After 9-11, I recall walking through airports with my long hair and brown skin. There were various eyes double and triple looking at the Latino man walking around the masses of people seeking his gate. I made the quick association that they were at least skeptical about my background. The country was attacked in apocalyptic fashion and there were specific groups of people singled out for that hideous crime.
I did not at that point assume there was an intrinsic attempt to de-humanize me or that society at large wanted me to disappear. I understood that society was going through civic shock. It is fairly established that when individuals go through particular traumas, their senses are heightened and their skepticism about peoples increase.
This is objectively true in individuals abused sexually, physically or verbally. Their hearts have been manipulated for such a long time that their response is to look at the world with the eyes of fear. They will need godly and faithful witnesses to walk with them through such pain.
And here is where I wish to add a particular caution to those on my side of the isle who look at this entire unrest and may conclude: “What are they (rioters, protesters) making such a big deal about; look at the numbers, etc.?” But that’s to minimize too much the deeper impact of what is happening. There are particular black men and women who have suffered profound mistreatment throughout their lives and the current scene gives them a heightened awareness of what they have gone through and tangible images of unkindness, racial epithets, and mistreatment emerge. These are not mental inventions, but real occurrences.
I venture to say that most rioters are opportunists (as already proven) using such environments to present civilization a piece of their hearts in the public square. But there are also some near to us who may have endured profound pain through the lips of individuals who prefer to diminish someone’s humanity than to affirm it. I want to give my voice to them and not the so-called revolutionaries who recently emerged from their mother’s basement.
If by structural racism we mean that sin permeates the people it touches holistically, then let adherents of total depravity affirm this. But what many mean by systemic racism is that entire groups of people share this common agenda of minimizing and destroying the well-being of others. This is utterly false and leads to generalizations that endanger our corporate civility.
We should affirm that there are particular individuals for whom hate has found a permanent home. They are structurally damaged and use such damage to hurt others in positions of authority or laity/civilian. They are to be rebuked and judged. But I must also walk uprightly knowing that if I hate my brother whom I see and claim to love God, the love of God is not in me. We must repent speedily of this.
My concern at this stage is not with masses of people for whom I can do little. My concern, which I believe should be ours, is to consider individuals who truly have suffered and endured particular shame and uplift their spirits and encourage them to good works of peace in the city. Our universal attempts to sympathize with the universe through somber black Instagram boxes are largely in vain, but our attempts to sympathize with those near to us bear good and tangible fruit. We overlook the real sufferers when we generalize pain; we suspend our skepticism when we seek to understand the real pain of our neighbor.
