Author: David Lowry

Roxane Gay, in her January 12th column, “No One Is Coming to Save Us From Trump’s Racism,”[nytimes] tells us to sit down for awhile. “We need to sit with the discomfort of the president of the United States referring to several countries as ‘shitholes’ during a meeting, a meeting that continued after his comments.”

This daughter of Haitian immigrants is not going to do what people expect her to do: “remind Americans, once more, of Haiti’s value, as if we deserve consideration and a modicum of respect from the president of the United States only because as a people we are virtuous enough.”

She has “lost patience with the shock supposedly well-meaning people express every time Mr. Trump says or does something terrible but well in character.” She is “not going to turn this into a teaching moment to justify the existence of millions of Haitian or African or El Salvadoran people because of the gleeful, unchecked racism of a world leader.” Instead, she acknowledges the pain and discomfort. She writes, “Instead of trying to get past this moment, we should sit with it, wrap ourselves in the sorrow, distress, and humiliation of it.”

The first comment I read (in the comment section) understood what she was calling us to do: “As in any addiction recovery program, we have to sit down and acknowledge some fundamental truths: This is not an exceptional nation, this is not the country on a shining hill, and this is not the country that spreads democracy around the world. Donald Trump is simply the symptom of an illness we have to address.” This commenter is pointing to the first step in recovery: “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.” It is the step we take in order to come out of the denial of our true condition. As the commenter continues: “Step 1 will confront us with uncomfortable truths, but it will address reality, not fiction.”

The United States of America, as a nation, managed to put Donald Trump into the office of the presidency. His presence there tells us about ourselves. His presence in that office is a mirror. And before we come up with another fix for how we are going to save ourselves, we need to sit in front of the mirror. We must “wrap ourselves in the sorrow, distress and humiliation” of our condition as a nation. We must acknowledge how unmanageable our life as a nation has become and how helpless we are. We must confront the addiction and disease of our racism. We must sit with it. Grieve. Desire change. Let the pain of our condition make us ready for help.

We need to sit with it until we know we truly need help. And be open for the help. Wait with the truth of our condition and be open. Only then will we find the additional steps that we must take. They will be given to us.

I heard a news report, recently, about a group of teenagers detained by police during a theft investigation. One of the teens questioned why they were being detained: “Because I’m a teen? Because I have baggy pants?” The flippant words got a flippant answer from an officer with a Hispanic surname: “Because you’re white.” The mother of this teen later complained to the police chief and to a news reporter for NBC: “I was outraged. I was very upset. I felt like we were being outcasted because we’re white, which is just unheard of.”

The next day, in the Chicago Tribune, I read about an African American young man who attempted to hang himself in a police holding cell. He survived with massive brain injuries, no longer able to move or speak and spending the past year on life support. This young man, who had no criminal record, experienced a series of events that day that can only be described as gross injustice and racial profiling—these events being the “top of the iceberg” of his young experience. At one point he said to a Chicago police officer, “I’m so tired of racism, bro.”

I am reflecting on these two statements, one by a white woman (“I felt like we were being outcasted because we’re white, which is just unheard of.”) and the other by a young African American man (“I’m so tired of racism.”). There is a great distance between the experiences these statements express—the sense of privilege (it is unheard of to be outcasted because we are white), on the one hand, and the heavy weight of injustice, hurt and anger engendered by racism, on the other.

I write with white people in mind, myself, my family, my white friends and others who experience privileges that racism gives, whether we acknowledge it or not. I am reflecting on the distance that must be traveled between these two statements and experiences to gain understanding and how the journey is made or begun to be made. What does the road out of our racism look like?

It looks like listening. But it begins with repentance. Whatever we are able to recognize in the way of prejudice, we must turn from. Whatever we have assumed about privilege and power as legitimately ours, but which have had their source in racism, we must turn from. We must repent in order to begin to have ears that hear. And then we must listen. As we gain clarity, we must continue to turn, to make changes in our thinking and attitudes and actions. As we keep turning (repenting), we gain better hearing. To whom are we to listen? Those who have been affected by our racism and the racism of this society. Those who daily experience injustice and oppression from both personal affronts and systemic racism. We must hear the cries of those who are hurt by the injustices of our society, and we must listen to those who articulate their experiences and provide guidance for societal change.

In the sixth chapter of Acts, we read that “the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food.” In order to prevent this from continuing, the apostles chose “seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom” to administrate the food distribution. What is particularly interesting is that all seven of the men had Hellenist names. Apparently, the apostles felt that being “full of the Spirit and of wisdom” was not enough. Those who had experienced the injustice needed to be the ones who administrated a just distribution. They were in the best position to identify and correct the injustice.

Those of us who are white must stop listening to ourselves on how to administrate justice. We must listen to those who have the experience and knowledge to point the way. We must be guided by them. So, the word is: Listen!