Category: Racism

Donald Trump and White Nationalist Christianity

At Dordt University, a Christian college in Sioux Center, Iowa, in January 2016, Donald Trump said to a group of Christians, “Christianity will have power. If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.” (New York Times)

Eighty percent of self-identified White evangelical Christians remembered and voted for Donald Trump. He was the one that White nationalist Christianity chose for its president. Donald Trump, however, is not a Christian president nor a president for Christians, but a president that appeals to a White nationalism that has the veneer of Christianity and uses Christian language and a theology that shelters White supremacy. A Christianity that finds in Trump a protector and provider is far removed from the life and teaching of Jesus and our participation in his death and resurrection (dying to the old life and rising to the new).

What kind of Christianity looks to Trump to give it power? An idolatrous Christianity. The roots of its idolatry go deep, to the beginnings of a nation established as a White nation for Whites built on the free labor of enslaved Africans and the genocide of Native Peoples of the land. A theology was developed (some of it ready-made for the task) that justified, supported, and reinforced White nationalist values and commitments. This theology has remained, in one form or another, through Jim Crow and the new Jim Crow. While no longer providing a rationale for slavery, it remains White supremacist. Rather than being a blatant, ideologically framed White supremacy, much of it operates hidden (especially to participants) and persistent. As Ibram X. Kendi has so clearly pointed out, the opposite of racist is not “not racist” but antiracist.

A Christianity that follows Jesus is active in doing justice. It works to make right what is wrong. It seeks to dismantle in order to build a just society. We have a mission like that which was given to the prophet Jeremiah “to pull down” in order “to build and to plant.” In its most subtle forms, White nationalist Christianity simply overlooks or diminishes the racism, disparities, and injustices experienced by people of color and seeks to maintain a White supremacist status quo. It will not acknowledge this, but its denial is seen for what it is when it supports voter suppression (while calling it something else) and dismantling affirmative action (as if it were no longer needed), opposes true reform of the criminal justice system, and works against initiatives to address disparities in health, education, and housing.

I share with other Christians the concern for the life of the unborn, but I also believe that being pro-life means care for the life of the born and therefore health care for all. I oppose the taking of any life and therefore, as with the early church, oppose capital punishment and cooperation with war. I believe that following Jesus includes doing what he told Peter to do and that was to put down his sword. It is hard to follow Jesus in loving and praying for our enemies while killing them. Jesus calls us to be witnesses to God’s reign, not to the nations of the world and their security solutions.

Now, I do believe there are evangelicals (and other Christians) who voted for Trump that know and love God and have experienced God’s grace. There are all kinds of reasons people get caught up in various belief systems and do not recognize the inconsistencies with their new life in Christ. And, of course, God comes to us where we are and has us on a journey. We begin a journey that brings us out of many false, hurtful beliefs. For Christians, this happens by following Jesus daily. We expect transformation and growth. Increasingly, we become responsible for exercising discernment, with the help of the Spirit—discernment regarding leaders and teachers in our lives. The greatest responsibility, however, goes to leaders. James says that not many should be teachers for they will be judged more harshly. The greater the responsibility, the more required. And Jesus says, “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!” (Matthew 18:7)

What, at times, happens is that a person “accepts Christ” in a genuine desire for a life change, perhaps from a drug addiction which is the immediate idolatry or obsession that they are aware of, from which they need deliverance. God is gracious and they experience healing from their addiction as well as help with other personal struggles. At this point, in their spiritual journey, theirs is a malleable Christ. (If only we would be malleable to Christ.) The guidance they receive is critical. What they may receive from an available pastor is a theology shaped by nationalist values and ideologies or that does not question these (which is fine with the person who holds them). The only way out of this false religious bubble is to actually follow the Jesus of the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and the New Testament. Let Jesus’ teaching challenge, disrupt, and “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) Above all, this means that we do what Jesus tells us to do: Count the cost of following. It goes beyond initial acceptance. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves [including their present commitments and ways of thinking] and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

Filed under: Discipleship, Justice, Leadership, RacismTagged with: , ,

Gifts in a Time of Pandemics: Knowledge

At this point, in human history, there is an astounding accumulation of knowledge, along with many ways to access this knowledge. We do not need to be experts in infectious diseases to make our way through the present pandemic. We simply need to be open to receiving and learning from others.

