Hard Truths

Remembering George Floyd:    It’s Fire This Time “ Can a man take fire in his bosom and not be burned?” (Proverbs 6:27) I grew up in church. Specifically, evangelical churches. I am a proud follower of Jesus. I am also at an age where I have the privilege of seeing “Then” vs “Now”. It’s a privilege that brings me pain: for what I thought the Christian gospel was (then); and because what I thought to be true has—certainly in the west—been hijacked and packaged as a twisted, racist, ineffectual parody of itself (now).             As the world-changing fallout from George Floyd’s murder has grown, so has my pain. I will share it with you in this series of 5 blogs. Let’s start with the too-little-too-late pronouncements now being made by some evangelical leaders using  their Big Microphones  to decry the killing of George Floyd. You know from previous blogs what I mean by Big Microphones. Its acc...

HARD TRUTHS   Remembering George Floyd: Who are the Criminals? “Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them."   Gen. 6: 11-13, KJV) In Equal Rights , his haunting salute to the Black struggle in the 1970s, Jamaican Conscious Reggae singer the late Peter Tosh says it like no-one else: “Everyone is talking about crime…Tell me who are the criminals… Everyone is heading for the top. But tell me, how far is it from the bottom?” Like Black people everywhere, many of my White friends have reached out to us for help in making sense of the pent up anger that has exploded into the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. In response to these requests we are sometimes tempted to  channel award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodg...

HARD TRUTHS   Remembering George Floyd: Where's the Social Gospel? “We cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life” . Pope Francis on the killing of George Floyd              I grew up during the 1970s in evangelical churches. We lived in the shadow of the turbulent 60s, a time when like the response to George Floyd’s death, former colonized peoples pushed against the knees of their oppressors on their necks. Angola. Jamaica. Zimbabwe. Cuba. Albania. Kenya. Many Latin American countries. Here in North America Watts and Harlem burned, triggering the by now familiar response to the revolutionary call of Black Power.                         Maybe it was the urgency of the times. Or maybe it was because evangelicals were ‘heavenly minded...

Remembering George Floyd: An Open Letter to my White (Church) Brethren who Reached Out “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? …Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” ( Jesus. Matthew 10: 29-30) Dear Brethren: (I use the term for brevity. I also mean sistren). The pain-filled days since George Floyd was brutally killed by a White Police Officer have been a roller coaster of emotions for all of us. I have felt the solace of your comforting words as I grieved for another Black man cut down in his prime by a system that was supposed to protect him, a man that could just as easily have been my son; my brother; or my friend. We have confessed to each other the anger we feel; the frustration; the helplessness that so often threatens hope. You have summoned grace in the face of times when the Black mother and Resister in me probably made you uncomfortable. You understood. And you pressed in. As one of you said in an email to me: “We could see and hear your h...

Remembering George Floyd: A Statement that Nails It Many organizations have made statements and commitments in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Here is one, in my opinion, that nails it. It’s from the Why Not Theatre. We are not making a statement. We are making a vow, a public commitment, to our values and our feelings in order to hold ourselves accountable, and for you, the community to hold us accountable, as colleagues and friends. We are not okay. Our colleagues are not okay. The atrocious, inhumane murders of Black people at the hands of police officers in both Canada and the US are exemplary of the racism that affects the lives of Black people every day. This racist system is inextricably embedded in our arts sector and in the people who live and work within it, and it is on us all to rise and address these racist beliefs head on. To our diverse Black communities: we stand beside you, we grieve with you, and we commit to dismantling the systems of powe...