Exodus 34:6

For years I have struggled with the verses that talk about the sins of the father being passed down 3 and 4 generations. As someone with a father with a lot of moral ambivalence, I did not look forward to learning what these verses meant. But these days I see the sins of our fathers everywhere. I see them in the U. S.  Capitol. I see them in the hypocrisy of this country as it responds very differently to Black Lives Matter and the Proud Boys. I feel the weight of being white in a country that tells me that I can benefit from being white if I just pretend I don't understand what I am seeing. I feel it like a millstone That my father's father's, father's father must have carved. 

I know that I'm not racist like the worst of them. The death of Black people make me queasy, sad, and angry. The way murder should make you feel. But, Lord, have I felt the pull towards apathy this past year as I realize how long this fight will last and how long it has already been going! Lord, I have felt the ways in which I benefit by a silence other people cannot afford. Lord, I have heard my siblings crying out and I grew weary of my own powerlessness, like they don't live in that reality from birth. But I am used to a certain amount of power and agency and the structures in this country are set up so that you can only have those when you align with white supremacy. White people who commit to equality are race traitors. And that is not glamorous. It is lonely and confusing. Black and brown people won't hold you up as someone special (because they shouldn't need to) when you betray whiteness and white people who still support whiteness will distance themselves from you even if it's only by intuition.

But this generational iniquity calls for repentance, calls for turning away, calls for a commitment to justice even it renders you powerless. This is the cup white Americans must drink from.