God Who Delivers the Oppressed

Last updated on: April 29, 2015 at 8:09 pm by Guest Contributor

God Who Delivers the Oppressed 2015-04-29T20:09:42-05:00 Guest Contributor

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The events of the last few weeks have left many people in our country weary. When the grandjury in Ferguson decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for killing Mike Brown, the shoulders of many black people fell. Our hearts, already broken and bruised as a result of living in an oppressive society, broke even more. Once again, a nation that never intended for us to make it, that never intended for us to do well, failed us. Though to be expected, we couldn’t keep ourselves from weeping. We could not keep ourselves from grieving. And we certainly could not help the feelings of utter disappointment and rage from boiling in our bones, pressing against our bodies, dying to get out. For a moment, we allowed ourselves to hope in a justice system that has had a long track record of treating us with malice. And hope failed us.

For nearly 400 years, our story has remained relatively the same. For nearly 400 years, blacks in this country have been marginalized and exploited by one form of oppression or another.

Slavery.

Convict leasing system.

Jim Crow.

Mass Incarceration.

Redlining.

Generational poverty.

Police Brutality.

Though all of these techniques have different faces, the aim of each is to ensure that blacks don’t know peace.

After 400 years of this, you simply have to wonder when will things change. When will those of us who have been oppressed break free? When will we, at last, be able to break the yoke of white supremacy off of our necks? When will we stop drowning in this sea of perpetual turmoil and be able to finally come up from air? When will we be able to stop fighting to simply exist?

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