As Lecrae said in response to Louie Giglio’s ridiculousness, “This needs to be a time when [white evangelicals] listen and learn, and not a time when you’re leading” (see this Washington Post article about last week’s “white blessings” debacle if you need some context or aren’t sick of reading about it already).

Some thoughts, in poem form:

"White Blessings"

I don’t want to hear about “white blessings”
really, I don’t want to hear anything at all from

white male pastors who started thinking about race yesterday
and talk today like we should listen

they talk this way because people have always listened 
always looked to them as leaders

but they’re not the ones I want to follow
I don’t care about their vision and

I’d rather not keep watching them keep scrambling
keep backpedalling pathetically to try to not seem racist

throwing words against the wall to see what sticks
not one speck interested in changing the meaning of it all

and I don’t want to hear them say that black lives matter
while every inch of their theology screams otherwise

corroborated and condemned by the unbothered way they walk 
on through a world that opens every door for them and bows

and I don’t want to hear them talk about enslavement
as if they’re not quite sure whether to be thankful for it

and I don’t want to see them pretend that white people
can enter into conversations about race and be

anything but awkward or do anything but stumble through
so very much in need to listen and not lead

so very much in need of grace and real correction
the kind we might in fact receive 

if we admit how desperately we bumble
how short-sighted our vision, how unfit we are to lead

and empathy aside, I do not want to think that one
who claims spiritual leadership might actually believe

that we could take racism’s material rewards and
weigh them against the way it tears apart our souls

or wonder for a moment if white supremacy could be
in any world anything but a deal with the devil.