Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Around the Missouri killing and subsequent events there has been little right speech evident.  It appears that everyone quickly, perhaps too quickly, takes a side, then pontificates.  In the silent center of all this chaos and rhetoric and violence is a young man, still a child, now dead.  He stands for a lot of African American teenagers, lost, trapped in cultural archetypes, symbolizing these youth with little or no future, no options, facing a terrifying future.  It breaks my heart.

I don't "follow" the news about this tragedy because I would hear people using his death.  I would hear righteousness and blame and all the speech that sets people against each other.  And I would hear the media, fanning the flames, keeping the anger alive by besieging the people of Fergeson, using hyperbole and exaggeration and breathless voices to keep all the wounds as alive as possible.

I am so sorry for his parents and family and friends.  I wish this incident could activate programs and plans that would help these lost boys.  I wish police had to face true accountability.  I wish all these people could be constructive instead of destructive, courageous instead of afraid, humane instead of combative.  I won't say, maybe something good will come of out of this, because we've seen this play out again and again without any creative ideas to help these kids and be responsible for giving them a future.  But I wish.

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