Let us pray by standing firm for justice and right relationship.

The story being sold is that those people are rioting (and only they riot and loot, forget the, um, enthusiastic response to sports events, etc…)… somehow it’s not about another black child; it’s not about black lives mattering. And how much looting is there, any how? I’m sure we’re happy to focus on thuggery, but how many people are standing their protesting peacefully? How many are decrying the violence on both sides and how little are we seeing that? Change will come through an uprising, if it comes, because we have seen how little change comes through waiting.

Armchair police “know” exactly what happened, so much better than people of color know, people who have witnessed again and again, people whose lives don’t matter. People of color continue to be squeezed out of this American life. They continue to make less, be incarcerated more, fare more poorly… Our President, a man of color, has had more death threats against him than any other president, and even his staff can’t seem to care enough to be on guard. Those of us who love people of color, who love justice, who long for peace must stand, speak, write, witness. Not only was this child killed his body and his memory were desecrated when they let him lie on that pavement for hours.

We must also pray, because when my dear friend Faye, a prayer warrior of no uncommon strength, confesses that she can no longer pray, that she is that dispirited and down-hearted, I can’t float along on my carefree ignorance and willful amnesia any longer. I must be active and informed… bob marley told us, i keep forgetting, no justice, no peace…

“We who believe in Freedom cannot rest” (Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon)… Peace will wait on Justice. We should weep. We should pray. We should bear witness. We should act for Justice and for Peace.