I don’t even know how to smoothly work into this, so I’m just going to sum up the past week and make my point.

Last weekend, all of the Charlottesville stuff happened. I won’t spend a lot of time on that because, frankly, I feel I don’t know enough to be able to adequately discuss it. All I know is that it was the catalyst for the rest of my week.

The students in my literature class looked at the Universal Declaration of Human rights this week. The theme for this unit is human rights violations, so it’s a natural place to start. To help them connect to this document, I had them come up with what they considered to be the top 5 rights from the 30 in the document. Then, as an extended thinking exercise, I had them decide which one of the top 5 they would give up if they had to. It should be tough because it’s the 5 most important rights in their opinion. I found out that it wasn’t so difficult for some of them.

One of the first responses I read in my first class said that he would give up the right against discrimination because it happens anyway. I couldn’t believe it, and it broke my heart. This wasn’t the only response that followed that sentiment. Several students throughout the day wrote similar responses… “because it happens anyway”. They were all minority students.

Before I go any further, these are honors students, some of them even freshmen taking sophomore classes already. These are sharp kids. The top of their class. Students who notice things. Students who aren’t just repeating something they’ve heard on TV or from their parents. They see it. They experience it. They feel it. And some of them are already giving up.

Then, two of my favorite hip hop artists, Propaganda and Lecrae, were on the most recent episode of the Relevant podcast (you have to listen to this) discussing a lot of the racial issues in America. I was in tears by the end. I can’t even begin to sum up the discussion, but I realized that I’ve never fully understood the position of minorities in the U.S. I don’t think I still fully understand it, but I get it better now.

I’ll use one example from the discussion that opened my eyes. A lot has been made out of the desire to take down statues of well-known Confederate icons. Advocates of keeping these monuments up claim that they want to preserve their history and culture. I get it, but that’s not what monuments are for. It’s what museums are for, preserving history. You don’t see statues of Hitler all over Germany. If we did, we’d start screaming Nazis and be prepared to fight. You know what they do have? They have museums dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust. You think they’re worried about forgetting the history? No. But they’re also not celebrating the ideals of the Nazi party.

What if a group of British loyalists started erecting statues of King George in Boston? Philadelphia? D.C.? How about putting King George and some Red Coats at the spot where the Boston Massacre took place? Would there be an outcry? Maybe there wouldn’t. Maybe those events are too far removed from today for it to bring up feelings of contempt. Racism isn’t the same. There’s still a generation living that experienced first-hand the racism of the 50s and 60s. There’s still a lot of discrimination. You don’t think seeing a statue celebrating the culture that fought to keep slavery wouldn’t bring up feeling of contempt and resentment? So they cry out and people rebuke them for it.

And yet, when people fly Nazi flags, people simply excuse it as freedom of speech. That’s fine, but let’s use free speech to speak out against it. When people are silent, it only encourages the actions of other. It emboldens them to continue on.

I used the concept of bullying this week to try and help my students understand why it’s everybody’s job to speak against these problems. If one student makes a denigrating joke about another student, I can write them up and send them to ISS, but if ten of that student’s peers laugh at the joke, it only reinforces that it’s okay to make that joke. If that student’s friends turn around and say, “That’s not okay,” and there is a culture among everyone that that kind of treatment is unacceptable, then behavior changes. If we want things to change, we all have to speak up.

I’m ashamed that I’ve been so ignorant for so long. I’m ashamed that so many people want to defend something that is not okay. I’m ashamed the the Church (capital C, nationwide) has been pretty silent on this issue. I’m ashamed that I’ve been just as much of the problem as anyone else.

God’s heart throughout the entire Bible is speaking up for and taking care of “widows and orphans,” to be the Good Samaritan helping the broken and beaten man. The down and out. The helpless. The oppressed. The minorities, whomever they may be.

I hate seeing what’s happening. I hate that I have students—top of their class, should have it easy, the ones who are supposed to be successful—who are already so cynical at 14, 15, 16 that they have already almost given up on being successful before they’re even halfway out of high school because “it happens anyway.”

And then I look at my daughter and wonder what kind of world she’s growing up in. I want her to grow up in a different world. So I speak where I can and hope it doesn’t fall on deaf ears, and I hope that it will do some good and bring some change.

I hope you want that, too.