"I am Mike Brown" written by BR native

quote:

---

I am Mike Brown.

I am Mike Brown because I am a young black male that lives in an urban American city. Sure, I have been to college and divinity school. Sure, I wear suits a few times a week and attempt to be clean shaven. Sure, I speak properly most of the time. But I am still Mike Brown.

I am Mike Brown because regardless of how I see myself as a thoughtful, energetic, compassionate, and friendly young man—the law does not necessarily see me that way. On the streets of Washington, DC outside of Calvary Baptist Church I am just another dangerous black man.

Jesus is Mike Brown, too.

Jesus is Mike Brown because Jesus was a poor young man that the authorities distrusted. They were so suspicious of him that they conjured up a story, organized a hasty and unfair trial and quickly condemned him to death and called it justice. Jesus is Mike Brown because despite how he saw himself, the authorities saw him as a threat, and that’s all that mattered.

Jesus is Mike Brown because he teaches his followers in Matthew 25, that whatever they do or anybody else does against the least of these, they do it to him. Mike Brown was the least of these and Mike Brown represents the millions of least of these.

Are you Mike Brown, too?

Maybe you are thinking I am white. I am old. I am privileged. I might sympathize with Mike Brown, but I can’t be Mike Brown, too. But I challenge you to see yourself as Mike Brown. See yourself as Jesus saw the woman at the well or as he saw Zaccheus, or as he saw the criminals beside him, or as he saw the adulterer, or as he saw… (I think you get it). See, Jesus didn’t see them as people different from himself who just needed his saving. Jesus saw himself as one of them. Jesus lived in their neighborhood, identified with their race, and experienced their struggles.

That’s why Jesus could say and mean, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do it to me.” Jesus takes our oppressive offenses personally, because Jesus is the oppressed. Jesus takes the murder of Mike Brown seriously because Jesus knows that if they can do it to Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice, they can, have and will do it to him. Jesus is Mike Brown.

Are you Mike Brown, too?

The entire gospel we follow hinges on the profound theological idea that the creator of heaven and earth, the eternal deity, the Most High God, took on the literal conditions of the least of these by coming into the world as a human, but not just any human, but a poor and oppressed human under the rule of the Roman authority. In a very real sense, our God emphatically declared that God is on the side of oppressed!

In that moment God also offered a compelling teaching for those of us who are privileged that we too are called to leave the comfortable place, the privileged places, the holy places, and join our Lord where he is and where he continues to dwell. God calls us to real solidarity. God calls us to follow his example of becoming the least of these.

We are called to see Mike Brown, a big, black teenage boy, as one of us, and as family. We are expected through our reading of the Bible to take Mike Brown’s murder personally. We are mandated to act in some form of solidarity whether it be marching in the streets, convincing our neighbors it is injustice, or simply putting our hands in the air saying “hands up, don’t shoot”.

We are challenged to say to Darren Wilson and his defenders that what they did to Mike Brown—killing him in broad daylight on a Saturday afternoon in the presence of many witnesses—that what they did to him, they did to me, to you, to our Lord, Jesus the Christ, and to our God.

I am Mike Brown. Jesus is Mike Brown. You are Mike Brown, too.

---

This guy went to Catholic High and posts a lot of race-related stuff on Facebook. I usually don't post stuff on here from Facebook, but dang.