I’m haunted by these words from the Christian tradition
every day as I plunge back into the tumultuous waters of the Alabama
immigration conflict. I’m haunted because we have been here before, and thought
never to pass this way again. Surely not
in Alabama, not again. Have we not
learned? Have we not been healed of our
need to wound and divide? We have long
lived with the pain and shame borne of the refusal to honor the humanity of our
neighbors. We all carry barely-covered
scars borne of hostilities to people whose only real crime is living beneath
skin of a different hue, who simply want to live among us with dignity, hope
for their children,
and the necessities of life.
How can this be happening again? I ask when I hear that
families are terrified to leave their homes, to travel the roads, to send their
children to school. How can this be
happening again? I ask when I hear that families are losing their livelihoods,
or being torn apart to eke out even the meanest of incomes. How can this be
happening again? I ask, when my friends ask me, ‘why do they hate us so much?
I had nurtured a spark of hope for my state, that we were at
least walking in the approximate direction of the Promised Land where, as my
church says, all people are celebrated as precious children of God. But we have been thrown back into hell. With all the powers vested in it by its
citizens, the State of Alabama has poisoned the places where people without
papers pray, play, work, study, travel, and conduct business of any kind. They have been stripped of all
protection. Terror is once again official
state policy and practice. We, all
people of faith, all people of compassion, are called to protect the ones
society attempts to drive out in a Trail of Tears.
In our time and place, it is the undocumented. Countless times I have heard people say, ‘I
was too young to be a part of the Civil Rights Movement. I wonder what I would
have done if I had been there?’ We don¹t have to wonder anymore. Now is our time. Once again the entire world is watching
Alabama deny its people all the things that give life even a drink of
water. Will we be on the wrong side of
humanity again? The wrong side of history? The wrong side of the One in whose
image we are all made? We have a chance to be a new and different people. We
can be a people with arms open wide. We can be the people we say we are, people
who help one another, people who help those in need, people who don’t know a
stranger, people who would give you the shirt off their back, people who always
have an extra place at the table, people who would walk the extra mile, people
who always have extra room at the inn. We
have the choice. We can do it right this time. We have the power to change this
hateful, irrational law. We can withhold
our consent from the ones who govern. We can make things right, before too much
more damage is done, damage to our brothers and sisters, damage to our state,
damage to our souls. (October, 2011)
