Not So Different

We both watch the news and pray it isn't true. Same story, different day. Just like so many times before, it's the viral video of an altercation between a black man and a cop and it always seems to end in the worst way possible. You're horrified. I'm horrified. The nation rages. The divide grows ever wider.

You worry that your loved one will be the one someday. That they'll be the one in the next viral video. And I worry the same about mine. You worry yours won't come home safe. I also face that reality on the daily. You worry that sinful misconceptions someone has formulated about him will lead them to be prejudiced against him. Harm him. Or even kill him. It's a hard thing to face it and one we're up against here in my house as well.

But the vicious cycle continues. Word gets out. Footage gets leaked. Facebook Live is ever present. And it's everywhere. And it's not retractable. And it's in your face and mine. And in everyone's eyes is this appalling, stomach turning, awful thing. The life in that video shattered. Their loved ones' worlds come crashing down with the harsh realness of it all. The court of public opinion quickly convicts the criminal act. Anger abounds. People protest. Riots run wild. And at the end of the day, it's apparent that something is terribly wrong about all of this. It never changes. The offenses pile up and they overflow. And it's too much for our hearts to bear. We live in a very real fear.

You and I aren't so different, you see. Except for that we seem to always find ourselves on opposite sides of this polarizing divide. Because you represent the side with the black man in the viral video. And I am the wife of a cop.

Before you abandon this blog post entirely, hear me loud and hear me clear. RACISM EXISTS and it is a terrible sin. God didn't design the world to work that way. He created us in all sorts of beautiful shades of black and white and everything in between. Racism is an ugly black mark on humanity. And just like other sins, it is one we Americans must work together to overcome.

But. But. But. To generalize an entire people group based on the awful actions of a few is inaccurate at best and at worst wishing harm be incurred upon the group in question. If you think that's a large leap to make, it really isn't. These last several years of high profile videos condemning cops for killing black men have made that abundantly clear to those who are in law enforcement and their families. If people perceive you as racist, even if you aren't, that is a crime worthy of retaliatory action being taken against you or your loved ones. (Check out the uptick in violence against officers since the outrage about the George Ffloyd case here.)

I can't speak for every cop, but I can speak on behalf of my husband, who is a God fearing officer. He is not a racist. We have black friends we love and treasure and we've opened our home to children of all kinds of color through foster care. He is kind and he cares about his community, regardless of the colors of the citizens. Yet time and again, he has been falsely accused of racism. He even starred briefly in a locally viral video recently where he was identified by name, rank, and face and a woman screamed profanities for 4-5 full minutes, all the while accusing him and his department of racism. All over something that wasn't racist to begin with. As if we didn't already have enough to worry about with him being in this line of work, all of a sudden he was thrust into the spotlight for a sin he wasn't guilty of. The video was up for a few hours one afternoon and in that brief time span was shared over 400 times. God only knows how many views it got from each of those shares. Our town isn't all that big. As his wife, I was extremely on edge that someone would be coming after him. Or us.

So, as a police wife, I am extremely hesitant to proclaim, as much of the public is prone to do, that we can know exactly what happened or what the factor(s) that contributed to the officer's decisions were, at least not with any degree of certainty. Is it racism? Maybe. Could it have just been that the officer was overcome with an anger that was so intense that he lost all control? It's possible. What if the officer had an ego that got in the way of him doing what was right? Feasible.

But could it be that the media misconstrued things? They've been known to. What if that cop was following his training but the public doesn't understand what that entails? It happens more than you'd think. What if that brief snippet of video is missing some pretty significant context? Almost no video will tell you everything there is to know. (I am referring to these high profile events in general, NOT the George Ffloyd case, which was reprehensible and inexcusable.)

I am reminded of a passage from 1 Samuel 16. In the passage, Samuel, the servant of the Lord, is conversing with God about Saul, the king who had turned evil and was seeking whom the Lord would anoint to be the next king. Verse 7 says, "But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart."

"Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart."

1 Samuel 16:7

Am I downplaying the role of racism or the fact that it is evil? No. Not at all. When anyone dies at the hands of an officer, it is firstly a worst case scenario, and secondly worthy of grief, regardless of justifiability or guilt of the officer involved. I pray my officer never faces the circumstances that would require him to pull the trigger. No officer wants to face that situation, should it ever come, that they are met with the justifiable need to take a life in order to save a life, be it their own or that of another. Every life matters, regardless of the circumstances surrounding how it ends. We should grieve whenever it comes to that. Grieve the loss of a life. Mourn that one of God's beloved created beings has ceased to live anymore on this earth, and pray that they knew and loved Him before they left this world for the next. And ache for the officer who had to make that horrifically hard call.

But the public has this horrible tendency of taking an officer's visible actions and assigning them invisible motivations and meaning. Perception of police policies and protocols is often so skewed and confused that people don't actually have any idea of what it is they're watching in those short clips which are typically taken out of context. Or maybe the media is fueling misinformation and so it makes it all the harder for people to come to an informed opinion on what has happened. There are really hard conversations that have to be had if we are ever to get a better understanding of both sides of the story. Because right now, the media pretty much only ever presents one side of things. And so it's easy, from the outside looking in, to think that racist officers plague police departments across America.

Indeed, there are racist officers, just as there are racist bankers, teachers, and telemarketers. Racism is a sin of the heart and no human is immune to sin. But let's think about this a second. It's a known fact that there are teachers that prey on their students, but that doesn't even begin to make us look upon all teachers as having the problem of being child predators, does it? There are people who work in restaurants that spit in peoples' food, but should that characterize everyone who has ever worked in a restaurant? NO! But we apply this same line of logic to this situation.

