A Message From The Publisher
“For the things that were written beforehand were written for our instruction that we, through patient endurance and through the comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.” Romans 15:4 (Jubilee Bible 2000)
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
As we begin Black History Month (which we should be celebrating 365 days a year anyway, but that’s another story), let us begin to think critically, not just about Critical Race Theory (CRT), but about the unspoken theory of ‘Black Lives don’t matter anyhow’.
It’s time for us to take a really serious look at those who say they are pro-Black lives and yet they: disenfranchise the Black voter, shortchange us in the job markets and use us for free labor in a highly mechanized prison system that begins in our school systems (which are referred to as “pipelines to prisons”).
For those who say Black lives do matter, how so when we’re pushing false narratives of the vaccination? When we are the majority of those who face criminalization because of our skin pigmentation, yet we are preaching alienation? Despite our pigmentation we are trying really heard to be justified by assimilation?
Let us begin to think critically about fair housing instead of forced gentrification that pushes us out of homes and neighborhoods. Let us begin to think of how gentrification amplifies the loss of community by removing our talents from the hood. Let us rethink telling folks:
“The hood is no good. You have made it; now you can move out.”
Let us begin to think critically about what the future holds for us if we are purposefully separated and made to feel unequal through changes in voting legislation, education, healthcare and more.
Let us think critically about those who we vote into office just because they look like us, just because they talk like us, just because they walk like us, just because they photo opt with us. The question is : Do they think about us as equals without disgust?
In the most positive ways let us begin to think critically about us. Do we truly want freedom and equality? Or is that just a muse (a state of deep thought or dreamy abstraction) to entertain those who perhaps are faking just to get along and don’t really know how to bring about the change we need?
Let us begin to think critically about global warming and its effects in our own communities, about the meaning of systemic racism in its purest form in our own towns. Let us begin to think critically about our own responsibilities in choosing our leaders at the polls, and what happens when we fail to show up.
Let us begin to think about policing as opposed to slavecatching and look at the real reason why the mentality of both is so depressing. The expression “Hurt people, hurt people” is true. A broken system can’t fix us. However, we can begin to fix or to help to comfort each other through our hurt and our pain.
Let us begin to think critically about those who would use race as a theory to critically harm intentionally with impunity, bringing damage to those who are different for many lifetimes.
“Dear God, it is by Your choice, even though You are more than capable of being critical of us, in Your thoughts and actions, that You use tender mercies. You use love and grace to examine and correct us. Please continue to teach us how, that we may follow Your example of Love. In Jesus name. Amen.”
