Growing up in the South in the 1980s, I was raised by a good family: a mother and father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I grew up cradle Catholic, with my grandparents impacting my faith more than any others. My family was kind to all people, regardless of their color and they treated all people fairly as far as I can remember. I will not, however, issue the popular disclaimer of our day; “we do not see color .”
I believe that most people, those of every race and reed, “see color.” Each person sees things according to their history and life experience. Racism lurks in the dark and cold corners of humanity. Depending on what spot of the globe one lays their head the flavor of racism is different. In the middle east racism takes on an economic, religious, and cultural flare between ancient cultures. In Africa, tribal prejudice has produced long-standing racial conflict. Just eighty years ago over six million Jews were slaughtered by the Third Reich. Our young nation has struggled with racial tensions between people of color for our entire history and it is this particular brand of racism that I focus on here.
I confess that I have always judged myself by the standard of those who came before me; if my brand of racism was improved from the last generation, then I was content. Afterall, black people are racist too, right? I love to tell my children to worry about their own shortcomings before looking at others’, yet I have failed to heed my own advice. I know that I can only move on by concerning myself with my sins, not those of other white people and certainly not those of black and brown people. I will never understand what African Americans have experienced in this country; I am simply incapable, because of my own limited experience, to empathize with people with whom I do not share a similar experience. While empathy is impossible, charity and compassion are necessary.
The killing of George Floyd is hardly the first example of racial injustice in the last few years let alone during the last three generations, but it seems to have awakened a sleeping dragon. There appears to more unity behind the Black Lives Matter movement after the Floyd killing than we have seen previously, and while this is encouraging, whites still do not appear to be able to break free from their comfortable defenses. Looters and rioters are enabling those misguided sensitivities, but we must resolve ourselves to not shrink from the issue at hand. Looting and rioting is not consistent with Catholic moral and social teaching, but the actions of the few should not provide an excuse for us to return our heads to the sand.
Just a few weeks ago Ahmaud Arbery was hunted down and shot in the streets of rural Georgia. The press has moved on to Mr. Floyd primarily because his story is one of police brutality, a much sexier headline for the media. The Arbery shooting is no less important and points to the fact that African American men have, since the beginning of our country, have been big game for the Caucasian hunter. Young black men are two and a half times more likely to die at the hands of the police than their white counterparts. While I have heard, and at times been complicit in, arguments as to why this statistic is misleading; we only have to point to recent protests at the Michigan capital by white armed militiamen to demonstrate the horror of this statistic. It is undeniable that the outcome of those protests would have been far different had the protestors been people of color.
The question remains, as it always does, about where we go from here. I can issue one point of clarity; we cannot depend on our political representatives to change hearts and minds. The din of politicians is already drowning out the cries for justice as debate rages about what side of the aisle is responsible for the protests and riots. The President has failed as comforter-in-chief, a role that he has always struggled with. Governors speak against governors and mayors against mayors, but the voices of peace and justice go unheard, because those voices do not issue from the halls of power. The solution is up to us, it always has been. We have to be responsible for the discourse that we are having in the public square and within our own homes. Only by being living witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus Christ can we change the course of history. We need to be better and we have to strive for our children not just to be better than us, but to truly be men and women for others.
Dr. Scott Francis Davis, O.P.
May 31, 2020
Feast of Pentecost