Hello everyone. It is with a heavy heart that I write this today. Yet, I also feel if I stay silent as a white American and a writer, I do not do justice to this man or his family. I also ignore the glaring problem of systemic racism in this country, and I refuse to participate in that kind of ignorance and wanton sin.
George Floyd was murdered by one police officer and 3 others watched. How many other countless times as this happened? How many countless times have we looked in horror and then gone on with our lives as if nothing happened? How many times have white Americans brushed aside the concerns of the black community in this country as if they did not matter? The answer to these questions is too many times to count! The time has come for a culture shift to happen. The time has come to no longer look over these things but look right at them and run into them head on. The time has come to deal with America’s heart sickness, once and for all!
The American heart sickness is called Racism. Mr. Floyd’s death is but a symptom of that racism and its deep seeded roots in our institutions and history. The time to deal with this is now! The time for the hard conversations that lead to healing is now! The time for silence is long gone. The time for across the board institutional change in police departments and other institutions is now! White America, the time to understand what our black brother and sisters in America are trying to tell us is now! The time for compassion is now! The time for difficult questions is now! The time for distraction, downplaying, and ignoring the giant, gaping wound we have in America’s heart is over! Racism is an infection and America must lance the wound and take the medicine to heal the infection. It will not be comfortable white America and it will not be pleasant, but it will heal the patient and mend the heart of America.
What is the good news? The good news is hope has come and we have help to do this in this nation. We have King Jesus! We also have a choice ladies and gentlemen. We have a choice to change the trajectory of this country and bring racism to its knees. The King has come! His Dominion is justice, peace, love and hope against such no one can stand. I have seen His Dominion manifest in this country in the last 48 hours. You will continue to see more of Him in the coming days. Do not be afraid of the twittering of others with less revelation. Do not be afraid of those who would say, “there is no racism, it does not exist” or of those who would hijack peaceful protests – for they serve the same master – Racism itself. We are not the dumb Americans some think us to be. The King has come to crush Racism under His feet! The King has come to restore all that has been taken from black Americans in the name of Racism. The King has come to bring justice in places of government and institutions country wide. King Jesus has come to heal America’s wound!
America, I truly believe that peace, love, justice, and unity will reign once again in this country, but we must pursue healing in order to get there. We must have those hard conversations. We must see other perspectives. We must move out of selfishness and into otherness. We must choose these things for ourselves. We do this one person at a time, one day at a time. Let us chase after our healing as hard as we chase after our rights! Let us become one nation under the King once again!
With love and truth,
Elizabeth