Communally shared knowledge is a gift in a time of a pandemic. Experts in the field of infectious diseases, who are on a learning curve with a new virus, share their knowledge, observations, and proposals with one another and the public. We experience this knowledge as a gift when we listen to someone like Dr. Anthony Fauci. We are given steps to take.

As with all gifts, however, knowledge must be received and acted on. In the midst of a new virus that continues to spread, the knowledge that wearing masks can help us is a gift. But this knowledge can be received or refused. It may surprise us when people refuse to wear masks under our present circumstances, but all of us have the capacity to reject knowledge.

On the one hand, we are creatures that are infinitely open. We open out to the universe. We open out to the Mystery of the universe, to the incomprehensible God. This openness makes all knowledge possible. On the other hand, we are able to close in upon ourselves and close ourselves off from knowledge. We get sidetracked by our addictions and obsessions. Our fears, prejudices, hurtful dependencies hinder our openness. Here are questions we can ask ourselves: What goes on inside us that would get in the way of receiving and responding to much needed knowledge in this time of a pandemic? What keeps us from being open and receptive to knowledge?

As important as empirical, scientific knowledge is for responding to a pandemic, self-knowledge is especially critical. Interior knowledge of ourselves, the awareness of our motivations, attitudes, feelings, and commitments helps us to discern what gets in the way of receiving knowledge, why we avoid particular subjects, and why we rationalize behavior.

When we recognize and relinquish that which has us closed and allow ourselves to be open and receptive, we do not have to do battle with science or any form of knowledge. We are freed to change our lifestyles in order to address the realities of a pandemic. A loving openness to others will have us wearing masks not only for our own sake but for the sake of others.

Our responses to the surges of COVID-19 infections and deaths have demonstrated how closed we have become and sidetracked by our idolatries and false allegiances. I saw a video of a man raging against wearing masks. He saw mask-wearing as an offense against his “freedom.” The words on his tee-shirt said it all: “Selfish and Proud of It.” Without relinquishing his idolatry of self, he will be incapable of wearing masks for the love of others.

Loving openness frees us to receive from others—not only for addressing a coronavirus pandemic but for addressing the much more entrenched pandemic of racism. Many have been helped toward a degree of openness by a virus that has shone a light on the disparities and injustices in our society. But, of course, those injustices have always been there available to be seen by a loving openness. The video of the death of George Floyd and the actions of the Black Lives Matter movement have brought a sustained focus on what has always been there. These actions have gained the attention of Whites who are willing to be open and who have turned attention to their own racism and the systemic racism of our society. What will maintain this focus and bring about work for change will be a growing openness. Without such openness, we remain in darkness. And remaining in darkness hurts us and others.

If we allow ourselves to be open, we will change. If we go back to our same old rationalizations, we will go on losing our souls, and knowledge will escape us. It makes no difference whether we call ourselves Christian or view ourselves as enlightened. Openness to knowledge brings true change. Above all, love makes us open. The good news is that knowledge and love are not far away when we are open. And God will help us to be open. Therefore, Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find.”

Filed under: Mindfulness, Racism, Society, TruthTagged with: , , ,

Gifts In A Time of Pandemics: Anger

Anger follows hurt. We experience pain, then anger. We expect fairness. We expect welcome rather than rejection. We expect to be seen, to be acknowledged, and our basic needs recognized and affirmed. We expect our lives to be valued. Our humanity expects these things. At the heart of all these expectations, we expect love—to be loved and to love. From love flows mercy, justice, and faithfulness. Our humanity is trampled upon when these are not present. And we respond with anger and a desire and a need for what is wrong to be made right, that “justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” We cannot go on under conditions devoid of justice without taking action.

When Jesus came into the temple, he saw the injustice. He saw that what was meant to be a house of prayer had become a “den of robbers.” In anger, he made a “whip of cords” (John 2:15) and “drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.” (Matthew 21:12-13) In the streets of our cities, police cars have been overturned.

We learn what replaced the selling and the buying and the money changers, in the next verse (Matthew 21:14): “The blind and the lame came to Jesus in the temple, and he cured them.” Envision for our present moment: Police violence against black and brown bodies replaced by acts of healing.

