They say love can heal all wounds. So on this Valentine’s Day I’m sending a love letter to black men with a prayer that in the coming years the black community will do everything it can to promote healing and respect.
My Valentine message is simple: I love you. And, I ask that we stand strong with our fellow Americans to confront inequality and injustice in all its forms. It will be necessary to look into our own hearts. We have to believe in our own self-worth. Yes, we all have much work to do. But we’ve come so far — often only by faith — and we won many battles. We are up to the task.
The all too familiar statistics on black men are beyond distressing. Those numbers don’t bear repeating here. But listen to the stats long enough, over generations even, and they can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: Black men are dangerous; they are to be feared, not valued.
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