By this point, pretty much everyone has heard of Dylann Roof and knows what he did in Charleston. I don’t need to say any more about the tragedy. I do however want to share the video below, and the message from the creator David Stanfield .

On the night of Wednesday, June 17, 2015, a white man walked into a church and murdered nine black people in the middle of a Bible study. This took place one mile from my home, and less than a mile from my office space.

The following Sunday, a good friend gave a talk that caused me to begin to think differently about the way I’ve viewed race and ethnicity my whole life. I wrote this short script two nights later at about 2am, wide awake and unable to turn it all off or retreat from it any longer. That talk by my friend made me remember how my whole life I’d heard phrases like “Love is colorblind” being put forth by well-meaning individuals. But the truth is, that idea completely and detrimentally misses the mark.

This video is, in part, a beginning of an attempt to wrestle with, work through, and process some of these thoughts.

Words:
Love is not colorblind. Unity is not colorblind.

Real love, real unity, does not whitewash variation in tone or difference in hue, shade, or shape. Real love, real unity, has no pre-requisite for sameness.

Real love, real unity, has no need for familiarity, comfort, or even agreement.

Real love, real unity sees the variations of hue, tone, shade, tradition, speech, song, dance, dialect, denomination and disposition and welcomes them all into the fabric of the family, rejoicing in an interwoven whole that is not just greater than the sum of its parts, but richer, deeper, and more beautiful as well.

Oh my God, may we not be colorblind, but may we have real love… real unity.

Special Thanks:
Willis Weber, III, for not only speaking the poignant, necessary, and hard words that brought this piece into being, but also for quite literally practicing what he preaches in the way that he lives, daily. Also, many thanks for greatly helping me shape the wording and message of the video.
Matt Stanfield, for immediately agreeing to give his time and heart to this in the form of an amazing musical score.