It seems like I only ever come on this blog when bad things happen. One day that might change. For now, you know what they say: bad news travels faster than good.
By now I'm sure that all of you, if not most of you, have heard about the atrocities committed on the hallowed grounds of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. For those of you who have not: at a Wednesday night Bible study, a white man walked into this historic church, sat among the members for an hour, said, "I'm here to kill Black people," and opened fire. Nine people are dead. A 5 year old child played dead to survive.
For nine people to die in such a way on any given day hurts me. For nine people to be murdered in the house of God does something a little worse. As a Christian and an AME, I am saddened. As a South Carolinian and general human being, I am incensed. As a Black woman, I am tired.
You read right. I'm tired. I'm tried of the shooting and the violence, I'm tired of "All lives matter!" turning into a telling silence, and most of all I am tired of the shock and surprise. "If we can't go to church and be safe," I hear the people sighing, "where can we go?"
It makes me curious. When have we ever been safe in our worship? The answer is never. We were not safe gathered in the fields of master's plantation, or in the meeting houses of antebellum America where the sparks of the Klan fanned to flame, or at the tent revivals of the '40s and '50s. Three little girls were not safe in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, yet today in 2015 you begin to feel the danger? No sooner than white men forced us to convert did they start using the church to do us harm, but only now are you afraid?
The city of Greenville conspires to turn my historic church into a parking lot for a baseball stadium. Thursday afternoon during a community prayer vigil on our grounds we received a bomb threat. Tell me, when am I supposed to feel safe?
Long before we could not wear hoodies, or live in "good" neighborhoods, swim in pools, or play on the playground, we could not go to church. I wrote these words sitting on a pew Thursday night (Choir Anniversary practice, you know), and every few words I put down my pen to check the doors.
Were I to play 6 Degrees of Separation (or Kevin Bacon, if you must) with any of the 9 victims of the Charleston shooting, I would reach them in 3 steps. Three of them I can reach in 2.
And what of the conversation that no one, no news station, seems to want to have? Who will talk about how this shooter, this terrorist believes himself to be right because America has taught him as much--America that has sanctioned 400 years of ethnic cleansing and upheld this violent, poisonous culture of white supremacy. Thursday, the confederate flag flew at half-mast in our capital, and they have the nerve to say that it was in honor of Emanuel. The irony is a smack in my face and a pat on his back.
Charleston is bleeding, and I am tired. I am tired, and I have nowhere to rest.
