How Do We Heal? Justice

A perspective on forgiveness and healing

Activists seeking Justice for Ahmaud Arbery led to arrests more than a month after the crime. Image used under license from Shutterstock.com

In the past two weeks many of us have become aware of the shooting murder of Ahmaud Arbery, the suffocation of George Floyd, the harassment of Christian Cooper, and the murder of Breonna Taylor. We have again seen the effects of systemic racism.

Watching video of these racist attacks, which in three cases ended with the death of the black person involved, is emotionally traumatizing.

I have activated settings on my social media accounts so these do not play automatically when I scroll across them. I have opted not to embed or link to any of those videos here because I don’t want to facilitate the horror and harm of watching a murder. You can easily locate these videos if you are so inclined.

I have, in one sense, chosen to look away.

But in a far more important way, I have chosen to look directly at the problem. And I have joined my voice to the chorus of people calling for justice by retweeting with relevant hashtags and calling for police and local officials to act in the name of justice, or posting items such as this in public places.

I am inspired by friends on Facebook who are sharing contact information for the officials involved, and providing practical actions one can take to address these acts.