She made me mad, refusing to do what she knew she was supposed to do. I was there to help her and she wanted to lay there and take a nap. How could my mama refuse my help and to do what she knew would benefit her? That was Friday afternoon. Then late that evening, as I was climbing into bed and just then remembering that I had never gotten to my Bible study lesson that day, I wondered why I hadn’t done what I knew would benefit me. Funny how your words will come back to haunt you, pin you down and make you cry uncle, surrender to the fact that you ain’t all that and you spiritually stink sometimes, too.
This was my personal revelation, but my Christian brother Timashion Jones made all his Facebook friends reflect on how we spiritually stink and needed help being brought out of that funk (a challenge that he got from our pastor, Christopher W. Brooks). He said that while we are saying that we are Trayvon Martin, stereotyped, mistreated and suffering from injustice, we should be saying that we are Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman: “…(I)n light of the Gospel we are really ‘George Zimmerman’ (Mark 7:20-23). We all need a Savior! Yeah we all want justice thats (sic) deserved but do WE all want the Justice (sic) that WE deserved.” And with that, I paused, saw his point and considered asking God to have mercy on Zimmerman, who still, because of God’s law of sowing and reaping and submission to authority, has great consequences coming to him for hunting and killing an unarmed child. But in light of the Gospel, how do you feel about Jones’ statement that “we are really ‘George Zimmerman’”? Please, tell me what you think.
I am not George Zimmerman because as a Black person, if I had killed a white child, I would not be free one day let alone one month after the second the child died. This is ridiculous, a flawed attempt to live in a post racial world. None of us are talking about God’s justice. We are demanding man’s justice. So this is a pointless point. Even those who receive man’s justice are often exempt from God’s justice, so no need to conflate the two except to distract and distort the issue. I am not George Zimmerman but I am Trayvon Martin. I stand with the victim and the victimizer and I will not have my desire to be loved by the power elite lure me into forgeting who I am and whose I am.
Wow Marla,
You went on the attack! I, too, think it’s ridiculous that Zimmerman is still free and know that I would not be if I had killed a white child. But for you to dismiss others who see their need for grace just like Zimmerman needs God’s grace (as a sinner in general who needs a savior) and to say they want to be loved by the power elite is audacious and judgmental.
Every one needs God’s grace every day. So that is not the issue, so for someone to make that an issue, to me, is motivated out of some false sense of reconcilation. A false sense of reconcilation is in essence a need to either please or be accepted. To me with the list of issues that the Trayvon Martin case bring up and out, it is audacious to latch on to this one.
Furthermore, Black children die in the streets of Detroit regularly, is anyone calling for grace on their killers? I wonder why? Because child killers who are white are worthy of some special call for God’s grace? If we are not calling for God’s grace daily for all those other black child killers, then why in this case? why now?
This desire, by some, to rush and usher in a post racial society is to deny the reality of this nation and it is an attempt to be accepted when he/she is not wanted, respected or valued. Let us come to the table as equals not tokens.
The issue with the statement that Timashion brought up was not receiving God’s grace every day but that every one of us at some point was a lost sinner in need of salvation. He was simply juxtaposing that while people are crying out the connection to Trayvon we all have a connection to Zimmerman as well. This in no way mitigates our responsibility to cry out for human justice for Trayvon. This also doesn’t necessarily mean that pointing out how lost Zimmerman is is a need to please or be accepted. This indeed may be the case for some; I give you that.
I can’t answer for the masses but I do know of people (LaSonjia being one; her niece was Abreeya Brown, one of the kidnapped and murdered women from Hamtramck) who have prayed for killers’ salvation so they won’t burn in hell. Again, this doesn’t mean that they don’t want justice here and now. They should get it. God demands it.
We definitely aren’t living in a post racial society. Whoever came up with that phrase needs to hide somewhere. I agree that we should come to the table as equals not tokens. I love that point.
If you didn’t get a chance, read the piece on Trayvon Martin I wrote in EEW Magazine: http://www.eewmagazine.com/PAR…
The connection to Zimmerman seems forced and premature. Right now all people want is for Zimmerman to get arrested not to go to Hell. Who is to say he is not already saved? Right now I am praying for Trayvon’s parents’ sanity, there will be time to pray for Zimmerman’s salvation, that is assuming he is not saved. Saved people do awful acts daily. I think this whole discussion takes the focus off of Trayvon’s, the victim and the call for justice. Somehow even in death some are marginalizing the life of Trayvon. Let’s focus on the needless loss of a precious young Black life not the unknown status of killer’s salvation.