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Please Don't Shoot
Another mama's brown baby is dead. Another daddy is asking for calm as he prepares to bury his son. Michael Brown - an unarmed teen two days away from starting college - was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, last Saturday. While details are still unclear, it is crystal clear that another brown boy is dead.
My son, Christopher, was the same age as Trayvon Martin when he was gunned down in Florida. Christopher is now the same age as Michael Brown. It is especially chilling to read of these tragedies while your child, who matches the profile of the targeted person, sleeps in the next room. Imagine if red-headed girls with freckles were being killed and your child fit the profile. You would not want her out of your sight.
But Christopher is often out of my sight - working and preparing to start school in the fall. He is all over this city at all hours of the day and night, and shrugs off my cautions about being a silky, dark-chocolate male in NYC. I pray for him every day, and I hold on to my faith in a God who loves my son as much as He loves his own. In fact, Christopher, Trayvon, and Michael are all God's own. And, much as it may pain us to admit it, the shooters are God's own as well.
This Sunday during the morning prayer we will raise our hands, an ancient prayer position as well as the position individuals take when communicating to police that they are unarmed and not dangerous, as Howard University students did earlier this week. This will be our shared gesture for the prayer.
You will be invited to:
Tonight at 7PM, you can join Chad at a Vigil in Union Square to honor the victims of police brutality. Come to church Sunday, Middle family. We will once again do what churches do in times of sorrow and despair. We will sing, we will pray, we will listen for a word from our God. We will break bread together and perhaps wail together. We will weep and hug the children in our community as we think together about God's call to love one another and heal the world.
You are loved,
Adriene |
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