Letter to the editor: It's better to be transformed by uncomfortable conflict

On the Saturday afternoon of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend this year, a 17-year-old gained access to a computerized road construction sign at the intersection of U.S. 378/76 and Main Street. The sign was placed there to warn drivers about the new traffic pattern on South Pike Road.

The youth accessed the sign's electronics and changed the message to read something sinister and racist.

Thankfully, the police were quickly notified and the hateful message was removed but not before hundreds of motorists passed by and witnessed the message and pictures were posted on social media. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram took the story around the digital world for thousands or even millions more to see. Sumter, South Carolina, our home, was the source of derision and became the punchline of off-color jokes. Within a day, Sumter police arrested and charged the offender. All of this happened because a sign, meant to warn the public about a new traffic pattern, was hijacked and took our community to a precarious place.

I am old enough to remember the television show MASH, about army doctors and personnel serving overseas in makeshift hospital posts during the Korean War. In the middle of their medical compound was a sign post, pointing the way to the hometowns of those stationed there. There must have been a dozen signs pointing in a dozen different directions.

Like that famous signpost, our responses to the Sumter highway sign vandalism point in many directions all at once. In one direction, we see signs that there are those who believe that racism has no place in Sumter, especially among those who share their discomfort and outrage in such instances and work toward dialogue and reconciliation. Yet, other signs of indifference and apathy point in the opposite direction, down the dark paths that lead to continued racial separation, latent (and overt) racism and economic deprivation as hate and ignorance thrive in our beloved community.

We stand at a crossroads that bears the signpost of history, flanked by our noble dreams and our common but separate heritage. We have stood here more than once before. There have been countless past instances of racist violence and incidents that have offended or outraged us. Before, we followed a path with good and popular intentions. Accompanied by those who think like us and more often by those who look like us, we have wandered slowly in a circle easily distracted by the interruptions of the news cycle.

Unfortunately, instances of racial hate and harm will happen again. We are still making our way in the wilderness toward the promised land. How Sumter gets through racially sharp and tenuous moments in the future depends on what signs we erect and follow and what paths we take now in our daily lives. It will depend on each one of us and the relationships we foster with each other, especially with those who look different from us (as well as those who think differently than us).

In the final episode of MASH, as the Korean War ended and the characters headed home, almost as one, they removed the signs from the post. Like the doctors and nurses of that television show, the only viable way forward for Sumter is for us to move and work together. The path we must travel is narrow, difficult and sometimes unpopular. Avoiding racial tensions only makes our journey more hazardous and our future more unstable. It is better to be transformed by uncomfortable conflict rather than to deny it. The only way forward to a beloved and peaceful Sumter and world is to move together along the path of our common humanity.

No matter where in Sumter we live, this community is our home - Black, brown, white and all shades of God's beautiful creation, whether the haves or the have-nots. We long to do the right thing. We are at our best when we move together in the same direction, following the way of faith, equal justice for all and love. Our willingness to bridge the racial divide and work together for a brighter future is a sign of hope and a signal to the world of what kind of community Sumter strives to be. May God guide us as we live and move into God's peaceable kingdom.

JOSEPH JAMES

Senior pastor

Trinity UMC