This was one tough weekend.  Did I pray, yesterday, for the victims and families of the racist-driven shooting in Buffalo in church?  Of course, I did.  But from a personal standpoint, I simply want to scream when I hear any elected official mouth the words “thoughts and prayers for the families” as a response to yet another one in a never-ending stream of mass shootings.  We need policy and legislative action that gets guns off our streets.  That’s the response we need from Congress.

As to the matter of an avowed white supremacist pulling the trigger on a weapon aimed at Black people: this is the substance of the work before us.  Structural racism kills Black, Brown, and people of color every day across our nation, and one can only wonder how the alleged shooter, in his anti-black racist diatribes, was influenced and shaped by the surround-sound narrative of racist politicians in prominent elected offices, media, and social media.  Eighteen-year-olds are indeed impressionable.  The narrative of anti-Black racism, as it turns out, is more than just words and free speech – they can be lethal.

My prayer in pain and frustration leads me back to what I and we can do and must do: eyes on the prize of a racist-free America, full inclusion, full belonging, with Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Beloved Community” vision for America as our North Star.

Bob