This month’s column, with a passage from the book by Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon To White America, 2017 and 2021 was contributed by Tronette Anochie of Sandy Spring Friends meeting. She also contributed the response.
“America is in trouble, and a lot of that trouble – perhaps most of it – has to do with race. Everywhere we turn, there is discord and division, death and destruction. When we survey the land, we see a country full of suffering that we cannot fully understand, and a history that we can no longer deny. Slavery casts a long shadow across our lives. The spoils we reaped from forcing people to work without wages and treating them with grievous inhumanity continue to haunt us in a racial gulf that seems impossible to overcome. Black and white people don’t merely have different experiences; we seem to occupy different universes, with worldviews that are fatally opposed to one another.”
Response by Tronette Anochie: Where do we go from here? The BYM Working Group on Racism, the Growing Diverse Leadership Committee, the Reparations Action Committee, and STRIDE are seeking the way forward out of darkness. But everyone is needed as we move towards the Light. A Friend who likes simple prayers asks, “What is mine to do?” Each person should be asking themselves this question and then listening to the Spirit within for direction, guidance, love, and action.
This column is prepared by the BYM Working Group on Racism (WGR) and sent to the designated liaison at each local Meeting. The BYM WGR meets most months on the first Saturday, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, currently via Zoom. If you would like to attend, contact the clerk at david.etheridge@verizon.net.