As my wife and I approached
the mall, we saw a low-lying fog hanging in the distance,
beneath it I was able to barely make out a large crowd of
shadowy forms. A muted din of music and voices floated towards
us as we drew closer. What had first looked like fog turned
out to be dust which hung like a cloud a few feet over a mass
of people gathered together amidst green signs which declared
"Stop the Genocide." It was Sunday April 30, 2006, we were in
Washington D.C. From where the crowd assembled, we could see
in the distance the dome of the U.S. Congress building gleaming
beautifully in the bright spring sunshine. The multitude of people
jostled, in near joyous celebration of camaraderie. We had gathered
in a unique oneness. All of us, of different religious beliefs
and of different ethnicities, drawn together in a passion of
determination, assembled as one, to lift our voices to protest
the massacre and murder of nearly a half million people of Darfur.
The murders have been so grotesque
that the President of the United States George W. Bush had rightly
named it "Genocide." Yet, most Americans stood idly by, some
uncaring, most unknowingly, because the U.S. media had not brought
the slaughter of so many innocents to the forefront. Only
minimal coverage of this catastrophe invaded our homes on the
six, ten or eleven o'clock news reports.
I first read about it in the spring
of 2004 in Time Magazine. The article had mentioned the possibilities
of another Rwandan type of mass murders occurring in the Darfur region
of the Eastern African Country of Sudan. Troubled with this information
I called a friend from The Sudan, and he confirmed the news, Genocide.
It was happening again, a genocide, which the International community
defines as,
"any acts committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group",
Again a rancid atrocity invaded humanity.
Once more the human species embraced an ugliness that is nearly impossible
to imagine. Murder and rape, burning and destruction used as a tool to
eliminate a people and most of the world stood idly by.
After discovering the truth of the
happenings in Darfur, I wrote my elected officials pushing them
to action. I received e-mails from most of them, declaring their
anger and disappointment at the inaction of our government, but
nothing was actually happening to stop the genocide. Thousands
continued to die, and the world stood idly by.
The only effective tool that could
possibly awaken our government to action, I believed were the
governed, the people of America. To my joy I found there were
grass-roots organizations that had taken an active role in trying
to bring to light the on-going tragedy. I spoke with church groups
both Catholic and non-Catholic, hoping to find one that had developed
a plan of action. The local Catholic Worker as well as several
college organizations such as Amnesty International had done extensive
work in organizing people and I found web sites that articulated well
the truths of what was occurring in Sudan. I followed the continuing t
ragedy with updates from the Catholic Relief Services website. Finally,
I discovered through the Office for Black Catholic Ministries in the
Hartford Archdiocese, a group of people who were energetically developing
strategies to actively confront the genocide.
The group consisted of several organizations,
including not only the Office for Black Catholic Ministries (OBCM), but
several prominent Jewish organizations; Jewish Defense League (JDL),
Jewish Community Relations Councils, National Council of Jewish Women,
as well as The Waterbury NAACP, Interfaith Refugee Center, and the
Local Catholic Relief Services Organization.
The Jewish community was actively involved
in this initiative, undoubtedly as a result of their own experience of
genocide as a catalyst for their concerns, and efforts. I applauded
their involvement.
But it was at one of our many meetings
when I fielded the question I knew was going to come at one time or
another.
"Deacon Art,
may I ask, why is the black American community so lightly represented in this
effort?"
The Rabbi who asked the question
meant no harm. He clearly had seen the need for a larger
representation from the African American community. I had
wished for a greater number as well, but I understood the
meager numbers. I explained to the Rabbi my beliefs.
We, as African Americans were
taught for centuries to shun our African roots. We had been
taught that Africa was the Dark Continent, inhabited only by
savages, who could only be tamed by white folks like the
great Bwanas that were depicted in the movies during the
40's, 50's and 60's. We had been systematically and cruelly
stripped of our knowledge of the greatness of our heritage.
For nearly 400 years we were separated from our legacy and
our culture. We did not know our brothers and sisters in
Africa.
Additionally, our struggles
against slavery, intolerance, and racism for nearly four
hundred years, here in America, had skewed our efforts and
concerns towards our own survival. It was nigh-on impossible
to be actively concerned about the deaths of your lost ancestors
in Africa when your brothers and sisters next door are suffering.
It is difficult to imagine the pain of your kin 10,000 miles away
when you can peer into the eyes of your kin whose sufferings
you can intimately breathe in, because they are next door, or
are your brother, or sister, or cousin, or aunt, or father,
or yourself.
The intimacy of our pain in
Black America has superseded in many ways the atrocities
our brothers and sisters are enduring far away in a place
we do not know and cannot imagine. And yet those who are far
away are our brothers and sisters and aunts and cousins and
mothers and fathers. We are linked by our mutual and common
experiences of ugliness and atrocities. We are kin by
our pain.
And so here we are Black America,
with brothers and sisters worldwide who are suffering as do
so many of us. Protesting the atrocities that have been visited
upon others does not preclude our standing up for ourselves. It
does not diminish our voices for our kin here, when we scream
out in outrage for our kin in Africa. I believe our standing as
a people in America enhances our global stand. We are called to
always lift our voices whenever and wherever any injustice occurs,
for we, perhaps more than others, have been the victims of
atrocities while others have stood idly by. So my wife and I
were drawn to Washington D.C. to stand up, to speak up, and to
cry out for our lost kin- as have other Black Americans.
Ultimately, I believe that if God
were to give us an eleventh commandment, if our Lord were to
reach into our spirits, into our souls to instruct us one more
time. I believe that eleventh commandment would read:
Thou Shalt not be a Bystander
