At 6:00am today, I had been up for about two and a half hours already. I had showered, dressed, hopped in my car in the dark, and headed for the airport. At 6:00am today, my flight took off on time, lifting wheels off the tarmac and flying up and over St. Louis. Up and over my brothers and sisters who gathered in South City at the very same time to honor and recognize the six months that have passed since Michael Brown was shot and killed in the streets of Ferguson. Six months since his body was left in the streets for four and a half hours. Six months since I watched St. Louis turn itself inside out in grief. Six months since there were tanks in the streets of my city. Six months.
The night Michael Brown died, I sat in my daughter's dark room, holding and rocking her before bed. We said prayers, and as I prayed aloud for Michael Brown, for his family, and for grace to be found in the tensions we could already feel, I began to cry. As I felt her body in my arms, as I imagined Michael's body in the street, I did not know what else to do but pray and cry.
I'll admit that what I watched unfold in St. Louis immediately thereafter robbed me of my words. I did not know how to speak to what was happening. I could see the police response to protests escalating. I could see the expressions of grief in the protesters being met with violence and suppression. I could see that suppressed grief bursting forth. I could see it moving all around me. But I did not have words. For this, I repent.
So, I listened to a lot of words from people who were witnessing to the experience. I listened to voices who were speaking out against police brutality. I listened to voices who outlined a history of racial tensions in St. Louis. I listened to those who spoke about segregation, about the stunningly uneven distribution of wealth in St. Louis, and about how it all neatly fell along carefully drawn lines of small municipalities, which were then being carefully guarded by more police forces than I could count. I listened as people explained white privilege, oppression, systematic injustice, racism. I listened to stories from friends about how they have to explain that police are not always there to help. I listened to stories of friends being trailed by shop owners who profile them. I have listened to stories of friends being pulled over for driving while black. I have listened.
And from all that listening, I began to examine myself: my whiteness and my privilege, my call to ministry in the Christian faith. I began to examine how Christianity itself has been a vehicle of oppression and white supremacy, a means of holding Euro-centric societal norms in check for longer than we Christians would care to admit. I am examining the history of lynching and race riots and of churches that stay silent about them on Sunday mornings. I examined my own tradition, and I examined my spirit, and I began to find words.
They are words that I am still learning how to pronounce correctly: justice, reconciliation, repentance, privilege, prophetic, liberation, ally, protest, holy anger, creative response, grace. I'm learning how to say, "Black lives matter," and then I'm learning how to say more than just that. I'm learning.
Today, I arrived at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference and am learning about the activist, minister, and educator who the conference honors. I am learning about what he called, "The Scratch Line," and I am learning about his work. I am learning about the social justice work that is carried out in his name. And I am learning how to speak up and act out a witness of justice in this world.
Six months ago, the world wasn't all that different than it was the day before or the decade before or the century before. I'm learning that. But six months ago was the first time I was able to catch a glimpse at it. It was the first time I couldn't turn away. I know that it was privilege and downright ignorance that kept me from seeing before. But this time, there's no turning back. No turning back.
