With the Dallas City Council having voted to remove the Robert E. Lee statue and with Mayor Mike Rawlings' Task Force on Confederate Monuments due to give its final recommendation on Oct. 23, we should be asking ourselves one question: Will we let these decisions unite us or divide us?
Will they bring us together and become an opportunity for the same kind of healing we experienced in the aftermath of last year's deadly police shootings, or will they become just another flashpoint for fear, misunderstanding and racism to rear its ugly head in our city?
I'm rooting for unity.
On Sundays, you can find me preaching at St. Paul United Methodist Church, one of the city's oldest African-American houses of worship. Opened in 1873, my church has been uniquely impacted by the Confederate monuments issue, because it was founded by resilient former slaves in a city that did not always want them here. If Dallas could no longer enslave them, it would use other methods of discrimination to keep them in check. And it did.
Understandably, many of my congregants do not take the issue of Confederate monuments lightly. Nor do I. Often these monuments depict the types of people who would have loved to see us continue to be owned as property, or in some cases killed. I believe they should come down.
My call for unity is a response to the very real fear that hate groups such as the KKK and neo-Nazis will become further emboldened to spew disgusting rhetoric while a nation that is already being tested continues to fracture and fall prey to the dangers of misinformation.
A house divided cannot stand; that is a lesson America has already learned the hard way. We cannot allow it to happen again.
However, the fact that our city is addressing the issue of Confederate monuments — at a time when increased attention is being given to groups fomenting hatred and violence — is a positive sign that our nation is evolving and may be ready to deal with our nation's original sin.
So, how can we talk and work this out while maintaining civility and, most important, building unity? I suggest that task-force members listen, learn and engage, following this framework we have successfully used in navigating the complex issue of police-community relations:
• Understand that human beings must trust one another before unity is possible, and trust is only possible through relationships. Most screaming takes place from behind a keyboard, not at a coffee shop. Meet someone in person, shake hands and get to know one another before diving headfirst into sticky conversations. The relationship, not the conversation, is paramount.
• Establish a common set of principles that everyone agrees on. We must know the values that unite us before we try to find a solution; otherwise we will continue to talk past each other. As Americans, we share common values. Speak them.
• Take into account the context in which the Confederate monuments were erected. We must ask ourselves: Are these monuments in the historically and culturally accurate context? We can look to other nations that have had murky pasts to find ways not to destroy history but to destroy the evil that defined that history and persists to this day.
• Find a deeper common understanding of racism as a cancer in our society. Cancer kills if it's not dealt with.
• Finally, where there is a failure in elected leadership, be open to looking to community leaders and other citizens to inspire change and a spirit of unity.
The mayor's task force should be viewed as the beginning of a long-needed dialogue toward healing, but it could also be the end if we allow it to. Project Unity is one such positive movement; it doesn't focus solely on moments of crisis or need, but has an ongoing mission to unify our city and directly address the divisions that keep us apart. Through activities during the year, especially involving the community and police, we're creating common unity.
The bottom line for the mayor's task force is this: Getting people to work together is hard work and heart work. Unity must be our primary goal because that's what a city is built on—living close to our fellow human beings and learning not just to tolerate them, but to love them as a family loves its own. We should settle for nothing less as we consider Confederate monuments in Dallas.
Richie Butler is Senior Pastor of St. Paul United Methodist Church and the founder of Project Unity. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News. Email: rbutler@spumcd.com