Bitterness Deferred

I posted a link yesterday that nearly ruined my day.

For those of y'all who missed it, the link was to a story by The Nation about some small scale ethnic cleansing that took place in New Orleans immediately following Hurricane Katrina. The story described the unsolved murders of several black men by a gang of roving white men in a mainly white neighborhood on New Orleans' West Bank. Apparently, these folks took to killing any black person walking through their neighborhood in an effort to prevent looting.

That's right, people were murdered to prevent them from even CONSIDERING stealing a television.

As I read that story, I felt a mixture of anger and dismay build inside my stomach that quickly soured the bootleg Apple Jacks I'd had for breakfast. The men featured in that article bragged of shooting black people in cold blood, one of them compared it to pheasant hunting in South Dakota. The word nigger was clearly something they were quite familiar with. The most galling thing was that none of them saw anything wrong with hunting human beings simply because of the color of their skin.

I was not feeling charitable towards white people when I finished reading.

Then, I went out on a story assignment to talk to someone whose child had been killed. It was an older white woman, and I prepared myself for comments about the "animals" in New Orleans and their lack of humanity. I was already practicing my poker face and reminding myself that going off on people I needed to interview was the best way to end up in the unemployment line.

And then God happened.

I attribute what happened next to God, but some of y'all might just think it was fate or luck. But, my faith makes me think it was God.

This old woman was so sweet. She was obviously torn up by the murder of her son, but she treated me with nothing but dignity and respect. She was kind, forthcoming and just nice. Like, the kind of nice that makes you take a step back and just marvel at people's composure. When I left her living room, she even asked me for a hug.

That was God speaking to me.

He was telling me that general, random bitterness is not something he condones. He was reminding me that when I allow hatred and anger to fester in the recesses of my heart, I only contribute to the evil in this world. That woman was sent to me to remind me that if I was going to fling my bitterness out at all white people, I was really no better than the bastards that killed black men for sport.

She reminded me that I claim to be a child of God.

As such, I have to remember exactly how important forgiveness is in God's eyes. That doesn't mean I excuse bad behavior, but it means that I must not cling to anger. It was a lesson I needed to learn this morning.

And I thank that old lady for teaching it to me.


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