Anger, of course, can simply lash out and accomplish little more than additional pain. And those on the outside of the pain can simply judge its futility. But if the pain underneath the anger is received with compassion (rather than with judgment and self-righteousness) healing is available. I think of the judgment that gets directed at looters and those who damage property when openness to the pain would provide another view. (Take a step toward being open and the help for being open will be there because the Spirit of God is about opening our hearts and giving us eyes to see.) Rather than simply seeing the destructive behavior of individuals, we will see a society that has been crafted and structured by white supremacy and racism, from slavery to Jim Crow to the present “new Jim Crow.” We, who are white, will see our racism rather than be fixated on broken store windows. We will see the racism and greed and indifference that have historically robbed people of ownership within our society, disenfranchised them, cut off opportunity, brought death, and provided a framework within which destructive action makes sense. I saw a video clip of a couple of protesters, seeing a man with a bat in front of a store window, go over to the man and gently lead him away from the action he was contemplating, and then put their arms around him in an act of understanding and solidarity. Compassion has an altogether different mode of operation from that of self-righteous judgment.

When compassion responds to and takes up misdirected anger and redirects it, healing and liberation happen. A little compassion, like a little faith that can move mountains, is powerful. God is in it.

Love can use anger in powerful and purposeful ways. It can help focus on and target what needs to be addressed. Anger is a strong and urgent emotion carrying within it the pain from which it arises, and harnessed by compassion zeros in on the present moment with imperativeness. It takes what love clarifies and gives it emotional urgency. Love—caring enough to attend to the depth of the problem and to gain knowledge—gives rise to solutions. Anger presses us with “why we cannot wait” for the solutions. Change must come now! Jesus saw the temple turned into a den of robbers and immediately acted.

A police force (along with carefully manufactured laws) that historically has been used to “dominate” (using our president’s term) black lives, must be dismantled. It needs to be replaced with that which can truly serve. I am grateful for those who have been rethinking what makes for public safety, who are “dreaming dreams and seeing visions” for something radically different from what we have now. “Defund the police” puts before us, with urgency, the kind of change that must happen: Defund the present police organizations with their militarization and their “us against them” mentality and their opposition to reform. Funds freed up by decreasing police functions become funds for social services, mental health care and housing for the homeless (rather than have police break up their encampments), treatment (rather than criminalization) for those with addictions, and health care, education, job training, community organizations, and community mediation. My local grocery store was one of the few grocery stores on the southeast side of Chicago that was not looted. It was not the police that stopped the looting, but neighborhood residents who essentially talked potential looters out of looting. And this was going on with other stores, as well. They were saved from being looted by the mediation efforts of the community. Contrast this with what we have come to expect from police in such situations, with their oppositional relationship to the community. It is time to defund the present “public safety” institutions and build and fund something more holistic and compassionate and embedded in the community.

For those who would immediately dismiss “defunding” as an impossibility, a sign of hope came from the Minneapolis city council when they voted to dismantle the police force. They decided that the “current policing system could not be reformed.” They pledged “to begin the process of taking apart the Police Department as it now exists.” (New York Times)

The pandemics of the coronavirus and racism have both brought forth anger, in different ways. In either case, we are helped by becoming aware of the pain underneath the anger, acknowledging it, and recognizing where that pain is actually coming from, so that we do not misdirect our anger. Love of ourselves and others helps us with that. The freedom of love gives a healing, liberating direction to our anger as we address the causes of the pain.

Filed under: Grace, Justice, Love, RacismTagged with: , ,

Gifts In A Time of Pandemics: Pain

I have heard recovering addicts say, “When the pain got bad enough, I reached out for help.”

Pain is a gift. We are glad we have it when we have touched a hot stove and it has us quickly remove our hand. Pain has us seek help; it gets us to a doctor. Emotional pain alerts us to the effects of actions we have taken that are destructive to our well-being. It tells us it is time to make a change. Emotional pain also alerts us to the effects of others’ actions that are hurtful to our well-being. Such pain may have us make decisions to disengage from situations and people for the sake of our health or to engage in a manner that retains our humanity, sense of self, and purpose.

