Words Not Heard

In the current pandemic of mob violence engulfing the USA, what has been the reaction of the black preachers, the left-wing opinion writers, the liberal politicians running America’s major cities in the face of rampant vandalism? Condemnation? Disapproval? Denunciation? None of the above. The silence is deafening.

What we see instead, in the face of destructive evil, is acquiescence, surrender, and, in the final analysis, complicity. The words not spoken, the editorials not written, the condemnations not uttered, are thunderous, much more eloquent than the words actually uttered.

I have never been a city mayor nor a media editor, but I have ministered to a congregation all my life. If I were the minister of a black church, and if I had a modicum of courage and concern for the future of my people, this is the sermon I would deliver to my community:

I can no longer remain silent. I am watching the unraveling not only of American civil society, but of my beloved black community. I have lived the suffering and frustration of being poor and the object of discrimination. I, too, am wounded by the killing of blacks by police. I feel your pain, because it is my pain as well.