It’s early in the morning and everyone in my house is still sleeping. I woke up hours ago. That’s pretty typical in our family. It seems that I’ve always been the early riser in the bunch. But in light of the realities currently facing our country, I feel like I’m the one waking up later.
The funny thing is that you don’t even know you’re asleep until you wake up and realize that you’ve been asleep. Even crazier is the fact that when some people sleepwalk, you and I would swear that they’re awake. The stories I could tell you about the sleepwalking episodes in my family alone would prove that true. And yet, sleepwalkers are, in fact, sleeping.
I think I’ve been sleepwalking around racism and the racial tensions and injustices in our nation. I’d see the videos and hear the names – Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, among others – and if you had asked me if I was outraged, I think I would have said I was. Emphasis on the word “think.”
And then George Floyd happened. Or rather, the same thing happened to George Floyd. I sat in the room where I spend my early mornings with Jesus and pulled up a video that I was already telling myself couldn’t be as bad as what it sounded like. And then I watched. I wept. I listened to his cries for help. For air. For his mother. I heard the cries of people begging the officer to check him for a pulse. To notice that he was no longer moving. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to jump through the screen. I wanted someone to do something. And in that dimly lit room, watching the sun rise as I watched a life fade, I woke up.
Admittedly, I may still be sitting on the side of my bed stretching and rubbing my eyes, but something shifted in me – and I think, in our country – as I watched George Floyd die. Something that was bigger than color, or slogans, or hashtags. This was un-human and it caused many of us to lift our sleepy heads, look into the mirror, and see the horror of who we have become and who we are becoming.
Most of us remember the unity that we all felt in the days following the horrific attacks on September 11, 2001. We heard the stories of brave men and women who entered burning buildings to save others at the cost of their own lives. One story emerged of Todd Beamer’s final words as he and others prepared to take the plane back from the hijackers. They were few – and the last two were simply, “Let’s roll.”
This past weekend, I walked the streets of my town with a hundred or so others and I listened to them chant: “I can’t breathe. No justice – No peace. Black lives matter. All lives matter. Say his name: George Floyd.” What struck me as the chants echoed in the streets was how familiar they were. I’d heard these cries before – albeit with different names – and yet I felt like I was hearing them differently, like when someone talks to you as you wake up from a dream. It seems the words are a part of the dream until you realize they were the very words that woke you up.
[Tweet “We are the human race, and if the human race is to also be a humane race, it’s going to take all of us waking up and standing together.”]It dawned on me that I had seen 9/11 as something that happened to us, but all the racial injustice as something that had been happening to them. But this isn’t a fight that only one group should fight, because this is a reflection of who we have become as a nation, as a culture, as a race. We are the human race, and if the human race is to also be a humane race, it’s going to take all of us waking up and standing together against the forces that want to divide us (and believe me, there are forces at work in the natural and spiritual that want to keep us at war – but that’s for another post at another time).
[Tweet “If one of us can’t breathe, then none of us can breathe.”]If one of us can’t breathe, then none of us can breathe. And when we see it like that, staying asleep – even sleepwalking – is no longer an option. It’s time to wake up, get up, and speak up.
The issues of social injustice, systemic racism, and racial inequality are bigger than any one of us, and defeating them will require every one of us. It will require that “their” slogans become “our” cry. As I’ve said to many leaders of color in my own city, I am deeply grieved at how long it has taken me to wake up, but I’m awake now and I hear you. I see you. And if you’ll allow me, I will be with you.
[Tweet “The issues we’re facing are bigger than any one of us and defeating them will require every one of us.”]It’s time for action, and because this is a defining moment when we – especially the we that is the beautiful mosaic of the Church – must rise together against the demonic forces at work to destroy us, I’d like to close with the powerful, resolute, final words spoken by Todd Beamer:
“You ready. Okay, let’s roll.”
Thanks Paul – what a powerful article!
Thanks, Jay!