We are in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic that is causing pain. We also continue to experience a pandemic with a much longer history, spanning the existence of our nation: the pandemic of racism and white supremacy. In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, African Americans, in great numbers, along with allies, are sharing their pain, not only of this one instance of racist action but the accumulated pain of layer upon layer of injustices. They have brought their pain into the streets and into white spaces. They have placed it before a nation. The sharing of their pain is a gift—especially to those of us who are white. We need to feel their pain or, if not, feel the pain of disruption, of no more business as usual. We may be pressed into making changes.

Gifts, of course, are meant to be received. But they first must be recognized as a gift. For addicts, pain is not readily recognized as a gift. It is often another reason to self-medicate, to cover up the pain—until it gets bad enough. Elsewhere in posts of this blog, I have referred to racism as an addiction. It fits the many aspects of addictive behavior. What does it take for those of us, who are white, to acknowledge our racism and to acknowledge the effects of that racism on the criminal justice system? What does it take to acknowledge the deep disparities in the way the system operates in relation to people of color over against those who receive “privileges” because of their white skin?

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the racial disparities in our nation. The protests in our streets are highlighting the systemic racism that is the foundation of these disparities. Both the coronavirus and the virus of racism bring pain. That pain will move out to every sector of our society. After all, in one way or another, we are all connected. There is no place to hide.

How great does the pain have to be for us to change? How long will we encounter the pain of others and turn away? How long will we support the disparities and injustices? What will it take before those of us who are white acknowledge that it is our racism that has built and maintained unjust policies and institutions and that it is racism that allows us to leave unaddressed the injustices? Racism and the history of white supremacy have built the unjust criminal justice system that we have today. We, who acknowledge this, have to be a part of dismantling it and rebuilding a just way of operating. And we will have to be vigilant to keep building toward justice.

Like all addictions, racism denies there is a problem or that the problem is that bad—until the denial is acknowledged to be a symptom of the addiction. The pain of our addiction and what our addiction produces calls for change. The Spirit is in that call for change. It is a call to repent.

Repentance is simply a turning from the direction we have been going so that we now walk in a way of healing and liberation and new life. It is a spiritual act because the Spirit of God is present to help us. The only true repentance, understood spiritually, is from death to life, from spiritual death (the loss of love) to the One who is Life Itself, to the Love that frees us.

Filed under: Racism, SufferingTagged with: , ,

“I Can’t Breathe”

“The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘antiracist.’

Ibram X. Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist

George Floyd, a black man, his arms handcuffed behind him, cries out for help with the words, “I can’t breathe,” as a white police officer presses a knee down upon his neck. There are three other officers at the scene. They all hear the cry for help. Bystanders hear and call out for the police officers to help: The man is down and handcuffed; how much more brutality is necessary to demonstrate your power? All of the officers, who are called to “serve and protect,” ignore the pleas. George Floyd dies.

There are many steps before murder: many attitudes, fears, prejudices, demeaning actions, and unjust behaviors. Some talk about a white supremacist police culture, but this kind of police culture flows out of a wider American white supremacist culture.

Often, in the media, white supremacists are depicted as an ideological minority. But white supremacy is an inherent ingredient in the narrative of this nation. The history of the United States is a history of white supremacy in the form of white law-making and actions that created and maintained the institution of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, the present mass incarceration of people of color, voter suppression, and continued support for inequities in education, health care, jobs, wealth, and power—if not supported actively, certainly by white apathy toward these injustices.

White supremacy must not be seen merely as the ideology of a few. Those of us who are white do not need to have a developed supremacist philosophy to have attitudes, tendencies, and views that keep us from truly understanding and addressing the injustices in our society. White sense of entitlement, along with denial of our racism, allows us to ignore the voices and experiences of people of color.

White supremacy involves us in viewing white ways and culture as the norm and standard by which we judge others. This all happens, of course, implicitly and in an unacknowledged manner. But it allows us to form views without listening as if all we need are the “answers” that our biases and fears provide. We simply draw from what we already think. Where and how our thoughts are formed goes unexamined.

Every aspect of racism, whether blatant or subtle, minimizes the humanity of another human being. There is a link between the apathy that ignores injustices and police officers who act with brazen disregard for the life of a fellow human being. The distance between the two is not so very great.

