THE LAST RIVER MILE

Along with most of the world I watched Alex Pretti get shot multiple times and I wondered how we got to this point in our nation. How does an American citizen legally carrying a non-brandished firearm get killed while trying to help another person? This comes with a flood of other questions for me. How are ICE agents given largely unchecked authority in an area that has a tenth of the undocumented immigrants as Texas or Florida? How did we come to this? When did the necessary need for law and order become an excuse for unchallenged force? Do we not see the grave, 1930’s Germany-level danger in suspending due process for all who live in our land? How are we not concerned about the deliberate attempt to dismantle the balance of power written wisely into our nation’s Constitutional DNA? How can we even consider rolling back hard-won gains in civil liberties? Why are we surrendering to an “us/them” view of life, giving in to the dark addiction of needing some “enemy” to blame? How in the world are we at this point?

There’s no simple answer, I’m sure. Like everything else, it is multi-layered and complex. However, I sense one key factor that no one seems to be mentioning. But I can feel it. Frankly, I’ve wondered about it for nearly a couple of decades; at least since Barack Obama became president of the United States.

2045.

In or around that year, statistically, white people will no longer be in the majority in the United States. Over fifty percent of our citizenry will be made up of people of color. Nothing short of mass genocide will stop this. It’s just demographics. And it is inevitable. I believe that awareness of this is driving much enmity, division, and violence in these present days. People know, consciously or viscerally, that 2045 is coming.

The season of Caucasian dominance, including supremacy and privilege, is coming to an end. This is nothing unusual in the grand sweep of human history. Gradual ethnic shifts happen all the time. It’s just that this is a big one in our history. (A history which is relatively short as national histories go through the centuries.) In some ways it is a natural result of a country that defines itself as a melting pot. But for those who have been the beneficiaries of a white-dominated culture, which includes me, it is a seismic shift.

The death throes of any creature near its end can be violent; somewhat understandably, as the creature feels white-hot fear in the face of immediate mortality. There’s no one way that fearing the end of white dominance manifests itself. Some will cloak it under a call for meritocracy. Others will sound the alarm of replacement theory. As noted about, “law and order” is a favorite umbrella, as we are seeing played out in the streets of Minneapolis. Some will default to white-supremacy extremes. (Not long ago a United Methodist District Superintendent received this message: “You have been visited by the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. This visit was a social call. Do not make our next visit a business call.” *) Wherever it lands on the continuum, it is the same fear, I believe.

This poses a challenge and an opportunity for followers of Jesus, especially those of us who have refashioned Jesus as a only a domesticated, white, mascot for a highly privatized eternal fire insurance plan. The actual Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, deems every human being worthy of his life, his death, his resurrection, and his promise to return. In him there is no Jew nor Greek, no slave nor free, no male nor female, no white nor black, etc. (Galatians 3:28.) This is not to say that identities are lost as much as it is to say that no one group identity is more valuable than another or has the right to dominate another. And there is no corollary on any of this that says, “…unless your ethnic group is losing ground or is no longer in the majority.”

So what do we do as Jesus-followers? That’s a big question right now, and most of the answers are not easy. Whatever we do, it has to be done in love. But love is not inert or benign. As Cornel West says, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”

I’ll see you around the next bend in the river. Stay warm and hopeful.

* The United Methodist Council of Bishops, BUILDING BELOVED COMMUNITY: The Courage to Love in the Face of Tyranny (Abingdon Press, 2025). p. 73.