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Category: Justice

Why I am silent on issues of race

During this first week of June, riots and protests erupted in cities across America, sparked by the brutal death of George Floyd, an African-American man, at the hands of a cop in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The video of this arrest and death was shocking, and soon after protestors across the country hit the streets, and rightly so.

Sadly, however, these protests were quickly overshadowed by violent looting, rioting, destroying property, and even death. The sadness over Floyd’s death quickly evolved into anger as I thought what is happening now is no longer about George Floyd.

Yet I said nothing.

Among the reports and photos flooding the internet, I noticed a sign held by a protestor that read: “White silence = white violence.” read more

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Discussing race with grace

th0N86DEBTWriting or talking about race relations is something I strive to avoid. Great passion and real emotion surround the topic, and I’m deathly afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing, however unintentionally. I absolutely don’t want to “go there” – so I deliberately keep quiet.

This self-protective strategy of silence may cause some to think I’m apathetic or that I don’t care. That’s not true; I do care. But in my view, it’s far better to speak little and be wrongly labeled as apathetic, than to speak clumsily and somehow get wrongly labeled as racist. Because the latter charge, no matter how undeserved it may be, is a death sentence; all you have to do is throw that label at someone one time, even if it’s baseless, and it sticks for life. Their reputation never recovers. read more

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