torah, we find people looking for God, and not finding God, because God doesn't often conform to our expectations. God is somewhere other than the place we think to look, and our sages show that you can respond to God's hiddenness in many different ways. You can, like the writer of Lamentations, respond to god's hiddenness by mourning. Or, like the writer of Ecclesiastes, instead of asking where the god you thought you were looking for had gone, ask what god is like now. Or you can respond to god's hiddenness by being like Esther: if God is hiding, then you must act on God's behalf. If you look around the world and wonder where God has gone, why God isn't intervening on behalf of just and righteous causes, your very wondering may be a nudge to work in God's stead.” 
― Lauren F. Winner, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis

Sometimes God is hidden. He is not recognizable in the same way that He used to be. You do not meet him in the same places that you used to go to meet Him. He does not speak through the same people or books or Bible verses that He used to. Somewhere along the way, your relationship with Him has changed and you realize you're not quite sure who He is anymore, but you're also not quite sure who you are anymore either. You have to get to know each other again, ask each other new questions, tell each other new stories, and be willing to experience what is uncomfortable and unexpected. It is a time to refocus and reevaluate your relationship and your purpose, and these same questions come up over and over and over: Where are you, God? What are you like now? Why aren't you intervening?

I of course don't know all of the answers to these questions. If I did, I wouldn't be in a mid-faith crisis, but I can trust that though God is hidden now, there will come a time when He will reveal Himself. Maybe it will happen a little at a time, maybe it will happen all at once, but He will reveal Himself. And in the meantime, He is still here. Listening to my frustrations. Healing my brokenness. Leading me in a long, seemingly never-ending journey of what it means to trust when my faith fails.