Six Things You Can Do to Address Racism

Our family, including our grandchildren, have been discussing the events in Dallas and the videos of black men being killed by police. Everyone has an opinion, because we all want a solution.

I hear white Christians blaming the problem on the immorality and breakdown of the family in urban America. And blacks see racial discrimination everywhere from the justice system to education. And there are elements of truth in both camps. Human nature is such that we tend to find evidence to support the views we already hold. And at no time was this form of confirmation bias more obvious than in the O.J. Simpson verdict. And I was guilty myself!

But if I hear one more politician, or new commentator say, “It’s time we have a national conversation about gun violence and racial discrimination by police against black men,” I think I’ll scream! We’ve been having those conversations for years, and intensely ever since the Trayvon Martin incident in in 2013, spawning the Black Lives Matter, movement.

Please don’t misread me; I’m all for discussions and conversations, even at the national level to address these problems. But, we can learn from environmentalists who coined the phrase “Think globally, but act locally.”

So, what does “act locally” actually mean in this context? It means that although you and I alone can’t change national policy, we can and should be far more proactive with our own family and friends. So here are six ideas to get started;