7:45 in the morning is not the time for my A-game, but if I have learned anything about being a parent then it is that the big questions never catch you when you’re prepped and ready.
“Daddy, why did the police shoot that man?”
So the three of us talked as I drove them to school. We talked about racism, why people hate, white supremacy, violence, and privilege. We talked about how what happened to Daunte Wright is not fair or right.
My two boys, eight and ten, asked question after question. Good questions. Questions I wish adults would ask. They asked why this keeps happening. The youngest said that he wished there was a law that made hating people illegal. I told him that would be a hard one to legislate. I wish I had just said that I wished that too. I tried to answer as honestly as I could for talking to an eight and ten year old.
I thought about how white supremacy is an idol and just like societies sacrificed people to make them feel safe and prosperous, white America has been content to sacrifice Black women and men for years to do the same. I figured that one would derail the conversation, but I couldn’t shake how many lives have been lost at the altar of white supremacy, of guns, of the myth of redemptive violence.
We talked about privilege, about how society was messed up, how they as white males would likely be treated better than others, how that’s not right, and how I hope they would work to make things better. They nodded. I don’t know if they got it. I don’t know if I conveyed it well enough. I hope that some seeds were planted.
I don’t want to have this conversation again, but I know that will likely be the case. I hope they don’t stop asking questions. I hope they don’t stop being upset when things like this happen. I hope the unfairness of what happened to Daunte Wright and many others sticks with them.
I confess that my faith in my generation and the ones that came before me is shaky. Too many want to immediately start casting Daunte Wright and George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Sandra Bland and Trayvon Martin and so many others in negative lights as if that is some justification for their lives being taken. Too many bristle when people say that these black lives mattered and still do. Too many forget when the headlines fade and the hashtags vanish. God forgive me for the times that I do.
I wish I expected more from my country. Yet I don’t and I can’t imagine the justified rage and frustration of our Black neighbors when this happens over and over and over again. But hearing an eight and ten year old ask questions about why the world is so broken reminded me again that I need to do the small things I can to help. That’s what God calls me to do. That is what we owe to one another. God be with the family of Daunte Wright and many others who have been sacrificed to this false god.