When we realize this, we are approaching the first step of the Twelve Step Program for Addicts (racism being very similar to an addiction). Step one requires us to come out of denial: We admit our racism and powerlessness and that this way of living has become unmanageable. The acknowledgment of unmanageability means we are recognizing the massive scale of the problem: the deep entrenchment of racism. We feel our inadequacy and realize we need power to change. We need spiritual liberation. We need step three: “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.” We need to be raised up into a higher reality—into the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.” We need to be freed into our true selves that have their source in God.

With the confession of our brokenness and a spiritual turning (repentance) and the grace that brings liberation (steps 1-3), we are released into action. In this spiritual journey, there are further steps that involve a “moral inventory” of our lives. We become involved in inner work, the Spirit helping us to acknowledge the intentions, motivations, and attitudes of our hearts, and the actions that flow from them. We are helped by words of truth that come to us from others and from their experiences. We listen to others, and the Spirit of truth helps us to receive truth.

There are also steps for “making amends,” that is, making right what is wrong. These steps have us moving outward. We become intentional about addressing racism not only in our own lives but in the institutions, laws, and structures of our society. We work for radical change and reform—the reformation of the criminal justice system, the removal of voter suppression laws, and the dismantling of discrimination and inequities of all kinds. We are becoming antiracist. The defensive “I am not a racist” does not work for us anymore. Our focus is outward on understanding the nature and extent of this social disease and equipping ourselves to fight against it.

Formerly, we were not seeking to understand and gain knowledge and wisdom for action—not about racism and white supremacy. But now that we are on a journey of openness and action, we are seeking—and finding. In our seeking, we reach out to others who have a history of being antiracist. We are being liberated into community antiracist action. Together we become agents of change. Or, as Jesus puts it, “salt and light.”

Are you on the journey? If not, this blog post is an invitation.

Filed under: Justice, Racism, Spirituality, WitnessTagged with: ,

Getting Real About Racism

In response to recent racist tweets from President Trump, many of his supporters have reiterated his claim that what he was communicating was not racist. Trump tells us that there is not a “racist bone in his body.” Even though Trump’s racist expressions are blazingly obvious, he and these supporters operate in denial.

Anyone who has become increasingly aware of their own dishonesty, will not find this denial surprising. If we have become mindful of our inner life, our feelings, attitudes and motivations and have been willing to examine and confront fear, envy, jealousy, selfishness, prejudice, lust, greed, and so on, we have recognized also how hidden these things are until we are willing to be self-aware. The more we grow in mindfulness, the more we see that to which we were previously blind. We find ourselves on a journey of coming out of denial.

Racism, like any sin, hides until we are open to the Spirit of truth and willing to confront it. In the same way that no one escapes sin, no one escapes racism. Growing up in a racist society, we are all under the influence of and affected by racism. We may be affected in different ways (dependent on whether we grew up white or as a person of color), but we are all affected. Coming to recognize our own racism, or how racism has hurt and diminished us, happens as we are increasingly aware of our inner selves.

Our inner life, of course, affects our outer actions. If we do not recognize racism in ourselves, or its effects, we will still act out of that inner reality and rationalize our actions. When we do begin to see, and as our insight grows, we gain clarity with what is occurring, not only within us but, around us. We see with increasing clarity and subtlety the racism in our society. We become open to hearing from those who have been affected by racism. We seek those who give voice to their experience. We find that we need the voices of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib. We need what they see from the vantage point of their experiences in the United States of America.

We need not, however, be surprised at the degree of blindness present in our society. How can we be surprised, when we ourselves have had the experience of going from blindness to sight (a journey on which we must continue). If we do not recognize that gaining insight into ourselves is a gift—a matter of grace, then we become self-righteous and judgmental, unable to reach out to others with our witness. We write them off as if they were incapable of change. (We can be grateful that God does not write us off.) If we have changed we know that change is available to others as well.

To put this in the language of recovery from addiction: If we are recovering racists, we go to other racists with something like a 12 step program which starts with coming out of denial: “We admitted we were powerless over racism—that our lives had become unmanageable” when it came to seeing the needs and hurts of others and having empathy and compassion. And we “turned our will and our lives over to God,” to the Source and Mystery of our lives, to the gracious Presence.

Paul, in Romans 8, reminds us to be mindful of the Spirit. “To set the mind on the flesh (disoriented attitudes, desires, and values) is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” In the Spirit there is oneness. The dividing walls come down. We cannot simply continue to justify our divisive attitudes and rationalize our motivations of fear, resentment, and prejudice. We can no longer construct a religious facade over these elements of our inner life, nor give support to them in our social life.

