#Ferguson has made it hard, if not impossible, for people to say ‘I didn’t know’.  Maybe before, white people hadn’t really paid attention to ‘systemic racism’. Maybe you know people who actually describe it as – raise those fingers – “systemic racism” – because they don’t believe it exists. Maybe you know someone who can say, even after Mike Brown’s body had been removed and CNN had both shown up and left, ‘I reject the idea of systemic racism’.  (I’ll give you 3 guess as to the race and gender of both of those commenters.)

But it takes an intentional ignorance, I think, to continue to deny that there are not serious racial problems in this country. It seems like there is a white bubble that people can live in, a white echo chamber that insulates people and #Ferguson has been the needles popping at the balloon. It has become an obvious pain, but even the obvious can be ignored by taping up the holes, closing your eyes, turning away from the twitters and the websites. It’s convenient to assume that since the national media is no longer on the scene it is no longer a national issue.

But what harm do we do to each other when we turn our backs? When we refuse to listen and affirm our different experiences? How can we insist on the dignity and worth of people if we continually dehumanize them by our lack of care?

There are many different things we can do – but the first is to recognize that there are different realities that people experience, and do what we can to immerse ourselves in those realities.

It is hard. It is hard to open your eyes to the pain of the world, and the part you play in bringing that pain. But if we never look – if we never acknowledge the unfairness of it all, if we never acknowledge the violence inherent in the system, then how can we possibly play a part in fixing it?

Do we want to be known as people who were more worried about maintaining the status quo than bringing justice? Is our legacy really going to be one that supported power at the expense of humanity? When you die, and if you are white, chances are it is not going to be in the street, in a Wal-mart, in a metro station, on a street corner, or in your car listening to music – but when you eventually do leave this world –

what do you want to be remembered for?

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