Prayers for Charleston

My heart is heavy today, and I just can’t seem to shake the sadness.

I went to bed last night to the news that someone opened fire at the historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, SC during Wednesday night Bible study.  Even though I heard and saw the breaking news story before I lay down, something would not let me believe that this had really happened.

I woke up a few hours later, turned on the television, and what I was hoping was a very bad dream turned out to be a reality.  Nine people killed as they attended Bible study.  Others were injured.  I heard a report that a 5 year old child played dead, and that’s what spared the child’s life.

When I realized this shooting in Charleston was indeed real, I thought of the church bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham of 1963.  Another act of hate carried out on sacred ground.  Innocent Black lives lost. 

But … my mind kept racing and wandering.

Unarmed Black men in this country are killed at an alarming rate, and rarely do their killers face any consequences … even when they go to trial.

Police brutalize our children in the streets … and at pool parties, too.

Many Southern states are trying to pass laws to restrict our voting rights.

There have even been recent stories of lynchings in South.  Remember hearing about Lennon Lacy?

People have taken to the streets in protest or have staged sit-ins to demand equal rights and opportunities and to take a stand against injustice.

And now this … innocent people are attacked and killed at a house of worship ... a place of refuge.

Remind me again what year this is?  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

These same headlines from 2015 could just have easily been ones my parents read about and saw on the news and lived through in the 1960s.  People fought, marched, and died so this generation – OUR generation – could have unmatched and unlimited freedoms.  So my rhetorical question of the day is this … why are the same things that happened decades ago during the Civil Rights Era recurring now with such frequency? 

It’s sad.  It’s disheartening.  It’s a shame.

Have we really overcome?

My heart breaks for these families, for this church family, for this community, and for our country.

God be with us all.

Pardon Our Sensitivity ...

Sometimes the best way to approach a subject is just to go ahead and put it all out there.  So, here goes …

It is 2015.  Why is the presence of the Confederate flag in the South STILL a big issue? 

If you know me personally or if you have been following my blog, you know I was born and raised in South Carolina.  Even today, South Carolina still flies the Confederate flag over its state capital.  And year after year it has been made abundantly clear to South Carolinians and to everyone else in the world that the flag ain’t going anywhere, either.

There was a story circulating in my local area a few weeks ago about some high school students who took a picture at a historical site in Gettysburg and posted the picture on Instagram with the caption, “The South will rise again.”  Later on in the comments, someone posted the remark that they had already purchased their first slave.  That comment was supposed to have been a joke according to the person who posted it.  Well … not funny. 

In another recent local news story, a student at Duke University hung a noose on a tree, forgot about it, and left it there for the entire campus to see.  That student later issued an apology that went something sort of like this.  My bad.  I didn’t realize hanging a noose on a tree in the South was a big deal.  (Yes, this is my loose translation of that “apology”.)

I was reading the comments on the pages of my local news stations and on social media, and I found the overwhelming sentiments on that flag incident I mentioned are that “we” (READ – Black people) just need to get over it.  The Confederate flag is a part of Southern history, and “we” need to accept its historical significance, stop being so sensitive, and basically shut the hell up.

Well, I can agree with one thing.  The Confederate flag is indeed a part of Southern history.  What I don’t agree with is that “we” need to accept the flag and all it symbolizes as being okay to wave, wear, or revere.  And here’s what baffles me the most.   Why is it so difficult for some people to comprehend why the Confederate flag strikes such a nerve with Black people? 

Supporters of this flag are quick to say that Black folks need a history lesson on the significance of the flag.  The flag symbolizes history and not hatred.  And here’s my favorite … “we” are racists if we get offended by the flag.  What kind of stuck-on-stupid reverse psychology is that supposed to be? 

When I think of the Confederate flag, I think of how it was present at every lynching of Black people by angry mobs.  When I think of the Confederate flag, I think of how it was waved after homes and churches of Black people were bombed and burned to the ground.  When I think of the Confederate flag, I see it being carried by hooded members of the KKK as they spread their doctrine of White supremacy and as they tried to strike fear the lives of Black people by leaving burning crosses for all to see.  When I think of the Confederate flag, I see it flying highly and freely by crowds of people attempting to block the doors of schools as National Guard troops escorted children to school during the times of integration.   

Clearly, the Confederate flag has a drastically different meaning for some of us.  So … dear kind sir or ma’am, please excuse us Black folks for being overly sensitive.  What are “we” thinking?!?!?