Dallas: I’m Ashamed

Dallas: I’m Ashamed May 30, 2020

Screenshot/E. Schaffer

Dallas: I’m Ashamed

 

The hour is late.  I can’t sleep.  Tonight, I’ve watched the nation burn.  Theologically, I don’t have a problem with the destruction of the property of the oppressor.  Jesus destroyed everything he could get his hands on in the Temple.  In the midst of this moment, I don’t believe that Jesus would hesitate to torch a police car…or even destroy a predatory business.  The problem is that current rioting is indiscriminate.  In the chaos, people are destroying the very necessities that they need to survive.  Such reactions are not the fault of the oppressor…they are the fault of organizers/community leaders who are bringing people together with no idea how to achieve anything resembling justice (who are ultimately becoming oppressors in and of themselves). George Floyd didn’t die for rioters to burn down the only source of food/medicine that a community has. George Floyd didn’t die for random people to beat the shit out of each other in the streets.  George Floyd didn’t die for this.

 

The most disturbing set of images that I saw tonight came out of Dallas.  I didn’t go tonight for one primary reason.  The organizer of the event is an arrested/indicted/convicted/repeated abuser of both women and children.  In time, I’ve realized that violent people create situations of violence that spare no victims.  From my home, that is exactly what I witnessed.  Instead of sticking around to demand limits on the chaos, the organizer/and other local leadership were nowhere to be found.  In their absence, I watched something that I never want to see again.  I haven’t given my life to the cause of justice for this.

 

In the midst of a stalled intersection, multiple young black men attacked an older black man.  Within seconds, they had ripped the older man out of his vehicle and were beating the shit out of him.  Punch after punch and kick after kick connected with their intended target.  Some cheered. Others gawked.  Nobody did anything to help for a considerable amount of time.  Within seconds of his life, he managed to escape.  George Floyd didn’t die for those punches.  George Floyd didn’t die for those kicks.  George Floyd didn’t die for any of that shit. 

 

Beating innocent people has nothing to do with justice. 

 

I’m ashamed that there are people in Dallas who ever thought that it did.

 

Amen.


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