If my tears could put out the flames

I lie in my bed. A raging migraine threatens to steal another night of sleep. I try various relaxation techniques. Nothing works. In a last ditch effort, I click open the AT&T TV app on my iPad. I flick through some programs and land on a news show recorded earlier in the night.

I am startled and shocked to see the city of Minneapolis in great distress. The streets are littered with broken bottles; shopping carts line the walkways. Vulgar profanity pours forth from the lips of rioters. "We want justice!" they scream as they vandalize anything and everything they can.

My heart breaks as I see a Target store being looted. Target, of all places, should be one of the last places these thugs should be robbing. Target is headquartered in Minneapolis. They provide millions and millions of dollars to local charities and scholarships to those pursuing higher education. Target is dedicated to helping struggling communities fight poverty. I want to scream at the idiots on my computer screen, "Stop this right now! You are only hurting your own communities!"

A reporter on the ground is in front of an Auto Zone auto parts center. Flames erupt as people light the store on fire. Tears spring up in my eyes. That was someone's business. That building was the result of years and years of hard work by a person to provide for his family. That business provided jobs...jobs which have now gone up in smoke!

Another helicopter shows people looting a Dollar Tree store and other adjacent businesses. Again, tears cascade down my cheeks. More owners have lost their businesses. More people have just become unemployed. During a time when unemployment is at an all time high, countless more families will now struggle to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

A massive fire erupts a short distance from the Target store in a housing complex still under construction. The reporter states it was a subsidized housing complex. My heart breaks some more. The wait time to get affordable housing is often many years. How many people have just lost their dream at affordable housing? Will this fire bankrupt the housing company? How many more people just lost their jobs?

As the imagines stream in, rioters throw molotov cocktails at the police. People scream profanity; cars are destroyed. The streets look as though a war has broken out. A man is reported to have been shot to death. My head swims. Tears stream down my cheeks. I wonder how businesses have been destroyed. I wonder how my people lost their jobs. I wonder how many innocent people have just been victimized.

I wait for black leadership to stand up and address the situation, but there is only silence. I wonder if this is the dream Dr. Martin Luther King Junior imagined the USA would be when he gave his "I have a Dream" speech nearly 57 years ago. Dr. King worked to his last day preaching peace. In less than six decades, we seemed to have lost Dr. King's leadership and words. What a tragedy. If only my tears could extinguish the flames of hatred and the fires burning across Minneapolis and St. Paul...if only the rioters would resort to peaceful protests and resist violence...what a path we could create for unity and understanding.