I know what you're thinking...it happens all the time though! Except it doesn't. There have been several studies that have proven this widely held public opinion to be not true. Check out this study by Joe Cesario or this one by Harvard professor Roland Fryer. This article presents some great facts and cites several different studies and their conclusions on cops based on them. There are several more out there on this topic if you do some digging. I can't tell you what to believe, but I can encourage you to do the research and form your opinion off of actual information and not just what social media and the news have to say about it. Sadly, their representations on this topic are often misleading and full of inaccuracies.

Nonetheless, when an officer is is the wrong, we need to call it what it is. SIN. Regardless of if it's racism, pride, anger issues, or any plethora of other reasons, when someone sins against someone, it is wrong, regardless of the skin tones of those involved. When officers abuse their powers, it is without a doubt, unabashedly a bad thing. One that we all wish wouldn't ever happen. Because believe me, few people dislike bad cops who sin against citizens with irreconcilably wrong tragedies such as these quite as much as all the good cops do. Contrary to common perception, good cops don't like it when bad ones tarnish the badge. Neither do their families. We love our officers and what they stand for with a fierceness rivaled only by the fierceness by which you, on the other side of this oft polarizing divide love your own. And when someone commits some terrible sin that puts a blemish on the honorable service of the men and women who work their butts off bettering their communities, you better believe we don't like it one bit. I would argue that we probably like it even less than you do, dear friend on the other side.

Unpopular opinion here. We can call out sin for the wrong we know it to be and not claim to know the motivations of the offender. We can oppose racism without assuming that every encounter an officer has with a person of color is race related. We can proclaim that something is wrong without claiming to know the heart's intent of an officer you know nothing of outside of a brief snippet of a video you saw. We can acknowledge that we don't know all the details and pray that justice is served however is best in each of these instances, and trust that ultimately those who do wrong, whatever side of this great divide we find ourselves on, will ultimately come face to face with God and they will be held accountable.

There's a great passage in Romans 12 that I would encourage everyone to go read. It's something we can all keep in mind during these painful days we find ourselves in, regardless of what side of things we find ourselves on. Verses 9-21 tell us: "...Hate what is evil; cling to what is good...Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer...Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another...Do not repay anyone evil for evil...If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is Mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord...Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

"...Hate what is evil; cling to what is good...

mourn with those who mourn...Do not repay

anyone evil for evil...Do not take revenge,

my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath...

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Romans 12:9-21

Those words should convict all of us. We're all fighting the same evil here. It's the sin of this fallen world we're living in that we're up against. We're all fighting the same enemy. The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He does that by deceiving us into believing that we are each other's enemies, when actually, he is our enemy. Ephesians 6:12 says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,

but against the rulers, against the authorities,

against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

Ephesians 6:12

There are forces at play that are sinister in all of this. They are the forces that whisper in the hearts of those who are actually racist and tell them that differences in skin tone somehow makes someone lesser than them. Those same forces has been whispering a lie into the hearts of the American people that we can generalize all officers as evil based on the racist actions of a few, and as such are somehow justified in violent and retaliatory action against officers and their families who are not guilty of this crime we've been falsely accused of. We've got to stop listening to those whispers and start listening to the truth. Philippians 4:8 reminds us to reflect on that which is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.

"...whatever is true, whatever is noble,

whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,

whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or

praiseworthy—think about such things."

Philippians 4:8

We can do that by taking a stand against evil together. We can hate what is wrong and still stand together for that which is good. We don't have to take our hate and redirect it at entire groups of people over the ill actions of an officer who did a bad, incomprehensibly evil thing. If you think about it, that's no better than the wrong assumption that blacks are more prone to commit crimes and hence deserving of racism. I'm here pleading with you as a wife of an officer that they be shone the same love and respect that you desire for your own loved ones. Just because somewhere, someone did a bad thing and they happened to have a characteristic in common with your loved one, doesn't begin to make them guilty of committing the same crimes. Let's fight for truth in this and seek justice at the source rather than vengefully spreading injustice around to those who don't deserve it.

I've rambled on long enough now, and though my thoughts are many more, I should probably save some for another day. Can I ask you, one thing, dear friend? Though you find yourself on the opposite side of this divide, can we be working together to maybe make it not quite so polarizingly wide? Can we have hard conversation and lend listening ears and gain some perspective from those who walk in very different shoes than we do? Can we come equipped with understanding and compassion and empathy to the conversation? So much of the story is often told through the very limited perception of the media, and I promise that what they know isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

There is so much that we can glean from each other on this. I pray we can come to love and appreciate one another even more as we wade through the muckity muck of this broken world we're living in. That we can come together and denounce evil acts committed against all whilst not condoning it be committed against others. That these tragedies would bring us together instead of tearing us further apart. That by spreading love instead of sowing hate, we may start to see a better America where black men and cops aren't constantly considered to be at odds with one another. Let's squash the narrative that says we have to be on opposite sides of this thing. That has been nothing if not a self-fulfilling prophecy. Jesus came to break that narrative and take that brokenness from us.

Let's believe and fight for the things that Martin Luther King spoke of all those years ago in his most famous speech. "...Let us not seek to satisfy or thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred...we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force...I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed -- we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...I have a dream that we will one day live in a nation where we will not be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. I have a dream today!...I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope..."

"Let us not seek to satisfy or thirst for freedom

by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred...

I have a dream that we will one day live in a nation

where we will not be judged by the color of our skin

but by the content of our character."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whoever you are that finds yourself on the opposite side of this thing from where I currently sit, I hope we can work together, despite the distance, to close that gap. It was never meant to be you versus me. Them against us was not part of God's grand design for things. Us humans have botched that up badly. But, whoever you are, and wherever you sit, please know that we are for you. And we're for your loved ones. And we are so sorry when tragedy strikes that seems to only drive us all further apart from one another. Let's come together, fight for the truth, show love to one another, and let God take care of the rest. He is more than capable.