It has been 6 weeks since Inauguration Day in DC. St. Matt's Racial Equity Group member, Peter Iversen, reflects on his experience of that day and his ongoing journey with justice.
Three months after our wedding day came our first Christmas morning.
I can still see that first tree (Scots pine) alight, standing in front of our second floor apartment window – “yrreM samtsirhC” (Merry Christmas) snow-sprayed on the inside of the glass. There were the stockings, hung from our big yellow desk with care, and the two of us sitting at the furnished apartment coffee table enjoying our first Christmas breakfast. Since then – Denice and I have always celebrated the holiday with croissant, bacon, coffee and a bottle of bubbly. Christmas came last year, as usual – and then in January – it came again...
Inauguration Day 2021 was my day to binge. I had avoided TV news for over three years and now I found myself sitting, watching and eating my second “Christmas breakfast” ...and all my January 20th meals off our coffee table. Released. I could take a deep breath and let the sights and sounds of the morning wash over me, touch me deeply, fill my soul with energy and renewed hope. Alive and ready for what comes tomorrow and the next day and the next...
When I was a teenager I watched a lot of TV. I still recall the feelings I had when I watched peaceful Black marchers being shouted down, attacked and beaten by scores of hate filled whites and the police. It seemed surreal to me – something far off and out of my experience. I was safe.
Here I am today, committed to continue on this journey towards Racial Equity. In spite of the protests, struggles and progress that is being made, I know that systemic racism still thrives in many parts of our country. At this moment I feel our window of opportunity has opened wider. As a result, this is not the time for me to sit back and breathe a congratulatory sigh – It’s time to move on, take the next step, to read, watch, listen, work to understand and commit – to action.
I am no longer willing to see myself as “safe”. To be an detached observer, a bystander or passer-by, turning my head and quickening my steps. I take the next step forward and the next and...
