GUILT

When the preacher said

“I’m absolutely convinced
that a riot merely intensifies the fears
of the white community
while relieving the guilt.”

My white ears hear the condemnation
and the righteous call for peace.
My poet ears hear the economy
of language and concern.
My pastor ears hear the prophetic
reminding us our guilt isn’t removed,
merely relieved, now.

For the preacher spoke of riots as language,
the speaking of the unheard.
[I would prefer he said ignored.]
A voice not avoided, silenced.
A dialect of difference obscured by fear;
fear already rooted and blooming
it’s pollen congesting and dripping.
The outrage of nuisance, inconvenience,
of certainty and order, the assurance
that things are as they always are.

In this season, white guilt is relieved
to believe that we know justice
is served swiftly and absolutely.
Even if it is an injustice,
its speed is paramount
and honesty is a luxury that we,
in our wealth, refuse to afford.
Riots only relieve our guilt
because we willingly deceive ourselves.

For the voice unheard whispers “Shalom!”
The voice proclaims justice and transformation;
reconciliation and redemption.
It rages against order that condemns
the poor, the prisoner, the wayfarer: all the unheard voices
demanding as one voice, as the one voice
not only for peace, but for true justice.

And this morning, we can all pretend
that we didn’t hear that voice
[“did you say something?”]
in the streets
of Baltimore and Ferguson
and Detroit and Selma
and we didn’t hear it from those people
[why do we still call them thugs?]
that we didn’t hear it from the thousands more
the teachers, the preachers, the doctors,
the nurses, the shopkeepers, the children
who locked arms and asked us to look,
to actually look at what has happened:
to look at that mangled body
not through a doctrine of philosophy
but as a young man
beaten before his crucifixion.

We can pretend we didn’t hear that voice.
But we’d be lying.