Okay, My Turn to Join In (Some thoughts on race relations)--Part 1

**Disclaimer: race relations is such a sensitive topic.  I write this with as much humility and love to everyone as possible, and hope you can forgive any insensitivity**

Part I: Looking into People's Eyes.

I've been doing a lot of thinking for the past many months, through Ferguson, New York, now Baltimore.  And especially a lot about being urged as an Asian to speak about the problems of race, prejudice, and un-love in our country today.

When the first of these unrests first surfaced, I did not speak because I did not know much about it.  I thank my friends for pointing me to more education.  Also, Missouri, New York, Maryland...those places are so faraway.  Then, as some of my Asian American friends starting urging other Asian Americans to speak in solidarity with Black brothers and sisters, I admit to feeling pressured, which in turn made me not want to speak out.

But I've been wrestling with the implications it has for my work, and I'd like to share a few thoughts. Because I realize that it does get very up-close and personal for me.

 I work as a social worker/therapist for children and families who are low-income, disempowered, marginalized. Furthermore, I work specifically with children with severe emotional and social deficits.  A lot of them come from trauma, abuse, and foster history. Their symptoms often include being kicked out of multiple schools, being bounced from house to house, aggression and violence, drugs, getting into gangs, depression, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and getting arrested.

It occurs to me that the clients I work with, who happen to be pre-dominantly Latino or Hispanic, and African-American, will have a much higher chance of encountering law-enforcement in the future.  I think about what it would be like if a client of mine were to become the next Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gaye.    

To the world, my clients are trouble-makers, good-for-nothings, doomed to end up in the system.  It is not that they have a higher chance of doing drugs, getting into gangs, being arrested...it is that THEY ARE already engaged and trapped in these things.  My clients do get arrested.  They get restrained.  They get sent to juvie.  They get caught stealing and doing drugs. They end up in the news.  If they were the victims of unfair treatment from police, or by society, I would most definitely speak up!  What is happening in states faraway from me has HUGE implications for my clients, and by extension, me.  

The Greatest Commandment is to love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength.  And the Second is to love your neighbor as yourself.  

The other day, I was thinking to myself, if only people would think, what would I say or do if that person were my own son, my own brother?  But even this will not do anything.  I see kids everyday whose parents and families thought nothing of abusing and hurting innocent lives.  Those parents saw their own child and still do horrible things.  Sin has made us all fallen!  Sin has made it so all relationships are broken.  We do horrible things to each other; some more heinous than the other.

What if we looked into each others' eyes and saw actual people? What if, instead, we looked into each others' eyes and saw ourselves?  People want to first and foremost survive.  They will do anything for self-preservation; even people who hurt other people will try to care and save themselves.  If people saw themselves in others, they'd be less likely to hurt them.

But even this is not enough.  Because I have seen too many clients who have self-hatred and have bought into lies about being worthless and garbage.  I myself have struggled with loving myself.

What if we looked into each others' eyes and saw Jesus?

Jesus brings transformation.  Jesus teaches me to love myself as He loves me, as His beloved creation and daughter.  Jesus helps me to then love others because He has loved so well.

I sit and look into my clients' eyes, and I get the honor of sitting with them in their pain, grief, and suffering.  I get to see past the symptoms of cursing, lying, tantrums, violence, aggression, sexual acts, deviance, juvenile hall, probation, ankle bracelets...and see people broken by the Fall and by sin from themselves and from others.

I get the privilege of teaching my clients skills that will lead them further from paths of destruction, and into marvelous light.  How to advocate for themselves, but also turn their energies into blessing and loving others.  I get to even help them learn to interact with the police, and help the local police interact with my clients: I get to help facilitate the eye-to-eye meeting of two entities that are now struggling in the whole of America.

And I get to pray for each of these little ones, for Jesus to enter their lives and make them new creation.  I kinda love my clients.  Jesus loves them a WHOLE bunch.

My clients' lives matter to me.  Brown, Garner, Gurley, Graye, and countless other black men and women--their lives matter to someone.  Liang, Darren Wilson, Daniel Pantaleo and Justin Damico, and countless police officers--their lives matter to someone. They matter to God.

Hmmm...