Thabiti Anyabwile on why it could have been him

Thabiti has been one of the more lucid voices in this entire discussion. I have tremendous appreciation for his wisdom concerning these important issues. In his latest contribution to this on-going discussion, he offers a summary of a discussion he had with someone. Here are a few highlights from his important piece:

For some people, “justice” depends as much on seeing Brown and family in this light as it does on any true evidence from the scene. We need a boogeyman Brown to assuage our collective conscience about what happened to Brown. And if we can calm the inner voice of righteousness in Brown’s case, then we give ourselves permission to conveniently forget that Michael Brown’s name is one in a long list of unarmed men killed under suspicious circumstances by police officers.

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I’ve tried in conversation to figure out why the situation with Brown and Ferguson has erupted into a national debate and not some other situation with a “cleaner” victim and “dirtier” officer. I don’t know why God in His providence chose this situation. But perhaps it’s to expose to us–if we’re willing to see–the prejudices and biases we harbor and pass around without thinking. Perhaps it’s the messier situations that bring to surface the deeper matters of the heart.

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Do I want a future where African-American men and women are not seen first as men and women made in the image of God? Do I want a future where our humanity gets reduced to social media and television snapshots picturing us as menacing and criminal rather than unique souls bearing the glory of God? Do I want a future where we view one another with suspicion and deep distrust because we fail to view each other as human?

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As I listen to protestors calling for justice, I don’t hear many of them reminding themselves that Darren Wilson is made in the image of God, too. I don’t hear those persons lamenting the potential always there for a person to be different than portrayed or better than he was. I don’t hear many of those persons decrying that this  lost potential gets multiplied through an entire community, and for that community the death of Michael Brown is the death of a better life hoped for, a God-given potential tragically unrealized.

I agree with Thabiti that there is a certain uniqueness as to why these cases have taken such a national toll. Still, if these discussions can bring us to consider the doctine of the imago dei with a bit more seriousness, then in some sense there is a bit of redemption to be found.