Close your eyes

I love watching movies.  For me it is an opportunity to escape from the intensity of my days but also a chance to learn, think and reflect.  One of the movies that did that for me was A Time to Kill which was based on John Grisham's 1989 book.  I actually read the book back then before watching the movie when I had a lot of time on a plane traveling to Asia on business regularly.  Yes the book was better but the movie was very true to the story.

In the movie, during one of the final scenes, the defendant's lawyer gives the closing argument in the case.  (Note:  This is a very intense, descriptive scene and I struggled with placing it in here verbatim but decided it is warranted given the topic of my post.).  The lawyer, Jake Brigance (played by Matthew McConaughey) says: "I want to tell you a story. I'm going to ask you all to close your eyes while I tell you the story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves. Go ahead. Close your eyes, please. This is a story about a little girl walking home from the grocery store one sunny afternoon. I want you to picture this little girl. Suddenly a truck races up. Two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field and they tie her up and they rip her clothes from her body. Now they climb on. First one, then the other, raping her, shattering everything innocent and pure with a vicious thrust in a fog of drunken breath and sweat. And when they're done, after they've killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to have children, to have life beyond her own, they decide to use her for target practice. They start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw them so hard that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones. Then they urinate on her. Now comes the hanging. They have a rope. They tie a noose. Imagine the noose going tight around her neck and with a sudden blinding jerk she's pulled into the air and her feet and legs go kicking. They don't find the ground. The hanging branch isn't strong enough. It snaps and she falls back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck and drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge. Pitch her over the edge. And she drops some thirty feet down to the creek bottom below. Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white!"

Thinking about recent assassinations of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery over the past couple of months, I could not stop thinking about something that jumped out at me.  

One of the early videos that was played continuously was Ahmaud walking into a house under construction the day he was killed.  Luisa and I commented about all of the times she and I have walked the neighborhoods where we lived or pulled over to a house under construction when we were hunting for a house or just dreaming of the kind of home we would like when we first started dating, where we would walk into the house under construction to look at the rooms, the framing of the house, and think about what it would be like to own a home like that or if we would make changes to the layout. As a matter of fact, in recent videos of the same home that recorded Ahmaud, you can see a white couple doing the same thing and walking into the same house to look at the construction. 

With George, the context or should I really say the pretext was that the police were called because he was trying to purchase something with a fake $20 bill.  It reminded me of when my parents moved down to SC when they retired.  My dad was 70 years old when he retired.  They worked until practically the day before they moved down, working full time, while also beginning to collect SS income at 65.  For 5 years, my dad would collect his SS and store it away, preparing for the move so that he could have his retirement.  We were shocked at how much they saved for this.  Having lived in an apartment all of their lives, they were able to purchase their first home by moving to SC.  Within 4 months of moving down, they moved into their brand new home.  In preparation for that big event, Dad gave me the cash that he had accumulated, and I mean cash, because for some reason he thought it was best to just take the cash from the bank in NJ and close his account than transfer it electronically to a bank here.  I took several thousands of dollars to the bank to open the account.  

When I gave the cash to the teller they put it in a machine and one of the $100 bills that dad gave me was fake.  The teller wanted to know more about it, and I was shocked that it was fake having never seen a fake bill.  I told the teller about my parents and where the cash came from.  The teller thought nothing of it, said OK, and confiscated the money. 

What if I closed my eyes and imagined that Luisa and I did not look like how we do and looked like George or Ahmaud?  Or what if George or Ahmaud looked like us?  

It's time for us to reflect on this and understand the undercurrents of what is driving this pain for our brothers and sisters of color.  If we are truly one race, the human race, and are all God's children, created in the image of God, how could it be that this acceptable to any of us, white or black?

It is time for us to take a moment to close our eyes and put ourselves in their shoes.  

Jane Elliott, a former school teacher, known for her involvement in the anti-racist movement, gave a speech to a predominately white audience on Race and being Black in America.  

Now open our closed eyes and let's do something to fix this problem of our own creation for God does not see black or white and loves all of his children.

Why I can't stop crying

My blog posts convey my own personal thoughts and feelings on various topics, primarily my life.  I do not speak for others, but I know I am not alone feeling this way.  It seems like everywhere we turn there is one more reason to be filled with pain and sorrow and in some cases even despair.  

Whether it is the pain we experience when we lose a family member, to the sadness of knowing that we have lost more than 100,000 fellow Americans, not to mention more than that around the world due to Covid-19 in just 3 months, to the unbelievable shock of watching someone getting murdered while gasping for air and the horror of looking at the person, who had committed to "serve and protect", show no emotion whatsoever while he was doing it.  

It seems like we are living a nightmare that we can't wake up from.  Watching a movie we cannot change the channel on.  Living in perpetual grief waiting for the next shoe to drop and scared to see what comes next.  After a brief period of healing at times, we are given reasons to continue crying over our sadness and pain.

Personally, I am losing my faith.  My faith in humanity and how we treat one another.  Not completely understanding how people could be so callous and cruel to one another.  The salt on the wound comes from the comments from "those of faith" who on one hand offer prayer and appear to worry more about the loss of property than the loss of life and the injustice we are all seeing everywhere right before our own eyes.   

I am losing my faith in America and the shared ideals and values of a nation who was once the shining beacon of the world, best described by the words of Thomas Paine in Common Sense:

"O ye that love mankind! 

Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth!...

O receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind."

To the words from Thomas Jefferson in his National Prayer:

"Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners.  

Save us from violence, discord and confusion, from pride and arrogance, 

and from every evil way.  

Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people 

the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues."

To the plaque from the Statue of Liberty written by Emma Lazarus in 1883:

"Give me your tired, your poor, 

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

To the words of Martin Luther King who during his March on Washington address in 1963 said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where 

they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.....

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, 

every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, 

and the crooked places will be made straight, 

and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together...

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, 

to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, 

knowing that we will be free one day.

When I see how cruel and inhumane our elected officials are in the treatment of minorities and people of color I think of the words of Cornel West, an American author who said: "You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people if you won't serve the people."

The past days and weeks challenge everyone of us to reflect on what are clearly the injustices and inequalities all around us. While some of us are lucky and blessed to be able to work from the comfort and safety of our homes due to Covid-19, others are taking risks not just to go out to work but to protest over the senseless killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and countless others.

The Smithsonian magazine in an April 2018 article said that in the 10 days following King’s death, nearly 200 cities experienced looting, arson or sniper fire, and 54 of those cities saw more than $100,000 in property damage. 

I do not condone or call for rioting and looting but we all have to come together to denounce the blatant racism and unfair treatment of people of color and minorities in general. This is not who we should be or can be and it is going to take every one of us to do something about it.

We need to inspire hope, give love, and promote change for all of us. Not just a select few.

In Matthew, Chapter 18, in the Parable of the Lost Sheep, it says: 

"See that you do not despise on one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. 

 What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, 

will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? 

 And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost."

For those that like to say All Lives Matter, well if you are truly a follower of Jesus, it is time to acknowledge that Black Lives Matter.

Raised by my father who basically taught me to "Say what I Mean and Mean what I Say" and with a mother who's attitude was "don't be so mean", we need to stop being given reasons to cry.