Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your way, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians
Elected officials in Congress, in state capitals, in county commission and select board meeting rooms, in halls of justice and city council chambers must bear the ultimate responsibility for ensuring the rage and outcry over George Floyd’s death gets translated into action and change.
Former President Barack Obama said as much in an online post on Monday: “The more specific we can make demands for criminal justice and police reform, the harder it will be for elected officials to just offer lip service to the cause and then fall back into business as usual once protests have gone away,” wrote Obama.
Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers ignited a volcano that will not quit erupting and spewing proverbial lava into every corner of American life. This week’s protests, President Trump’s reaction to them, and international attention focused on American unrest prove that racial injustice, once and for all, will finally take its place as the No. 1 problem in the United States. After weeks spent showing a unified front in the face of coronavirus, America is fragmented and divided with various factions pointing accusing fingers at the police, Trump, the protesters and their violent fringe, and anyone standing on the sidelines attempting to take it all in. Streets that were empty a month ago are now filled with smoke and chaos. The front line still occupied by essential workers has been bisected by the one held by racial justice protesters.
How will Americans cross the many divides separating them from productive action on racial justice? Most of us know nothing about living as a black person in America. Even fewer of us know what law enforcement work entails day in and day out. George Floyd died on May 25. As the outrage over his death approaches its third week, the leadership vacuum is growing greater day by day. Who will bring all sides in this fractured nation together to identify the problems and agree on the solutions? Who will stand up and say, “It is time for change and here is the path to it”? Perhaps the answers are to be found in the documents we celebrate and quote one month from now: The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Our white slave-owning Founding Fathers wrote these documents but the words in them have endured and now is the time to put them to the test.
