Sometimes as I witness society’s reaction, my soul is left disturbed.
Perhaps like several of you, I have turned off the television after my jaw dropped too many times watching reaction to George Zimmerman being found “not guilty” of the murder of teen Trayvon Martin. Was he really “not guilty”? Was he “guilty”?! I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t even in the courtroom. Like positions, however, have not kept others from adamant declarations.
The reality is that Trayvon Martin’s tragic death has evolved into an issue of race. It shouldn’t be. The question should be whether or not a criminal act took place. However, declarations of innocence and guilt have seemingly since been driven more by ethnicity than on evidence — or the lack of it.
Does skin color matter?
Unfortunately, to too many, it does…
… it matters to the female convenience store clerk, shown on a YouTube video, who told an African-American pastor, “We don’t serve your kind”…
… it matters to the Illinois, African-American man who beat up an American caucasian because he was so mad at “white boys”…
… it matters to CNN’s Nancy Grace, who during jury deliberations, said “[Hispanic Zimmerman’s been] out on bond, driving through Taco Bell every night, having a churro.”
It matters to too many whites… too many blacks… too many Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, etc. Unfortunately, it matters.
My current sense is that most of the protests after the Zimmerman verdict were peaceful. (Note: the most sensational moments — however infrequent — receive the most media attention.) Still, seemingly intelligent (and not so intelligent) persons say disturbing things…
For example, in response to the verdict, an associate professor at the typically esteemed, Ivy League’s University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Religious Studies called God a “white racist.” Excuse me, but this professor who is teaching our children, is she attempting to divide — or to heal unite?
I look forward, friends, to a day when skin color truly does not matter to any of us… when it doesn’t matter to the whites, to the blacks, to every other color God created. I look forward when there exists no justified prejudice — stemming either from initial ignorance or from retaliatory response.
I look forward to the lion laying down with the lamb… the leopard lying down with the goat… the cow feeding alongside the bear and their young lying down together. I look forward to a day when none of the external “stuff” we so passionately cling to matters, when none of us judge by what we see with our eyes or hear with our ears. I look forward to us being directed more by a Spirit of wisdom and understanding than by skin color and self.
I look forward to that day. For each of us. All of us. Only then will skin color truly not matter.
Respectfully… always…
AR