It’s been a week since the verdict in the Trayvon Martin murder case was announced. So much has been swirling inside of me. I’ve literally been clenched in pain most of that time. There were bright moments, however, one of which was welcoming a number of my nieces and a nephew to town for a brief visit. These kids are bright, caring, sensitive — and they all carry white privilege.

At one point in our time together one of them asked me “who is Trayvon Martin?” and I realized that I have yet again fallen into a trap of white privilege: the one which means I have not been compelled to help them learn the intertwined histories of racism and resistance in this country. How is it that this lively, bright young woman could not know who he is? Or, as we talked about it, not know the names of Emmett Till or Amadou Diallo, let alone all of the other people who have fallen to the violence of our racist systems? How could she not know this history?

One answer: because I have not taken the time or care to make sure she knows.

I found this video of a sermon preached last weekend in my Facebook stream today. It’s the first sermon responding to the Zimmerman verdict in the Trayvon Martin killing that I’ve wanted to share:

In this sermon the pastor explores Mark 15:21, the verse in the Bible that speaks of how Simon, a Cyrenian, was compelled to carry Jesus’ cross on the way to the crucifixion. Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley is incredibly powerful and brought me to tears. But his sermon was directed first to his congregation, which is a Black Baptist congregation, on the day after the verdict. And I am a white Catholic woman, listening to this sermon a week later.

So much of what he said resonated with me — particularly these words:

I don't want to carry this incorrectly … I don't want them [his children] to use a bitterness of racial injustice to cause them to be unproductive in the world because they blame race on everything… …the way this father carried the weight [referring to Simon and his son] allowed that young man to be productive in the center of a system that was biased against him.

I want my children to be productive, too! But in so many ways most of the children in my family’s orbit are not in the center of a system biased against them, but rather are at the center of a system — the system of racialization — that is biased FOR them, in ways that are deeply destructive of the fabric of our shared humanity.

I want to bear this verdict well, too. But for me, the challenge of bearing it well is probably not that of Simon the Cyrenian, but rather that of the bystanders who cheered Jesus’ crucifixion.

I don’t want my children — or any children within reach of my care and love — to come away from this moment in our shared history without some sense of the deep pain and anguish of systemic racism in this country. I don’t want them to be at the center of a system which so benefits them that they are oblivious to the ways in which that system dehumanizes and does violence to other people.

I know from having had the privilege of being a “lurker” in other family conversations in other families, that family gatherings in African American families, in Latino families, in Asian American families — whatever space we might describe or label for all those who do not carry white privilege — that there is no “choice” involved in responding to events such as we witnessed this week with Trayvon Martin. Systemic racism is not a discussion that can be avoided, or a topic quietly refused in the interest of “keeping the peace.”

So again, how is it that children in my family’s orbit aren’t regularly in such discussions? One very real reason: because white privilege means that if you have it, you can choose not to pay attention to race.

As I listen to Rev. Wesley, I am reminded powerfully that the reason I believe in Jesus is that God’s message in the resurrection is one of hope. An old Sojourners’ sweatshirt I have proclaims that “hope is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change.” For me, believing in Jesus means that I know that I must open my eyes to see what is going on around me, and as the Audre Lorde poem suggests:

I see much better now and my eyes hurt.

Believing in Jesus means it’s not enough for me to post powerful things other people have written or imaged or shared this past week (which is mostly what my blog has consisted in). I need to find ways in the heart of my extended family to testify to the children in our midst, to tell the truth — of both the blood of violence and the strength of resistance — that is our history.

I started with trying to help my nieces think about Trayvon Martin. But I need to continue to invite them — and in doing so support my own work as well — in “moving up the ladder of empowerment” for white people on the anti-racist journey. There are, of course, zillions of resources for doing so — Teaching Tolerance, The Storytelling Project, PBS’s Race: The Power of an Illusion, Facing History and Ourselves, and so on. But I think my next effort might be to share an Audre Lorde poem with each of them, and invite them to think with me about it.

I would cherish your own suggestions for what other next steps could be.