The following is a personal reflection intended to spur public discussion. It is the result of several conversations, online and in person, I had with other adults about the issue of racism in America after the George Floyd murder and the protests that followed. This should not be read as an academic or normative assessment of American culture (I do not have the credentials to begin to offer such an assessment). It is also not a commentary on ethnicity or race or "whiteness" or "blackness" as a monolithic phenomena. I don't think there are such monoliths, and every person's identity and experience is different, even from those in their own category or cohort or group. Rather, this is a personal reflection. To the extent my personal experience resonates with you, I would be happy to talk about it. But if this does not resonate with you, that's fine too.
I’m from the part of Gen X that went through childhood during the Reagan Era. I lived in the North Dallas suburbs, where the majority were WASPy folks like me, but there were also significant populations of African American and Latinx folks, as well as a smattering of South and East Asian families. It was not utopia by any stretch of the imagination, but we all played together on the playground, and went to each other’s houses after school, and competed together in sports.
And at school we watched “Free to be You and Me” together, and learned that the racial divide had been largely “solved” by Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, so that we now lived in a diverse multi-racial culture. When we got into high school, race became a little more of an issue, but I don’t ever remember it stopping us from partying together, or even from dating across racial lines. Then Rodney King happened my junior year and the L.A. riots followed. But that was still far away from me, and different from my experience of race where I lived in the North Dallas suburbs.
But in the last decade it seems like Rodney King happens every month. Sometimes more. And it happens to young black men and old black men and black men walking and black men jogging and black men standing and even black men sleeping in their own homes. And it happens even in places where I have lived and worked. And it is heart breaking and maddening and disorienting. And I wonder how I could have been so blind to such systemic exclusion and oppression for so much of my life.
I know the short answer is my privilege: Since it wasn’t me or my class that was experiencing the effects of racism, I was not attuned to see it unless there was a blatant display right in front of me. Which is rarely the case, because most racists will not admit to being racist. Even to themselves. And, if I am really honest, even to myself. Because as I grow older I find these remnants of racism and sexism and prejudice that emerge like festering splinters needing to be taken out.
At some point after the 1960’s, did US culture become less racist than it is now? Did we attempt to create a post-racial society and education system, only to slide back into our "original sin" of racism slowly?
Or did obvious racism go underground for a while, and fester like a cyst for a couple of decades, only to burst forth again in nationally visible ways after 9/11? It seems like my white parent's generation were in a kind of culture shock. All of the tables had been overturned and it was no longer culturally acceptable to be a vociferous racist, nor to really investigate what racism really lurked within them. And they were emotionally exhausted from an issue that had dominated a decade and a half of their childhood and early adulthood. So they didn't talk about it.
And they didn't really let us talk about it. And they allowed all these education programs and media sources to wallpaper over it with the rhetoric of being "colorblind". All the while the wound was festering, and at home a lot of us were getting a catechesis in racism through jokes and sayings and attitudes, and the way mom clutched her purse when black people were around, and how dad rolled up the windows when we went through the "wrong" part of town. To use a pandemic metaphor, as a culture we had socially distanced from racism, and our media put on "masks" to avoid appearing racist, but none of us were washing our hands. And the disease continued to spread unabated.
Or has systemic exclusion and oppression of Black Americans been pretty steady for the last several decades, and what has changed is technology? Because of smartphones we can finally “see” it now, because we are finally able to catch it on video, and broadcast it immediately to everyone across the globe.
Or is there just a great deal of regional variance to the issue? Perhaps some new suburbs in the 1980’s (like the one where I grew up) were less racist because the towns had grown so fast that the racial lines had not had time to set. And it took a couple of decades for those sides to be formed and tensions to be felt. Because prior to living in Carrollton, I lived near Little Rock Arkansas. And racial tensions were much more pronounced in my older elementary school and working class neighborhood there, than they were in my brand new North Dallas suburb.
