Hatred, Like Love, Starts at Home

Yesterday we left the house and ran off to the wild to find some signs of life together. We waded through the rushing stream to get across. We fished for algae and threw rocks. He fell in. We dried his shoes and clothes out in the sun. We laid on our backs and watched the trees wave at us, and we waved back. He told me “This is just the best day of my life. I’ve got you. I’ve got this river. This is just the best day ever...” I told him I’d love him forever.
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Another innocent, unarmed Black man has been shot and killed. This time it was Ahmad Arbery, a 25 year old who was out jogging in late February when two white supremacists chased him down and killed him. There is now video footage. The names of his killers are known. Nothing has been done to bring justice for this murder.
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I feel the need to speak to the white women here for a second, especially my fellow mothers. To the ones who reach for their purses or lock their car doors when they spot a Black man in the vicinity. To the ones who see big black boys and think “troublemaker.” To the ones who may have taught their children, even inadvertently, that a white neighborhood is the same thing as a “safe” neighborhood. I feel the need to speak to the ones who are willing to vote for a racist president for the sake of a “pro-life” agenda that is clearly only pro-white-upper-middle-class-life. I too have felt afraid. I have racially profiled. I have judged a human by their skin color. Then I watched as white people suspiciously began to eye Zion as he grows taller and bigger. Beloveds, fear is not getting us anywhere good.
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Hatred, like love, starts at home, where small children overhear conversations about us and them, black and white, saved or lost, gay or straight, safe or dangerous. We are teaching our children what value to place on human life. What if the other was your child? What if your beloved was the endangered one? The outcast? The at-risk one? The hunted one? What would change for you then?