STAND UP SPEAK UP

It’s difficult to know what to say at times like this. But it has been said many times over the last few days that silence is not an option, silence is part of the problem. This isn’t a conversation to avoid or overlook.

I, like you have been appalled by the death of a fellow human being. George Floyd was a son, a brother and a father but he was killed in the middle of a street by people who were supposed to protect him because he had more skin pigment than I do. Worse still, George Floyd is not the first. His name is another name on a list spanning generations - that is painfully and agonisingly long - of black men and women who have been killed because of their skin colour.

Racism is something I’ve never experienced. It’s something neither of my boys will ever experience. It feels uncomfortable to talk about something I have no first-hand experience of, but this should feel uncomfortable. It feels difficult when I don’t know what to say, but it’s too important to ignore.

The reality is that this isn’t an “over there” problem, or a “someone else problem”. This is my problem and your problem, because this a people problem. Racism is all around us, sometimes it is overt, sometimes it is subtle and disguised, but it always starts with “me”.

It starts with humbling ourselves and confronting attitudes and prejudices that exist within us. It starts with the way we teach our children and the things we say around them. It starts with the conversations we tolerate. It starts with breaking the silence we’ve kept. It starts with educating ourselves about our history, our true history, without skewed perspectives or whitewashing. It starts in our homes and in our hearts.

As people who want to live and love like Jesus, there is no place for prejudice, bigotry or racism of any kind. Jesus died for everyone because he loves everyone. Everyone is valuable and everyone is worth everything to God. If I don’t see what Jesus sees when I look at other people, then it’s me that needs to change, I am the one with the vision problem.

Black people, brown people, white people; we are all created in God’s image and to deny this truth because someone has a different amount of skin pigment isn’t what following Jesus looks like.

I won’t allow my children to grow up thinking that their friends are different because of the colour of their skin. I don’t want to live in a world where I have to answer my son’s questions about why a policeman knelt on the neck of a dying man for 8 minutes and 46 seconds because he was a black.

Today is a day for humility, education and repentance. But it’s not a momentary reprise, this is forever.

We stand with our black brothers and sisters worldwide, now and forever. We love you, we see you, we hear you and we’re fighting beside you.

PASTOR JAMIE CLAY