When asked “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus told the parable of a man who was robbed, beaten, and left half dead by the side of the road. The priest and the Levite avoided him, asking themselves, “What will happen to me if I stop to help this man?” The Samaritan however asked himself, “What will happen to this man if I do not stop to help him?”
Winter solstice 2020. It’s always dark near Christmas but that year all seemed especially bleak. A covid vaccine was on the horizon, but even those of us designated as elderly would have to wait for months before our turn to be inoculated. Fear of disease, hospitalization, and death crippled our connections and made us afraid to be close to each other during our most joyous season.
The previous May, George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by police in Minneapolis. As news spread, rage coalesced in many American cities and uprisings pitted those seeking justice against the police. The battle cry “Black Lives Matter” inspired millions of people to take to the streets to protest racially motivated police brutality.
My younger son was temporarily living in Los Angeles when the marches began. He joined the rallies and chose to place himself at the vanguard of one movement that was marching downtown to meet other protesters for a consolidated demonstration. The police had other plans; they were determined to stop the influx of Black Lives Matter activists from different points in the city from converging downtown, and they formed a phalanx moving against the demonstrators. Some police stood on rooftops firing rubber bullets while the street unit moved steadily against protesters with chemical sprays. My son was hit with both.
In Buffalo, people were outraged by the murder of George Floyd, and members of our Meeting stood with hundreds of others to declare that the current local and nationwide treatment of African Americans was a disgrace. Black Lives Matter signs began appearing all over the city in solidarity with the movement.
The call for social justice continued as covid still held us hostage. Schools and businesses were closed. We met outside or not at all.
Just before Christmas, I was driving at night through my Amherst neighborhood when I saw a young African American woman standing in the street, looking very confused. I rolled down my window to ask if she needed help, and she told me she was looking for an address, 137 Lakewood. She said the Uber driver dropped her off, telling her it was right here—but there was no such number. Her phone battery was dead so she couldn’t contact anyone for further information. Despite the risk of contracting covid, I told her to sit beside me in my car and together we would look for the place. Driving up and down Lakewood, it became clear she was truly lost; there was no number close to 137. Charging her phone in my car allowed her to contact her father who told us that she was expected at 137 Lake Shore Drive in Blasdell, not Amherst.
With no usable phone, no idea she’d been dropped off in the wrong town, no sense of where there was a fire or police station to help her, this Black woman was at the mercy of the cold December night. I took her back to my house to wait for her Uber, this time with the complete correct address.
Like you, I believe Black lives matter, and sometimes that requires something unexpected of us, something that is action not just slogans, something that may be uncomfortable or even dangerous.