Whites Must Stand Up For Equal Justice

(Cartoon image is by Clay Bennett in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.)

The following is a post by Austin pastor Jim Rigby on his own excellent blog. While Rigby and I may not agree about religion, I agree with every word he has written in this post on equal justice. He says:

It now seems that white people who care about the suffering of black people have run out of every other option. The violence against our brothers and sisters will never end until we ourselves enter into a time of great suffering in solidarity with theirs. So long as we only work for racial justice within a system forged in the fires of white supremacy, we ourselves constitute the bars of their oppression (in spite of our best intentions.) We can no longer work for justice from safely behind the ivied walls of our white privilege. 

Dr. King has shown us all the way. All that is missing is the critical mass that white solidarity would provide. We ourselves must now violate the laws that oppress innocent and suffering members of our human family. We ourselves must fill the jail cells that have been built for them until there is no room for either of us. We must use the weight of our own numbers to end any human being’s status as “minority.”

The people who have been targeted for oppression are the only ones who can determine what actions are helpful, but it is time for every white person of conscience to report for duty. White people who care about the suffering of black people must begin to share the full cost of the freedom we say we want for all.