Race relations in the U.S.A. all too often play out like this:

African-American people: “We have a problem in this country with race, and it is important to us.”
White Americans: “Be quiet!”
African American people: “Lives are impacted both in the past and now.”
White Americans: “Get over it!”

I wish I could say this were an exaggeration. Sadly, I have seen these responses quite literally on the social media pages I manage and elsewhere.

Right now, this controversy is playing out intensely over athletes taking a knee during the national anthem in protest over racism and police brutality. Before any of us gives our opinions on the flag, the national anthem, racism or the first amendment, there is something more fundamental that we are missing:

Our brothers and sisters in Christ are raising their voices. They say there is a problem. The rest of us may not see the problem, but we can hear their voices raised. Maybe we ought to walk in their shoes for a while until we can also see the issue as they see it?

The fundamental issue is: How do we treat our fellow citizens when they cry out in pain?

Whenever people respond with denial, trying to shut others down from speaking their voices or dismissing their concerns without any reasonable discussion, that just about guarantees that the original concerns are probably a little too close to the truth for comfort. Or at the very least, they have hit some nerve somewhere.

That is simply not an appropriate way to respond when someone comes to us in distress. People who attempt to shut others down are very often—if not always—trying to hide something. I suspect that white America knows its guilt, but it is still largely trying to run from it. White America has never been very good when it comes to mature accountability for its actions around race. Tragically, all this does is allow the injustices to continue to be perpetrated, and it passes the buck for later generations to deal with. Problems do not go away this way.

You may not agree with my assessment. But can you please demonstrate that you are listening deeply to the concerns of protesters before reaching that conclusion?

Some do not like the method of protest where athletes take a knee during the national anthem. However, the debate over the method has obfuscated the original reasons for the protests. The original issues have little to do with the flag, and many were doing it long before President Trump weighed in. It is about racism and police brutality.

If you don’t like the way folks are protesting, could it be because you didn’t listen to all the other ways folks tried to tell you before? We, as a nation, did not hear their cries, so prophets had to find new ways of getting the message across. This is not hard to understand. What is difficult, as history reminds us, is finding the willingness to hear.

If you don’t want athletes to kneel during the national anthem, are you willing to come to the table to hear their concerns in some other way? Or do you want them—and their protest—to simply go away? I have heard many detractors call for these protests to end. I have not heard a single detractor invite the protesters to the table to listen with an open heart to their concerns.

It seems before we can resolve a conflict as serious as racism, we have to first learn how to talk to each other. This means active listening and taking each other’s concerns seriously. That has to come before any other consideration.

Visit Frank Lesko’s website The Traveling Ecumenist