Soapbox

Image found on flickr

When someone cares about race relations or gender issues in America, can we stop shaming them for it?

You know what I mean too. Many of us who have access to my feed know me and the people I hang with. The beautiful thing is we're all different.

Stop trying to pick a side saying only one side is right and the other all wrong. I'm not talking about gray areas either bit not everything needs to cause a polar divide.

Calling for justice for Mike Brown but that doesn't mean I hate authority. I weep every time I hear about officers or other civil servants who perish in the line of duty.

Just because I'm paying attention to Ferguson (and all the other places in America where people of color still face daily discrimination) does not mean I'm not aware of so many other issues like the plight of Iraqi Christians.

Sidebar- what about all the others who refuse to convert who are being massacred too? Do you care about their eternity or just the Christians?

Back to the matter at hand, this whole perfect victim thing is baloney! That guy who shot up the movie theater I Colorado, his narrative in the media was about how smart he was. The man killed people, injured people and I'm sure left emotional scars but he was taken into custody alive, not wounded.

You may ask what does that have to do with this? I'm play in the card many others are- it's called distracting. If people can bring up the fact that Brown liked rap music, and the lack of fatherhood crisis and the "nobody riots when cops get shot" then we miss the opportunity for dialog about the current issue.

All of these other things need to be addressed bit not when asking for justice not just for Mike Brown but for many men of color. This militarization of the police for should concern us all. What are they having to deal with that its come to this?

Look the desire of my heart is for unity. My prayer is that we would love and another deeply. But I'm not going to ignore the elephant in the room and hope it goes away, it hasn't and we have to deal with it.

I hope the members of the Church would come together and bring solutions not other distractions. I hope instead of staying in our own boxes we would break through to love.

As you hear all these accounts and see a video of a theft, that the officer didn't know about, remember Brown was someone's son, family member, friend.

You can relegate him to deserving to die for a petty crime if you want.

You can say it's because I'm black so I can't "really" see what's going on.

You can have your own opinion and I'll continue to have mine.

But while you're busy trying to pick a side, and prove a right versus wrong, I'm going to be here praying for all the families involved,  yes including Officer Wilson.

I'm praying for my city and its officials and my nation. I'm getting involved in it, serving in some way to move things forward.

*still on the box*

this originally appeared on my Facebook page