{"id":9578,"date":"2014-11-25T22:57:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-26T03:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=9578"},"modified":"2014-11-25T22:57:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-26T03:57:00","slug":"day-25-of-thanksgiving-month-gratitude-in-the-wake-of-ferguson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/11\/day-25-of-thanksgiving-month-gratitude-in-the-wake-of-ferguson.html","title":{"rendered":"day 25 of Thanksgiving month: gratitude in the wake of #Ferguson"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"via<\/a>
via google<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, in the wake of Ferguson, my beginner’s heart is breaking. There seems so very little to be grateful for. I wasn’t even going to write. And then I thought — there is one sad, terrible thing for which I am grateful for. Something I shouldn’t even have to think about — the race of my children. Because as Michael Brown’s mother found out yesterday, there is in this country a different set of rules\u00a0a different kind of ‘justice’<\/em> for America’s black and white sons.<\/p>\n

My sons are white. And I guarantee you that if one of them had, as it is ALLEGED Michael Brown did (conflicting testimonies on this one, as with most of the Ferguson tragedy), steal a pack of cigars, NO ONE would shoot them multiple times and leave them in a pool of their own blood. In the street. Like roadkill.<\/p>\n

And please don’t forget: Michael Brown wasn’t stopped for theft. He was stopped for jaywalking. And shot for being a black male, taller than his murderer. Scary, apparently, because of all the above.<\/p>\n

So today, in the wake of a tragic\u00a0decision by a kangaroo court, in a city only a few miles from the site of Dred Scott’s equally bogus legal justice, I am grateful that my boys are white. I am grateful that the men of other races I have loved over my life are not any one of them the father of my children.<\/p>\n

But I worry about their children, and the children of my cousin’s daughter. Her son. My own brown-skinned grandson. His uncle. Dear friends and their children. Age is no protection — older black men have been murdered at the hands of the ‘law’ as well as the young. And NOT ONE of these dead men — Eric Garner, John Crawford, Ezzell Ford, so many others — was bearing arms.This is why I say: in America today, there is one kind of justice for black sons, and another for white.<\/p>\n

My heart goes out to the mothers of black and brown boys across America. Keep your children safe. Chances are, the law will not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, in the wake of Ferguson, my beginner’s heart is breaking. There seems so very little to be grateful for. I wasn’t even going to write. And then I thought — there is one sad, terrible thing for which I am grateful for. 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