RESTORING THE SOUL OF AMERICA IN THE WAKE OF GEORGE FLOYD’S MURDER
Race relations and racial conversations in the United States, at least by white people like me, are usually
overlooked, avoided or fraught with conflict. I think underneath all of it is fear. At least it was for me. So we either defend our positions, or try not to think about them and hope that nothing erupts. But now we are having a collective and heart wrenching experience of viewing up close and personal the tragic and sense-less death of George Floyd at the hands of a brutal police officer while three other officers watched. Eight minutes and forty-six seconds of terror as George Floyd’s breath was snuffed out of him. This is certainly not the first of these incidents but it is has captured the passion of the whole world and it compels us to respond.
So we are facing once again a turning point in our country (and perhaps the world) in which we decide who we are and what kind of a future we want for ourselves and our children. Can we, at this turning point, reopen the race conversation beyond the protests and find new levels of justice and reconciliation? How do we embrace this opportunity and invitation and what will we do? We’ve been here before, many times. We’ve seen change happen and then we seem to get stuck. Now the outcry is larger, more widespread, more sustained than ever. We await the decisions of our collective conscience and beg for the courage to mend. Could we imagine finding a way even to racial reconciliation? If we could I believe it would restore the Soul of America.
I would like to reflect on what personal and collective power looks like in the aftermath of the Floyd murder, using my model of personal power from my book, Real Power (3rd Edition). I am especially interested in the ways that times like this, times that try our souls, also invite us to deeper levels of healing and personal power both individually and within our whole culture. We have an extraordinary opportunity to tip the scales toward a new more inclusive experience of power. I will make this concise and, hopefully, invitational. My desire is to offer a larger viewpoint but not to be exhaustive. And my perspective is as a white woman living in the USA. I have also had the wise and generous mentoring of two black men over the last seventeen years. Their choice to be my friend and to share common interests (like quilting!) and faith moved me deeply. And their willingness to engage in racial conversations and racial reconciliation changed my life.
Follow this link to a PDF with my thoughts on Real Power and RESTORING THE SOUL OF AMERICA IN THE WAKE OF GEORGE FLOYD’S MURDER
overlooked, avoided or fraught with conflict. I think underneath all of it is fear. At least it was for me. So we either defend our positions, or try not to think about them and hope that nothing erupts. But now we are having a collective and heart wrenching experience of viewing up close and personal the tragic and sense-less death of George Floyd at the hands of a brutal police officer while three other officers watched. Eight minutes and forty-six seconds of terror as George Floyd’s breath was snuffed out of him. This is certainly not the first of these incidents but it is has captured the passion of the whole world and it compels us to respond.
So we are facing once again a turning point in our country (and perhaps the world) in which we decide who we are and what kind of a future we want for ourselves and our children. Can we, at this turning point, reopen the race conversation beyond the protests and find new levels of justice and reconciliation? How do we embrace this opportunity and invitation and what will we do? We’ve been here before, many times. We’ve seen change happen and then we seem to get stuck. Now the outcry is larger, more widespread, more sustained than ever. We await the decisions of our collective conscience and beg for the courage to mend. Could we imagine finding a way even to racial reconciliation? If we could I believe it would restore the Soul of America.
I would like to reflect on what personal and collective power looks like in the aftermath of the Floyd murder, using my model of personal power from my book, Real Power (3rd Edition). I am especially interested in the ways that times like this, times that try our souls, also invite us to deeper levels of healing and personal power both individually and within our whole culture. We have an extraordinary opportunity to tip the scales toward a new more inclusive experience of power. I will make this concise and, hopefully, invitational. My desire is to offer a larger viewpoint but not to be exhaustive. And my perspective is as a white woman living in the USA. I have also had the wise and generous mentoring of two black men over the last seventeen years. Their choice to be my friend and to share common interests (like quilting!) and faith moved me deeply. And their willingness to engage in racial conversations and racial reconciliation changed my life.
Follow this link to a PDF with my thoughts on Real Power and RESTORING THE SOUL OF AMERICA IN THE WAKE OF GEORGE FLOYD’S MURDER