Tuesday, December 9, 2008

What Sean Bell Tells us about Race Relations

Sean Bell has been dead for a while now. But he’s still talking. It’s been a few weeks more than two years since Sean Bell, a black man, was killed outside a strip club early in the morning on his wedding day, November 26, 2006. He died under a hail storm of bullets when a police sting went bad. Two of the three officers involved were minorities. One officer, a minority, fired 50 shots from his service revolver. The officers felt their lives were threatened and had understood one of the suspects to have a gun. There was no gun. There was no crime being committed. There was just one big bad mistake.

Last May a judge handed down a verdict of not guilty for any of the police officers on any charges. I was a little surprised at the time, as it seemed that manslaughter, at least, would have been something they’d be charged with but it was not guilty. The black community was outraged per usual. In all of this there seems to me to be several challenges as we consider race relations and our human condition. First, people want justice. And justice sometimes doesn’t seem to be just. What is just for one person seems unjust for another. Would it have been just to put the police officers in jail? Second, it seems that we all need to believe the best about others a little more. The police officers heard one of Bell’s friends say he had a gun in his car. These friends were formerly convicted felons and they were all outside a strip club at 4:00 am. We can’t bring Sean Bell back but maybe whites and blacks alike need to believe the best in each other a little more. I have some terrific African American friends. I believe the best of them not because they are black or white but because they are human, created in the image of Almighty God, and have demonstrated that they are trustworthy. I could give you the names of some white people I wouldn’t trust for a minute. It’s not a white or black thing! It’s a people thing. Third, I think we need to spend time getting intentionally involved in the lives of those who are different than we are. How many of us actually go to someone’s home and eat if they are of a different race or different religion than we are? It’s rare, even in New York.

Each racial community brings special reminders of God that should be mixed into the soup of life. The relational meal smells really really good when a variety of racial spice is added! I think we all need to recognize the contribution each ethnic community brings and celebrate it. We also need to be aware of the negative tendencies of our own racial community. If we started dealing with the junk our own racial groups contributes to the trash of life perhaps we’d be less likely to be critical of others.

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