I am tired of reading the letters RIP followed by the name of the latest victim of police brutality.

For far too long, this country has allowed horrific practices in law enforcement.  Sometimes the laws people were enforcing were unjust, as was the case with Jim Crow.  Sometimes the problem wasn’t the laws themselves, but the way the law was applied.  Our system was flawed from the beginning, when “unalienable rights” were given to some people and not others.

The nation’s forefathers long ago decided that they could not afford to extend liberty and justice to all.  As a result, there has never been an extended period of peace in the nation’s short history.  There can be no peace where there is no justice.  And we are so far from justice.  We are so far from peace.

Romans 12:18 tells me, if at all possible live peaceably amongst men.  In fact, the whole chapter tells us how to respond to oppression.  Surely we all want to live in peace.  We’d like to die that way, too.  Unfortunately, too many of us don’t get that opportunity.

The truth is, I don’t want those who have unjustly died at the hands of law enforcement to Rest In Peace.  I want their spirits and stories to torture those who took their lives.  I want their spirits and stories to hunt us all.

Heaven, help us.

Mama Radford