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  • Writer's pictureKelly

What I Know

So this is a post that I don’t really want to write. It’s hard. And painful. And will make us all pretty stinkin’ uncomfortable. And it very well may change drastically how we see one another. But I’m going to write about it anyway. I can’t not.

Here’s a partial list of what I don’t know:


The hard truth is that I have no idea how easy my pale skin, my light eyes, and my mouse-brown-to-silver hair make my life. When I walk into schools… and hospitals… and churches… and convenience stores, I do so without a second glance from anyone because I just don’t look scary. My middle-aged, dumpy, very white, female self incites fear in no one; I’m rarely given a second glance.


I don’t have a clue what it would be like to be dreaded and feared immediately because of the outside wrapper that God gave me to walk this earth in.


I also don’t know why it happens, but, when I try to be pleasant and smile at everyone I meet, I am entirely too aware of how purposeful I have to be to look men of color in the eye and smile – just smile. I don’t know if culture has encouraged this hesitancy in me or if I am battling demons that I have yet to even really identify.

I don’t know why so many black men seem to be mistreated by police; I can’t begin to imagine and analyze the reasons behind these headlines of racially motivated police brutality, and, if I think I can imagine the reasons, I generally turn out to be wrong.


There is so much that I don’t know.


But here are the things that I do know:


I know that minorities struggle. I know that they are the vast majority in prisons, and I know that there is something there – some message that we are not listening to.


And I know that, until we identify why they struggle and figure out how to help them not struggle, they are going to fill our prisons and our headlines – and the body bags.


I know that, in the meantime, I will continue to smile at everyone I encounter.


I also know that I will love all those who are like George Floyd – those who are black, those who are suspected of criminal activity, and those who are struggling with their own demons. I know enough to love them.

And I know that I will love Derek Chauvin and all those who are like him – those who serve as first responders, those who should never be in that line of work, and those who make truly horrific, gruesome decisions. I know enough to love them too.


I know that I am called to respond with love. Not anger. At anyone. Not hate. Not judgment. Not superiority because I have the whole thing figured out. Not a need to stand righteously, crusading on a soap box.


With love. That’s my response. To them all. To us all.


Y’all stay safe out there…


“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,

not looking to your own interests

but each of you to the interests of the others.”


Phillipians 2:3-4

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