EDITORIAL RESPONSE

My response in the local newspaper in Gainesville, Fl. after a racially charged event in 1995.....

Letter to Voice of the People

This past week's events have made this country begin to wake up to the effects of a lackadaisical attitude toward race relations.  I am in a workshop on the healing of racism.  We are only at the beginning of understanding the complexities of healing.  I feel so inadequate for the job.  We will truly have to rely on God to guide us.  My own thoughts and feelings are shifting their focus. I can feel my inner self evolving and it is confusing and exhilarating at the same time.  I think I see only parts of the picture, I know and feel the  history of slavery, oppression, discrimination - both overt and subtle.  I've read a lot, cried a lot, despaired a lot, tried a lot but I'm still in infancy in being articulate and effective.  I feel extremes.  I want to shake people and get in their face, also want to hold and comfort.  There is such emotion in me every time I get involved that it is  a struggle to be sensible.  Sometimes I get discouraged and lonely and want to say "what the heck, nobody else cares."  That's not true but feel it sometimes.

I want to say to a white - learn the story, feel the pain, unlearn the stereotypes, unlearn the negative responses, commit to learning positive responses, see the soul, see the individual and the struggle to make it each day, see the family we share, help not to warp another generation, correct the education you gave your children, see and accept the heroes and heroines with darker skin, see diversity and cherish it, be enriched by it.

To the black, I want to say - I am sorry for the conscious and unconscious pain I and those with lighter skin like mine have caused you.  Forgive me if you can but know I am trying to evolve into a loving sister who is sensitive and appreciative and humble.  Help me by being honest, hopefully in a loving way, but honest nevertheless.  Tell me when I err or hurt or am ignorant.  Reach inside for that nobility that God gave you and wear it proudly.  Excel in spite of adversity.  Share with me the gifts of your spiritual nature, your endurance and stamina, your wisdom and graciousness during tests, your nurturing of the qualities of the heart and soul.  Your nobility can teach me nobility.  Your pain can teach me humility.  Your persistent caring can teach me to grow up and become fully human and a member of the same human family.