God, have mercy! Christ, have mercy!

This poor baby girl! No four year old should have to witness this! No child should have to fear that their parent could get shot by those who are supposed to protect them: for talking to an officer, or having a broken tail light, or driving through a red light, or riding their bike through an alley, or getting out their driver’s license when an officer tells them to, or carrying a registered and licensed gun, etc. etc. etc.

And the thing is: no child who looks like me will have to worry about this. No person who looks like me would get shot (even accidentally) for getting out their driver’s license when the officer asks them to and then telling an officer they have a licensed gun on them. And in the very unlikely case it would happen to someone who looks like me, there is no way the officer would be acquitted. Yet, this happens to my siblings of color ALL. THE. TIME!

Folks: We have a major problem! We have an f-ed up system. And we MUST call it out for what it is! Because this baby girl should should NOT be traumatized like this! She should NOT have lost her soon to be step dad! She should NOT have had to watch him get murdered while she was in the car with him! She should NOT have to live the rest of her life worrying about the safety of her mom and other loved ones who could get shot for being black!

We have an f-Ed up system! One that completely and utterly favors folks who are white and continues to believe and proclaim that black and brown lives don’t matter. This is called systemic racism and white supremacy. And they prevail throughout the institutions of our country.

Folks, we MUST call this out! Fellow white folks, we MUST look at ourselves in this as well. Because we participate in this system. When we look at this news and think it just is what it is, we participate in this system. When we don’t have to worry about this happening to people who look like us, we participate in this system, whether we try to or not. We benefit from it because our lives do matter in this system while the lives of our siblings of color are being disregarded, devalued, and ignored.

We must look at ourselves and the forms of racism (and Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, classism, sexism, etc) and all the other forms of hate that we continue to allow to brew within ourselves. Because let’s face it: we all hold within us isms and phobias about people who are different from us, even when we try hard not to. Because these isms and phobias are hundreds of years old and are deeply rooted within all of our systems and institutions. And we have been shaped by them without even being aware of how they have and are affecting us. (And to deny this about systems and ourselves is to be a part of the problem.)

So let’s begin with ourselves and confess our own participation in this! Over and over and over again! And let us call this out for what it is! Let us join together in making this a better world for ALL people, esp. our children!

God, have mercy!!! God, guide us toward a better way!

#blacklivesmatter
#philandocastile and his family matter!