I know there’s no single answer to this question. And, again, I know a big part of the answer in my case is that my privilege prevented me from seeing then, and fully understanding now. But as I watch this all unfold over and over again— black men unjustly murdered by authorities in situations I would never ever have to worry about— my mind is drawn over and over again to two formative texts in my life. The first is from the Bible, where Saint Paul writes to the Galatians:
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)
Living in a culture so heavily influenced by the Bible and Judeo-Christian values, it continues to amaze me that we really don’t take seriously the message many of us claim to believe in. All races and ethnicities and cultures are equal in God’s sight. All people regardless of skin color are God’s children. From Sunday school songs about “Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in God’s sight”, to the Second Greatest Commandment to “love our neighbor as ourselves”, to Jesus’ parable where a Samaritan crosses ethnic lines to care for a Jew: The Christian teaching on anti-racism should be self-evident. That it is NOT evident to large swaths of our culture, and has not sunk in after 2000 years of continual teaching, is something like a miracle. Or rather, an anti-miracle. A dark, demonic, evil anti-miracle.
The other text I ponder comes from a secular source. In fact, it comes from a decidedly anti-Christian source: The British synth band Depeche Mode. In 1984 they produced the song "People are People". It was one of my favorites during my teen years, and ironically seeks to make a similar point about acceptance and inclusion that Galatians does. And since I started this meditation by talking about being a Gen X suburban kid perplexed by American racism, I will end with this anthem for Gen X suburban kids. In it they ask the same questions:
People are people so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully?
So we're different colors,
And we're different creeds
And different people,
have different needs
It's obvious you hate me,
though I've done nothing wrong
I've never even met you,
so what I could I have done?
I can't understand
What makes a man hate another man?
Help me understand
People are people so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully?
There's a ton of other Scriptures and texts and activists and thinkers I could (and should) quote here to make the point. But I want to stay real to the voices that have shaped me as a Gen X suburban kid. We have failed to live into the values I learned in that context, and those compromised values obviously pale in comparison to what full equality and full justice should look like. Our culture systematically withholds justice from large swaths of people even as we claim that: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."
And because we have this cultural commitment to the fact that every life matters, it is long past time to be specific, in our context of historic slavery and systemic exclusion and oppression of People of Color, and say "black lives matter". Some people get upset with this phrase, and respond back "all lives matter!" Which is true, but also misses the point. To use a metaphor that has helped me understand this better: It is like a fire truck showing up to a house fire and shouting "all houses matter" and then equally distributing water on all houses, so that the house on fire doesn't get the water it needs. Because all houses matter, it is important to focus water on one house right here, right now. And to put it in Christian terms: Because God loves all people, it is important to bring justice for the black community at this point in time.
40 years swirling around the same set of problems, like water in a toilet bowl, but making no serious progress in solving it. We are ethically clogged up and spiritually bound up. We need Divine intervention to unclog us, and a National exorcism to unbind us from our "original sin" of racism and the enslavement of People of Color. Let us pray that the Good Lord who loves us all will open our eyes to see God’s life in each other, and inspire us to change our social and economic and judicial systems to bring them in line with the values we claim to believe in.
God of Infinite Love, who shares eternal life within yourself as Father and Son and Spirit: Help us to embrace the diversity of cultures and genders and beliefs we share within our society, just as you embrace the diversity you share within yourself as three Persons united in care and concern and compassion.
You are a diverse God of Community who has made us in your image as a diverse people in Community. Help us to see your Life in one another, and to love each other as Christ has loved us, by giving himself as an offering and sacrifice, that we all may find healing and hope.
May we ceaselessly stand against attitudes of prejudice, systems of oppression, and actions that bring death and destruction to your children. And may you bring justice for victims and their families, even as you bring reconciliation and healing in our society.
And grant that those responsible for enforcing justice may always be keenly aware of the responsibility they bear before you, O Judge of All, and always careful to ensure consequences are proportionate to the danger involved, and never heavy handed nor prejudicially implemented.
And finally, may we always remember that when we embrace the other, we embrace you; When we serve the last and the least, we serve you; And when we say NO to death and destruction and hatred and fear and ignorance, we are saying YES to life and love and healing and hope and wisdom in Christ. For it is in his Name that we ask all of these things. Amen.
And now that we have prayed, let's do something about it, as God works in us to do more than we can ask or imagine.
A more extensive theological and spiritual meditation on these topics can be found in the sermon posted HERE. In addition, here is a reflection on how concerns for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are rooted in Episcopal identity, as well as a Litany that was prayed in several Episcopal Schools and Churches in the wake of the George Floyd protests.
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