Denver Catholic

that basic tenet to not be understood. My Catholic faith is my foundation and the foundation of my family. I'm a cradle Catholic. My husband's a cradle Catholic. But when we walk down the street, that's not what people see. That's not the first thing that comes to their mind. There's a prejudgment that is there and that happens even within in the pews. So what I would what I would want to come out of this is that we take the time to really do a self-reflection and an examination of our own consciousness to see where we fall in this whole issue of racism. Have we either been complicit either by our action or by our lack of action because indifference is still a choice? What I would want is first for people to start with themselves and to pray upon it and to seek enlightening from the from the Holy Spirit to be able to be a spiritual warrior in regards to racism. And also to listen, to take the time to listen to the stories. To reach out and to educate themselves on what the issues are, because there's a lot of people who are allies who want to know more. JANAYE: I would say a lot of times my identity is politicized and used as that dividing point where when I start to talk about my experience as a black person and how it differs from someone who isn't black, it tends to drive people away. But at the end of the day, we all have similar qualities. We all have this human experience that we're going through. My ultimate goal is just to help people see that I'm just as human as the next person. When we look at what happened to George Floyd, and we have such a long list at this point of how he's just representative of so many other people and so many other victims who have gone through similar experiences, some of whom have died and others who have lived to tell about it, there's still this implicit threat or this implicit bias against what it means to be black. I live in more than a bit of fear a lot of times of how I might come off to others, and it changes how I navigate [the world], but it doesn't make me vindictive and it doesn't make me hateful towards others. I hope they can see my humanity, my flaws and my strengths and all of that and just really accept me for who I am and remove, especially in the U.S., the politics around race and the negative connotation that's been placed on us for generations. DUSTIN: As a black Catholic watching this unfold on a human level, I'd like to share with all my Catholic brothers and sisters that racism is a real thing. Racism is unfortunately something that rings true to reality. I don't think it's smart to think we could ever eradicate something like that, because that would almost be like saying let's eradicate all sin altogether. For anyone who has had to deal with or suffer some kind of injustice, because we all have in different ways, there's certainly a history of racism with the black community. But I think we've all, at different points, had some kind of prejudice worked against us, even just as Catholics in a pagan society. I think that a goal for us is to look at that and say, "when someone is saying this is happening and I think it might be because of race," not to dismiss it or discredit it as, "oh, that's a political issue or that's a left wing thing." I think that this does go hand-in-hand with pro-life [issues] and protect- ing life at its most delicate stage in the womb of its mother. We have to acknowledge it's evil and we have to keep fighting gently and then working harshly against the evils and injustices. 6 DENVER CATHOLIC | JUNE 13-26, 2020

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