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The mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina is still fresh. The country is still attempting to wrap its head around the notion of a shooting in a sacred space. We are still attempting to process the death of a young Pastor, State Senator, community activist, husband and father. We are still trying to understand the mindset of a person who would seek to commit a hate crime in a church.
This is a relatively new story. And there is so much we will be processing and learning about this case over the next few days and weeks and beyond. Yet even as we are still learning and processing, there are already some things we can learn as individuals and as a collective from this tragedy.
1. It’s time for white Americans to commit themselves to the very hard work of white anti-racism.
The last story to dominate our newsfeeds was the story of a white woman who changed her physicality and lied in order to be identified as black. She worked in black communities and with black people on issues that related to black people. But for her and for many other white people around the country the harder but clearly more important work will be staying white and engaging those who are white in conversations about what it means to be white.
The more sacrificial but essential work will be convincing the parents of the next Dylann Roof that anti-racist child rearing is essential.
