Reflections on a long week

This week has been hard. I've seen both sides of a debate that no one knows the answer too.  I've seen friends post pictures of the most adorable new born sons who are worried that they will not survive to adulthood because of the color of their skin.

There are those in this country who try to say that race is not issue.  However, what happened in August in Ferguson, Missouri is eerily similar to events in Money, Mississippi in August of 1955. It saddens me to that despite our best efforts, as people we have fallen short.  We claim to be a Christian nation but yet we are unable to offer comfort to those who mourn without pointing out why they are unworthy of our love.

How do I justify the privileges that I enjoy because of the color of my skin?    I don’t have to worry that my son will be killed playing in the street by someone who is scared of him.   I will more than likely never feel the pain of losing a child and have him vilified for the world. 

Yet while many people in our nation are suffering because of years of injustice, as a whole this nation will move on.  We will spend the next three days eating turkey, watching football, and spending money.  All too soon, the name Michael Brown will be forgotten just as the names of others who died because of the color of their skin or the strength of their convictions.

By no means am I saying that Michael Brown was a great civil rights leader.  He did not die because of a belief.  He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. His death is now merely a reminder that those who dreamed of a better future may have died in vain.  We let them down when we failed to continue the fight for equality.

As a nation we have a choice to make.  We can wait for pain and memory to ebb and return to life as usual, or we can stand for the belief that “all men are created equal.”  We claim to have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of liberty” in this country yet in the last year it seems that as a nation we have spent less time defending this important right while elevating right of the irresponsible to own a gun.

I don’t know how to fix the problems that we face as a nation, but I do know that none of us can sit on the sidelines.  Our nation will not be great again, until we learn how to be One Nation.

But then what do I know. I'm only a housewife who may be guilty of thinking too much.