'TAKING A KNEE' IS HOW HUMANS SHOW GRIEF, NOT DISRESPECT...September 28, 2017

An Image Of Sorrow- Not Disrespect.

I've never worried that I or my sons would be stopped by police only because of our light skin. Or that I'm at much higher risk of being shot for being white. My parents weren't humiliated by being refused at restaurants or  compelled to drink from 'colored' fountains. My great grandparents were not slaves to African-American masters or silent victim's of cruel Jim Crow laws under an American flag. So unlike me the anthem and flag remain painfully conflicted symbols for many black persons.


It's urgent today for white persons to finally face such painful realities of injustice. The nation's future depends on it. Above are facts of life and heritage for most of the honorable men kneeling on the NFL sidelines. They mostly need white persons to be honest about our different American experience. An unintentional spiritual blindness is what has always supported the unresolved American split we have always had. The effects of our profoundly different yet common history are still alive and threaten every young black man, his  family and community.

This “kneeling”, something humans do to show sadness, is a way some thoughtful  well known black males have found finally to respectfully say, “It is my flag, anthem and country too.” But until whites grieve the real mutual past with blacks, African-Americans cannot truly feel embraced by these symbols. White persons can courageously 'get this'- if we want to.

This is not primarily  something white Americans  need 'to do for'  African-Americans but something we need to do for our own survival as a WHOLE  nation, to do for the further evolution of our very young  American experiment. It is also not something where we need to blame our white forebears  but to understand  and accept their role in the  curve of  psychological and spiritual evolution. The complex nature of evolution, including its dark elements like the 'survival of the fittest',  seeks in the long run  to  unfold  in us  a  brighter future  than we could have ever consciously  planned ourselves. This fits with the idea of the complexity of the 'Mind of God.' Our human role is always to stubbornly  become more conscious than we have been in past ages. America can be a  blip and dead-end in evolution's attempt to move humanity to a higher consciousness or it can be a very significant process in that spiritual  movement.

The  blessings promised in the symbols of the American flag and anthem are still  much withheld from darker skinned citizens. It is appropriate that strong Black males question  brothers  like me with , " How dare you discount my courage to finally say respectfully, on my knee, that America is not yet fully the equal home of all its brave citizens.". I can welcome and thank them for insisting , for all our sakes, through uncomfortable protest that I become more conscious of what is happening in OUR nation .....or...