Not Speaking is Speaking

By now, perhaps you’ve heard of the beating of a disabled white man which was (bizarrely) aired live on FB. The beating/shameless airing came by the hands of all black people, and the current discussion is whether it was a hate crime? 

I’m trying to absorb this while writing about it. The fact that it’s a question is almost as bizarre as the fact that it happened at all. When my kids used to hound me about something they wanted as bad as Hillary wanted to win the election, I would ask them, “What about no do you not understand?” And now I’m asking the world, “What about the definition of hate in conjunction with the senseless beating of a disabled man could reasonably be questioned as indeed hateful? What about the duty to call hate hate do you not understand?” 

Hate does not come cloaked in white skin only. Or black skin only. Hate comes cloaked in humanity, and unless God rescues our souls from it, it will work it’s way out in the form of hate-filled actions. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. So let’s do better. We are not completely blind. We are not un-intelligent. With God’s help, and in this case, the help of the criminals themselves, we can decipher whether an act was hateful in nature. What grieves me is that today, some of us are being dishonest. We are lying and heaping more trauma on a bloodied victim by not acknowledging his pain, and suggesting the horrific crime committed against him was merely due to bad upbringing. It was likely that. But not solely that. 

I’m grateful the official charge of a hate crime has been slapped on the guilty parties. But for the love. Silence here is not golden. I am not here to speak out against blacks. But I do want to speak out against hate and encourage others to do the same. So how can you personally condemn the actions of those who have trampled on the dignity and worth of another human being? Our kids need to know this stuff. Otherwise, we are guilty of perpetuating the problem. 

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer