Reflecting on The Lives

A black colleague on an anti-racism coalition told me that a man had been killed in Georgia while jogging.  The colleague linked me to a Facebook post.  I was annoyed when the link turned out to be a dead end.  I searched Google, then The New York Times, and I didn’t see anything.  I wondered if the report was true. 

The next day, the video of the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery emerged, and the news went all over the country. Then, I believed it.

When I saw his photo, I noticed the warm smile, the tux he was wearing for some special occasion, and his youth: At just 25, Ahmaud was five years younger than our youngest child.   I watched the video of him being shot and stumbling to his death.  It was that stumble.  I cried for his mother.  Like thousands on May 8, my husband and I pinned signs to our coats and walked the 2.23 miles to signify the date of Ahmaud’s death, on what would have been his 26^th birthday. 

I’m ashamed that I doubted, even for a minute, that yet another young black man had been gunned down while trying to live his life. 

As I work to educate myself about the realities of violence wrought upon on black men and women, I want to turn back to my own reaction.  Was I so fatigued by the news of yet another black man or woman killed at the hands of a white person, that I simply wanted it not to be true?   Was I beginning to “normalize” or become numb to these deaths – the deaths of people who were dearly loved by their mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, cousins, and friends?

And when I turn away from the realities of yet another black life cut off, is it because I have the luxury to be able to do that?  Is it because I live in a society that trusts me so much more than a black person? 

John, in today’s Second Reading, delves into God’s great and unimaginable love for us and goes on to say, “If God so loved us, we must also love one another.” If it’s part of God’s vision for the world that we love one another, this, then, means we have to know one another, not simply as statistics, but as people.    

Ahmaud Arbery’s mother called her son “Baby Boy.” She told in one news report how, when he was growing up and she was giving him a scolding, he would give her one particular funny face.  It never failed to make his mom laugh.  Breonna Taylor’s mother said Breonna was an EMT who wanted to become a nurse, buy a house, and start a family.  Breonna was killed less than three weeks after Ahmaud Arbery. 

Rayshard Brooks took his daughter to get her nails done, the day before the party for her eighth birthday. Rayshard could not be at the birthday party because he was shot and killed the night before, on June 12.  George Floyd was loyal to his place of work, giving hugs to the regular customers and staying late to clean up.  He had a girlfriend, and they prayed over every meal, no matter what was going on in their lives, she said.  Mr. Floyd was killed on May 25.

“How can anyone fail to see the resonances with Jesus on the Cross?” the Jesuit author James Martin, SJ asks in an article this month (“The Holy Spirit is Moving Us to Act Against Racism,” America Magazine). “Two thousand years ago, Roman soldiers pressed down a wooden cross on Jesus’s body, as other soldiers stood by, and as Jesus died, he cried out, ‘I thirst’ (Jn 19:28). Last month, a police officer pressed a knee down on George Floyd’s body, as other police officers stood by, and as George Floyd died, he cried out, ‘Water.’ So if you weep for Jesus on the Cross, and do not weep for George Floyd, then you are missing the point.”

Today, on June 19, or Juneteenth, the Spiritus Anti-Racism Coalition is supporting the fourth annual ROC Juneteenth 5K Run/Walk, and we are running or walking in memory of Ahmaud Arbery.  It is appropriate that we run for someone who could not take a run in his neighborhood because of the color of his skin.  You can run this race at your own pace because it is “virtual.” 

As you run or walk, also keep in mind Mr. Floyd, Mr. Brooks, and Ms Taylor, along with the late Sandra Bland, the late Michael Brown, the late Terrence Crutcher, the late Eric Garner, the late Oscar Grant, the late Freddie Gray, the late Botham Jean, the late Trayvon Martin, the late Tamir Rice, and the late Dominique White, just to name a few black men and women who have been taken away from us too early, violently, and unjustly.  You may still sign up at:  https://juneteenth5k.itsyourrace.com//event.aspx?id=9320

Juneteenth is the anniversary of the ending of slavery in this country, on June 19, 1865.  As we witness the continuous oppression of our black brothers and sisters today, we see that the road to justice is long.  I don’t think we can get there until we recognize God’s great love is not just for some of us, but for all of us.