Nick Fawcett (devotional and reflective writer)

Could you believe the scenes in Wisconsin this week; the awful shooting of Jacob Blake? I couldn’t. Once again, America has left itself covered in shame, its police officers – or at least a rogue element within them – exposed as violent thugs. You would have thought with tensions running so high recently, they would have been making every effort to be restrained, to avoid confrontation and to show scrupulous fairness in all their actions, but instead we saw a young black man shot repeatedly in the back as he climbed into his car, the attack – which reportedly has left Jacob paralysed from the waist down – being witnessed by his young sons sitting on the back seat. It is a crime that defies belief, and one that screams out at us again: ‘Black Lives Matter!’ Such prejudice must end! Not just be noted and then ignored again. Not just tinkered with at the edges. But uprooted. Flushed out. Consigned once and for all to the dustbin of history. It has no place in our world and its existence demeans us all. Together we must not only pray but work for a time when racism is no more. Nothing else will do. That’s the theme of the following prayer, written in response to this tragic and shocking episode.

Lord,
help me to see the fact,

not that some are black,
not that their skin is a different colour to mine,
not that any aspects of their culture stand in contrast to my own,
but that they are human –
as human as I am,
as human as any other,
with equal right to respect,
to hold their head high,
to be treated with dignity,
and to enjoy freedom,
opportunity
and justice.
Teach us all, Lord, that any discrimination,
any prejudice on the basis of colour or creed,
has no place in a society that considers itself civilised,
still less one that claims to be Christian;
that such bigotry says more about the one bigoted than any other,
exposing their inadequacy,
their puerile character
and their jaundiced view of the world.
Grant that the day will come when racism is no more;
a time when, far from congratulating ourselves on its passing,
we wonder how we ever allowed it to take hold
and tolerated it for so long.
And as for those today who continue to harbour racist attitudes,
or, worse, seek to impose them on others,
God, have mercy on their soul.
Amen.