Midlife Creative

As I pause today to remember George Floyd and his family, I also pause to consider how his murder has changed me.

I didn’t grieve for Philando Castillo or the other innocent victims who were killed before him.

I didn’t grieve the treatment of slaves, and the killing of black bodies throughout history.

I didn’t know that thirty-eight Dakota men were hung from a gallows in Mankato, MN in 1862. Their deaths scarred generations of native people and cemented Minnesota as home to the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

I didn’t learn until recently about the mistreatment of indigenous children taken from their parents and forced to attend “assimilation schools” where they were instructed to abandon their way of life which was thought inferior to the ways of white people.

I didn’t know about Mary Turner, an 18 year old pregnant black woman who was tied upside down from a tree and burned to death for questioning her innocent husband’s death. Her unborn baby was cut from her body and trampled. Her story, as shocking as it is, is only one of thousands of stories of the torturing of black bodies in the U.S. Most of the white men who committed these crimes were let free and continue to be let free.

I didn’t grieve the unjust systems throughout our history that put people in categories and burned down black neighborhoods, including the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, OK, where over 300 African Americans were murdered in 2 days. At the order of the Oklahoma government and National guard, more than 6,000 black citizens were arrested. Not one White person was arrested. The looting and rioting that happened following George Floyd’s death was built on generations upon generations of anger over the wrongs of the past.

I was blinded to my own racist thoughts and tendencies. I was lost in a sea of “nice white people”.

Until last summer. George Floyd’s death was a wake up call.

I am not the same. Nothing is the same.
I can no longer ignore the racism all around me. Some say we’ve come a long way, but for me, I’m just beginning.

Lament and repentance is the first step to change. Forgiveness and healing cannot begin until we all become more aware of the historical roots of the problem and acknowledge the harm caused. As I have begun to dig a little and learn about the black and indigenous history in this country that many like to white wash and cover up, doing nothing and saying nothing is no longer an option.

In Latasha Morrison’s book Be the Bridge – Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation, she writes, “Have you ever been afraid of someone just because of the color of his or her skin? If you have, whether you’re white, black, or brown, you have confession work to do”. I have realized that I fear what I do not know. And I believe what I have been told. I was told that the city is a dangerous place and that the most dangerous neighborhoods are filled with people who are not white. I believed this stereotype.

I am sorry for my silence. I will use my voice and privilege to bring about change along with the incredible generation of truth tellers and justice seekers that come behind me – my children. It often feels they are leading me as I try to catch up.

Black Lives Matter.
They always have, but now I’m finally seeing why.