I am about to make you uncomfortable in three words. Black lives matter. Perhaps you are already prepared to dismiss this article. When I say black lives matter, you envision riots in the streets. You may hear drawn out criticisms of the police in America or you may see a gang of mislead teenagers assaulting an innocent man on a bus or in a store. For a moment, take yourself out of that context. Forget about the civil rights group, forget about the protests, and forget about the debates you partake in on social media. Right now, we’re talking about black lives, and why they matter just as much as the white ones.
You may be thinking, “Black people do matter, just like white people, Hispanic people, orange people and blue people.” And maybe in your mind, they do. Maybe to you, black lives actually do matter. But, let me challenge you with this: if you actually believe that black lives matter just as much as everyone else, then why does no one mourn with the mourning?
When I hear about an unarmed black teen being gunned down, I think about my 12-year-old nephew, and how in a few years, he has the potential to see the same fate as Treyvon Martin saw a few years back. I think about how even though my nephew has a loving family, good grades, and a delightful personality, he could still end up as a statistic on the nightly news. When I see an unarmed black adult being gunned down, I worry for my own safety. I wonder whether or not going to McDonald’s after midnight is worth it.
So why does this matter? It matters because I mourn. I mourn the loss of another minority, and I am saddened over the apathy that much of the church has shown about this issue. It’s not fair that I see more people sharing links on Facebook about God’s Not Dead 2 than I see about the black men and women who die every day. It’s not fair that so much of the church is outraged about something a presidential candidate has said, but not show any compassion to their black brothers and sisters who are stopped and questioned by police for no reason. How is it that we can be outraged by wage increases and hour reductions, but no one cares that many African-Americans are afraid to go to Dollar General by themselves at night?
It would be very convenient if racism no longer existed and if black teens truly had an equal opportunity to live long, healthy lives. It would be convenient if minorities didn’t feel underrepresented and mistreated, and it would be convenient if we could all come to an agreement on social issues. However, Christ never called us to a life of convenience. The Bible shows us how to work through conflict, not avoid it. It teaches us to call out injustice, rather than blindly follow.
In a perfect world, race wouldn’t matter. No one would care who is black or who is white, and no one would have this inner fear and turmoil whenever they saw someone who is darker than them. In a perfect world, young black men would not make up the majority of prisoners in America, but the minority on a college campus. But we live in fallen world where race matters regardless of how much or how little you acknowledge it. We cannot get over race and we cannot simply see past it. No issue is resolved by ignoring it.
So what can you do about it? Stand by the side of your black brothers and sisters here at Houghton. Listen to their hurts rather than assuming that they’re being too sensitive. You do not have to go in the streets and protest. You don’t have to give up your guns or become a raging liberal in order to stand with someone who has been looked down upon by society because of the color of their skin. Don’t let us stand alone to be victimized by a system of oppression. Stand with us to show the world that in the Kingdom of God, there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, man or woman, and no black or white. Let’s show the grace, kindness, compassion and intentionality that America is unfamiliar with these days.
Joe is a junior communication major with minors in business and Bible.