“Southern trees bearing strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the roots”
- Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit”
The haunting voice of Billie Holiday singing these opening lines are floating heavy in my mind tonight. It’s past midnight and my soul is restless.
I have prayed. I have asked the Lord to quiet my soul. I have begged to feel peace.
Strange Fruit.
As the collective conscience of many have been made aware of the murder and lynching of Ahmaud Arbery, my thoughts are overwhelming and I am going to just lay myself bare before you right now...
I am sick and tired of coming back to this place. Another senseless act of violence carried out against a black man. Unarmed, chased down, and cornered by two thugs who were motivated to take the law into their own hands.
When asked why they grabbed their guns, hopped in the pickup truck, and chased him down, their story was that he “looked like a suspect in a spate of recent break-ins”.
Is it not sad that this has become so commonplace that I can already tell you how the narrative is woven? Isn’t it unbelievable how many Black men have “matched the description” of a suspect of some sort of criminal activity.
These two didn’t bother calling the police and reporting what they saw (even though we have seen how often that has happened). No, they felt that it was their right, maybe even their duty, to grab their guns and pursue this stranger who somehow had invaded their territory. It’s their God-given right to “protect” what is rightfully theirs.
Strange Fruit.
This man, full of human dignity and carrying the image of God, is brutally murdered in the street. Guilty of jogging. Senselessly killed and taken out by two cowards.
But they don’t think they are cowards. I know this because I know so many like them.
Little boys who have such a twisted view of masculinity that is also wrapped up in the sin of racism, they believe they are “protecting” their property and their neighborhood. They grab their weapons because that’s what a real man does in case this goes sideways and they don’t get what they want.
Police arrive and guess what? They know the local law enforcement and the DA. They tell their story of how he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. They tried to stop him, to talk some sense to him and find out why he was there.
Because...you know...this is how it so often seems to be.
No arrest. No charges. Free to head back to their homes and to their families.
A system built to protect this mindset and this “way of life”.
Strange Fruit.
This nation was “built” on the backs of black bodies and it has been carefully crafted and evolved into a culture that views this as the way things are.
I know you are already reading, full of rage, saying things like, “He has no idea what he is talking about.” or “They always wanna pull the race card out everytime something happens.”
But the truth is undeniable, no matter how hard you try and convince yourself that it can’t be true.
This mindset is everywhere. It’s more than just racism. It’s the mindset that “my way of life” must be defended at all costs, even if it means someone else must lose their life.
It rings through the list of high profile murders of innocent black men and women recently displayed through cell phone cameras for the world to see.
I hear these cries so often that “the media is just stoking the fire”. That somehow this is being used for some hidden agenda. And that reveals exactly what the “agenda” is...an assault on the status quo, the system we have built to preserve our way of life.
Even though our black brothers and sisters have been crying for centuries that this has been a common occurrence, we have so long refused to believe and affirm their stories.
But a cell phone now is a tool that is bringing to light the evil that has been present all the time. We are now confronted by a truth we cannot hide from and a reality that must be dealt with.
"Don’t come after our way of life or we will be forced to defend it at all costs."
This is the mentality that is ingrained into the psyche of the majority culture. You can hear its echo in the way we treat refugees and immigrants, the way we try and justify the abuse and killing of unarmed black men and women, and even in the protests currently happening across the country to reopen all businesses and activities during a global pandemic.
Our way of life is more important than anything else and will be defended at all costs.
Strange Fruit.
The most heartbreaking part for me is that, as much as I am grieving and lamenting the evil and darkness that I see so clearly, I cannot even imagine what my minority brothers and sisters are enduring and experiencing right now.
The history of evil that America has perpetrated on people of color is detestable and inexcusable. It has been from the beginning and continues to this day.
To my minority brothers and sisters I want to say this:
The amount of grace you have exhibited in the face of such cruelty is breathtaking. The perseverance to continue on in the face of such pain is amazing.
I am constantly made speechless by the quiet power I have seen demonstrated in the resolve of a mom who is dealt the most crushing blow a mother could feel.
I am moved to tears by a collective group of people who always rally around one another in the face of individual and institutional racism, determined to not allow their spirit to be broken.
It is there I see the face of God. A God who has proclaimed that His heart is looking toward the oppressed. A God whose ear is bent towards the cries of His children in their moments of pain and despair.
I promise that I and my family will never stop walking, weeping, praying, and fighting alongside you in a pursuit of the healing our nation needs and that only Jesus has the power to bring.
As long as there is breath in my lungs, I will never stop pursuing bringing the Kingdom of God to this world. As Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, o
n earth as it is in heaven”.
To my white brother and sisters, I want to say this:
We can no longer be silent. The arc of history is bent towards justice.
I am so tired of the excuses, the hand-wringing, and the lack of empathy that so often is the response to these moments.
We must be better. We must ask forgiveness and seek to reconcile what is broken.
The eyes of the next generation are watching. Will we be the people that began the process of ridding ourselves of the stain of racism and empowered the healing process to begin in full?
Open your eyes and see how the systems and institutions that we have built reflect the brokenness that fills our hearts. Seek to steward your many positions and privileges to uplift and elevate those whom our systems tear down and seek to break.
The burden and weight of repairing this brokenness should and will be carried on our shoulders. This is the moment where we must not shrink back from the hard and difficult. Y’all love to talk about those bootstraps and hard work….let’s do it then.
I have hope that there is an answer. I know that Jesus is powerful enough and able to heal this great divide. I will talk more about that at a later time.
But for now, I lament and I weep.
I am sick to my stomach and grieved in my spirit by the current state of things.
The last lines of that Billie Holiday song hang over me as I get ready to lay my head down on my pillow…
“Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the leaves to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop”
Strange Fruit.
Selah