Category: Hate Crimes

Bring Us to Light

.Reading time 2 minutes.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.” | Isaiah 9.2, NRSV Today, I am groping and groaning under the weight of hate.  I grit my teeth.  My bones ache.  I rock and shake in the valley of […]

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The history of our days

.Reading time 5 minutes.

On this day in 1955, a fourteen year old African American boy named Emmett Till from Chicago, Illinois was killed in Money, Mississippi.  I know his story by heart; it was the first one I learned on domestic terrorism and mob lynching when I began my personal study of African American history.   He went […]

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Here’s a thought and a prayer

.Reading time 5 minutes.

I went to bed thinking about the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.  There was talk of a racist manifesto and the murderer writing about the “invasion of Hispanics.”  El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen told reporters, “(It has) a nexus to potential hate crime.”  #WhiteSupremacistTerrorism was trending on Twitter.  This morning, #TrumpsTerrorists has replaced […]

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The Exonerated Five, the Emanuel Nine, and why we can’t lose count

.Reading time 5 minutes.

Ava Marie DuVernay’s documentary “When They See Us” tells the story of four African American boys and one Latino American boy falsely accused and mislabeled “The Central Park 5” after a female European American jogger, Trisha Meili, is viciously attacked and raped in April of 1989.  With contrived confessions but no DNA evidence to link the […]

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Tongue

.Reading time 3 minutes.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue,     and those who love it will eat its fruits.” | Proverb 18.21 Calling all cats! Get our tongues! Only you can play with them. Open your mouths and say, “Ahhh.” Because if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Loose lips are […]

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I am at a loss

.Reading time 1 minute.

I met an area rabbi for the first time this morning.  He shared his sacred space with me, his holy book with me.  We planned this meeting last week before the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburg.  What a difference a week makes. If God works in mysterious ways, then humans work […]

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Happy Christopher Columbus Day?

.Reading time 4 minutes.

I have the day off because Christopher Columbus “discovered” America.  But, we know this is not what really happened.  Because you can’t discover a place that is already inhabited by people, no matter how much you try to discount their presence, diminish their story and dismiss their culture.  Try telling them to go back where […]

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