Like everyone else in America, I've watched the George Floyd verdict, along with the burning and looting of our cities. I've heard the theory that America was really founded in 1619, and that slavery is a stain our history back not 150 years, but more than 400. I've seen reports that our schools are asking students as young as kindergarteners to understand that their "whiteness" makes them guilty of all of the above.
I'm troubled by much of this intellectually. More pressingly, I'm frightened for our future emotionally.
My niece had a baby in August of last year. That baby is a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. Is he guilty? Merely by virtue of his gender and his color? And of what, exactly? A religious concept that I never understood -- the idea of "original sin" -- seems to have a parallel here. I'm terrified for this child who in my eyes is guilty of nothing, other than sometimes crying too much. And by the way -- this child's great-great grandfather was half black. Does that matter, in some incomprehensible way? Should he be shamed by sins not committed in his lifetime?
In my opinion (and yes, I know what they're like), America needs to take a much more thoughtful, less histrionic, approach to our race issues. Perhaps then we can return to the goals of one of our greatest citizens, Martin Luther King, Jr., and all of God's children may be judged not by the color of their skins, but the contents of their characters.
