Seven days a
week, in the late afternoon, protestors position themselves at a four corner ‘Taykanee’
intersection and demonstrate against the systematic racism that has plagued the
U.S. since its founding. Some of the protestors
kneel for nine minutes in memory of George Floyd. Others stand. The four corners are a reminder of the Native
American sense of the diversity and unity of the races, White, Black, Red, and
Yellow, and their search for the righteous. ‘Taykanee’ is just east of Wauwatosa,
and about 30 miles north of Kenosha, Wisconsin towns in the national spotlight
for allegations of violence in the protests against systematic racism.
Non-violence
was the tactic and faith belief of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he led the
quest for civil rights in the 60’s. For
King, violence was a distraction from the issue of racism. “This is the evil one seeks to dramatize;
anything else distracts from that point and interferes with the confrontation
of the primary evil.” (King, p.64)
King’s
disciple, Rev. Jesse Jackson, preached to a large group of African American
young men in Chicago after King was martyred in 1968. Rev. Jackson spoke to the
crowd about a sniper shooting of a white fireman in Cleveland. He linked the
practical with a basic rule of faith. “It was wrong!” he said. “They have more guns than we do; if we resort
to violence, we become like them; and the Bible says ‘thou shalt not kill.’ “
Some of the ‘Taykanee’
protesters don’t have vivid memories of Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King,
but they do know the position of Milwaukee-born Colin Kaepernick. All the protestors take on a prophetic role
insisting that Black lives matter.
King, Martin
Luther, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here:
chaos or Community?, Harper & Row, New York, 1967.
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