The unexamined self is capable of a great deal of ignorance and hurt, and without the Spirit of truth, we operate unaware of what drives our actions. We operate blindly and full of our rationalizations (all of which appear good to us). As we read in the Gospel of John, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:13) With the Spirit, there is openness and receptivity for what is true and real. We are given eyes to see and ears to hear, which is where all change starts. The Spirit (and this openness) will lead us to be witnesses and agents of change in our society.

Filed under: Healing, Mindfulness, Racism, Spirit, WitnessTagged with: , , , ,

A Memorial for Healing

Last month, my wife, her sister and I journeyed to Montgomery, Alabama, to visit the National Peace and Justice Memorial which opened last year. It is a memorial to the thousands of African American victims of racial terror lynchings between 1877 and 1950. It provides an opportunity for this nation to confront its past violence and its legacy.

We walked through an open rectangular building among columns of metal blocks hanging from the ceiling on poles. On each block of metal were engraved the names and dates of individuals who had been lynched in public gatherings, often announced and reported in local newspapers. The names were listed by county. Some counties had multiple blocks.

At first these blocks were at eye level, but as we turned the first corner, the floor moved downward and the hanging blocks moved upward. There were over 4000 names engraved on these blocks as well as a memorial to the unknown victims of this terror.

When we first entered this memorial area, there were signs indicating that this was a sacred place, and we experienced it that way. We could see that people who had come in groups often divided up as we did. It became a solitary experience as each of us meditated on what was before us.

There were also signs that indicated that this place was a healing place. Healing often starts by looking into the darkness. After all, it is the light that enables us to see into the dark places. Our problem is that we often turn away before we can be healed. As Jesus tells us, “All who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.” It is when the deeds are exposed that we can begin to change and be healed.

Standing before the columns of engraved names, I felt and reflected on our inhumanity toward other human beings—a condition of inhumanity we all share. It was like looking upon the cross of Christ and realizing that it was our sin that put him there. The cross and the lynching tree call for repentance and conversion into the way of life that God provides.

I also imagine that African Americans experience another movement toward healing through this memorial as they confront a history of abuse, addressing the effects of the sins of others against them, experiencing grief and anger and release into action. There is healing in gaining historical clarity and a vision for the way forward.

The importance of memorials like this for those of us who are white is that they provide another opportunity to confront racism and its legacy. We need these confrontations for our healing. We need light in the darkness to expose our racism so that it does not remain active while hidden from us. After all, like all sin, racism hides. We would like to think it resides in ideologically white supremacist groups or overt racists. But racism is so thoroughly a part of our society, its attitudes and structures, that we are all participants.

To truly confront it, we have to come out of our comfort zones. We have to become self-aware and socially aware and historically aware. We have to be willing to explore ourselves and our society in unfamiliar ways. We have to become aware of our “whiteness”—what whiteness does for us, how it privileges us in a racist society.

It was, after all, people of European descent who came up with the notion of various human “races” as human types (rather than acknowledging gratefully a diversity of peoples and cultures) with white people as the supreme norm. An ideology of whiteness was born that would support the institution of slavery. The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings and the present mass incarceration of people of color is the legacy of whiteness as a construct that dehumanizes others. And those of us who are white cannot simply step out of that history and socialized ideology. It is pervasive to the society of which we are a part.

For people of faith, there is the awareness that the Spirit of Truth brings to the light what is hidden in darkness. So, we can pray:

“Gracious God, give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Shine your light into the dark and hidden places of our lives. Give us willing hearts to hear the voices of those harmed by our racism. Help us to keep listening and to not excuse ourselves from the problem. Help us to fast from listening to ourselves and to other white people and instead free us to listen to the voices that our racism has dismissed. Lead us to confess our sin and deliver us from evil. Liberate us from all ways of thinking and acting that separate us from the one human race. Heal us and raise us up to do justice, love mercy and live faithfully. Amen.”

Filed under: Healing, Racism, SocietyTagged with: ,

Sit With It

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.

Filed under: Justice, Racism

Listening: The Road out of Racism

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!

Filed under: Justice, Racism