We cannot see Alton Sterling without thinking of Eric Garner; we cannot hear Diamond Reynolds without thinking of Sybrina Fulton; we cannot speak of St. Paul, Minnesota, without thinking of Ferguson, Missouri.
And then today, there is Dallas. The murder of five police officers and violence like it must be condemned and fought: these officers too were children of God. But theirs cannot be the only story that is told. There are too many others that cannot be forgotten.
Even while our senses and sensibilities are overwhelmed by this violence, the terrible core of the system and structures that bind all of these deaths together must be confronted, because after years of protests, outrage and public outcry, we still cannot escape it. It keeps coming. If not at the hands of the police, then in poisoned pipes and shuttered homes. The message is loud and clear: no, all lives do not matter.
And yet, the voices against this violence are many and growing. We may not hear them in the media cycles of network or cable news, but they are gaining moral ground.
[aesop_image img=”https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Am-I-Next.jpg” credit=”Tony Webster” alt=”‘Am I Next?’ – a protesters holds a sign at a rally outside the Minnesota Governor’s Mansion. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Protester at a rally outside the Minnesota Governor’s mansion.” captionposition=”left”]
These voices are saying that, again, it is night and our hearts are shattered. And that we are tired of protesting, adding names to a never-ending list, and demanding and affirming that our lives matter. That this blatant impunity and racist abuse of state power must stop.
And there are voices today, who, like Harriet Tubman, tell us to keep going, for our children and their children. As Rev. Barber writes, we must “refuse to allow Alton and Philando’s memory to die or for their lives to be dismissed, distorted, or denounced. Blood is crying from the ground and let it trouble the very soul of America until it is a clear reality. No one has a right to kill a child and creation of God. No one!”
These voices remind us that, thousands of years ago, Jesus wept. And out of his sorrow, as the Rev. Sarah Monroe from Chaplains on the Harbor has said, “He gathered up the battered and burdened and…He told them they would save the world. And he told the religious leaders and the upstanding citizens to join them, to accept their leadership. That was Jesus’ good news…”
In the Bhagavad Gita, the god Krishna reveals the fullness of his divinity to Arjuna only briefly and it shakes the warrior to his bones. What he sees is not only the entire universe, divided in many ways but standing all together as one in Krishna’s form (11.13); he sees also a radiance that is scorching the universe, removing its unwanted and overgrown elements to replace them with a divine splendor yet unknown to the world. (11.30) “What is this Krishna,” Arjuna asks, “with a form so terrible?” Krishna responds that He is the destroyer of a world that is unjust. And he tells Arjuna to stand and fight for what is just, knowing that fight is God’s fight (11.32-34). This is the power and glory we have on our side and it is being awakened in the voices that are being brought together in the face of all this violence.
These are our voices. We are listening to each other and we are standing together, preparing to bring some good news.
Top photo: Credit Lorie Shaull.