Who Are We, After All?

Riots are erupting around the country after yet another black man was killed by one who has committed to "protect and serve". Rioters are inflamed with anger after years of living under this false promise without consequence across the country. The dark shadow of slavery still falls across the land. This is a fever that we must shake if we're to survive. And all of us suffer under a president who responds by calling out the military and saying, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts",  exposing the blatant materialism of our national religion that values property above lives.

 

We have a terrifying image to face––that of our own visage in the mirror! What kind of people are we? We have sunk to the lowest point of our history just at the moment when we have achieved so many glorious successes! Let's not be distracted by the entertaining antics of the clown in the White House. The fact that he's risen to become our leader tells us something chilling about ourselves. The dream of a better society that Obama represented was beautiful and hopeful, but it stirred the terrible racist devil that is our shadow. And now we must deal with it.

Finally, we can see that shadow that's been hidden for decades and centuries under the layers of civility and civic pride, now raw and exposed before us. We have the chance to repent, to grieve our shortcomings and work together to implement the beautiful ideas laid out in the US constitution; the great gifts of civilized comforts that our forefathers and mothers fought to achieve for our sakes, laid out like a banquet before us. What have we done with those gifts? Have we created a better world? Would they be proud? Or have we merely retreated into our separate cells to drown ourselves in self stimulation––like addicts––without purpose, without vision, without community?

It is up to us to declare if this is the people we are after all––after all this history, after all their sacrifices––is this really who we are?