June 23, 2015
It has been almost a week now since the shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC.
Each of us processes news of such horror in his or her own way. For me, I am stuck on the fact that the victims were gathered at a church. At prayer. In a sacred space. Unfathomable. And yet it doesn’t take long to recall that this is not even the first massacre in a place of worship in recent times. Six were gunned down at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin just under three years ago.
I am struck, too, by the remarkable words coming from the families of the slain. Speaking to alleged shooter Dylann Roof at a hearing, one spoke of having “no room for hating, so we have to forgive.” Images from this past weekend in Charleston continue to show rich expressions of love and unity amid all that pain.
President Obama took some criticism for his initial response. I sympathize with the President. He knew Clementa Pinckney, the senior pastor at Emanuel AME, personally and will deliver the eulogy at his funeral this Friday. Surely, our president was bereft and his first words were some mix of his exhaustion, grief, bafflement and anger. Yet again – on the heels of Binghamton and Fort Hood in 2009; Tucson in 2011; Aurora, Oak Creek, and Sandy Hook in 2012; the Navy Yard here in DC in 2013; Fort Hood again last year; and Chapel Hill earlier this year – he had to address the nation after a mass shooting. Our Consoler in Chief. With him, we ask: “How many more times?”
It seems clear that the murders had a political and racial motivation. The broader context of the tragedy has found a focus in scrutiny of three flags. Two were on the jacket of Roof: Rhodesia and apartheid-era South Africa, both states based on the vilest racial ideology. The flying of a third flag, the Confederate flag, long a matter of contention in the South, is rightly being scrutinized anew and the question asked whether it should continue to be so closely tied to the public identity of the state and people of South Carolina.
Here at Good Counsel, after the events in Baltimore at the beginning of May, we experienced powerful and spontaneous reaction among students and faculty. Frank conversations about race, about all sorts of difference, about what it means to belong, and how it feels to be excluded took place. Just before finals, we invited a nationally renowned speaker on diversity issues, Dr. Randolph Carter, to address to the entire school. Four students also shared something of their experience; they exhorted our community to get engaged. It’s a good beginning. Over the summer, my colleague Ms. Lynnly Tydings is spearheading efforts, with the help of students and faculty, to map out a course to continue at Good Counsel in the year ahead.
Grappling with questions of race and justice is not new in our country. But the past several months – action in response to Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and others – speak of the urgency with which all people of goodwill are being challenged to speak and listen and think. We must examine structures and practices – at home, here at school, and most certainly in the wider world – and be willing to work for change in whatever we find unjust and contrary to the dignity of the human person. For a Catholic community like ours, it’s a fundamental responsibility. Focused on shaping a world based on right relationships, we will build the Kingdom of God.