Confessions Series

Confessions of a Recovering Racist

Alex Haley introduced me to racism.

There is separation of colored people from white people in the United States. That separation is not a disease of colored people. It is a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it. — Albert Einstein

Albert shared these words during his commencement speech at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, one of the oldest historically Black colleges (HBCUs) in the United States. That was in 1946. Has much changed since then? That would depend on whom you ask.

Alex Haley introduced me to racism

I grew up in a spiritually and politically conservative, middle-class, Caucasian home. My first apparent encounter with racism was via a television show. In 1977, my mom, dad, and I watched Alex Haley’s 8-part TV Mini-Series entitled Roots.

Kunta Kinte is sold into the slave trade after being abducted from his African village and is taken to the United States. Kinte and his family observe notable events in American history, such as the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, slave uprisings, and emancipation.- IMDB

I can’t remember any deep conversations with my parents other than how evil white people treated the Africans and how wrong slavery was. I remember being glad that nothing like that had ever happened to my family and me.

My not-so-obvious-to-me-then encounters with racism

In Middle School, it was common for someone to call someone else the N-word when they wanted to call them a derogatory name. Mom always made sure the doors were locked when we were waiting in our car, and a person of color walked by.

Caucasian men would comfortably tell (what they considered) jokes about people of color around children. I remember hearing this one: “I don’t have any problems with Black people. I think everyone ought to own one.” Just writing that sentence makes me ashamed and sick to my stomach.

While attending a hyper-fundamental Christian Bible college, I heard how other guys talked about our only student of color (at that time). He was from Haiti, and all he wanted to do was be trained in the ministry to go back to his home country and minister.

I heard adults respond to the “United Negro College Fund” TV commercials with, “why don’t we have a united white college fund?” It was the same type of response when someone brought up the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Why don’t we have a national association for the advancement of white people?

I saw a few episodes of a 1985 series of 30-minute mockumentary-style vignettes hosted by Martin Mull entitled, The History of White People in America. The show made white people look empty-headed and clueless about the world’s complexities.

The host played a reporter fashioned after a 60-minutes investigative TV journalist interviewing participants. He provided narration and commentary directly into the camera, in the style of documentaries about minorities.

As a teenager and young adult in the churches I attended, I have known several men who have served in the Armed Forces. Some married Asian and German women.

Unfortunately, white people faced condemnation from the church when they showed up with a girlfriend or boyfriend who was a person of color, even more so if they wanted to marry them.

Once a caucasian man was candidating to become a staff member at a church I attended. He seemed to be a great fit. Unfortunately, a founding member of the church gave the senior pastor tremendous disapproval because his wife was African American. The pastor dismissed this candidate.

The change begins

In 2007, I started attending a church in another community where my good friend pastors. Immediately after our oldest child graduated from high school, my wife joined me, and we began to learn how to minister in the community.

I was privileged, and I was a racist.

Our small church of around 15–20 people began to grow. On some Sundays, the attendees would be about a 50/50 mix of African Americans and Caucasians. Occasionally, the African Americans outnumbered the Caucasians.

Besides listening to our pastor teach and exemplify what it meant to love and minister to people who did not look like nor live like me, he introduced me to two organizations.

Mosaix In 2016, I was one of four people from our church to travel down to Dallas, Texas, to attend the Mosaix National Conference.

Mosaix is a relational network of pastors and planters, denominational and network leaders, educators, authors, and researchers alike that exists to establish healthy multiethnic and economically diverse churches for the sake of the gospel throughout North America and beyond.

I heard Christain speakers and authors who would not fit into my denominational, middle-class, Caucasian bubble. I listened to exceptional speakers like Kathy Khang, who preached an inspiring sermon on the woman who’d had a hemorrhage/bleeding for twelve years.

I heard that story shared from a woman’s perspective for the first time. Kathy was brutally honest in her sermon. Her preaching challenged my faith!

Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) In 2017, I was a part of a group from our church and community that attended the Christian Community Development Association’s (CCDA) National Conference in Detroit, Michigan.

This organization exists to inspire, train, and connect Christians who seek to bear witness to the Kingdom of God by reclaiming and restoring under-resourced communities.

I heard an even greater arena of speakers who did not look, act, or think like me. That year, there were no Caucasian men speakers on the main stage. If the speaker was white, the speaker was a woman.

These muli-cultured women and men inspired me as they shared their stories. It was my privilege to attend a workshop led by a Native American and a Korean American. Two years before their book would come out, I heard Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah speak on the Doctrine of Discovery.

Mark’s opening statement got my attention,

You cannot discover lands already inhabited.

Mark and Soong-Chan explained it this way:

The Doctrine of Discovery is a set of legal principles that governed the European colonizing powers, particularly regarding the administration of indigenous land.

This doctrine laid the foundation for the continued framework for a host of injustices still around today, separating the dominant culture and the minority communities leading to colonization, slavery, segregation, and dehumanization.

The change continues

Understanding my white privilege helped me take my eyes off of myself. As my worldview expanded, I started paying closer attention to my African American friends at church and work. I listened as they would allude to things I hadn’t heard before.

I had the opportunity to share my journey with a couple of my African American coworkers. They each shared with me one of their racism stories. Both of them had experiences where their bosses overlooked them for promotions due to the color of their skin.

Before you say, “They can’t know that for sure.” A former boss of one of those colleagues apologized to her years later, admitting her skin color kept her from getting the promotion.

I learned that one of the Directors in my workplace, a person of color, is treated differently at Home Depot contingent on his clothes.

If he goes on his way home from work wearing a suit and tie, the employees treat him with respect. He is not treated as respectfully if he shows up on a Saturday in his outdoor work clothes.

I got to the level in my relationships with them where I could comfortably ask them questions about their experience with racism. But please don’t think it’s up to people of color to educate white people about racism.

I started educating myself about systemic racism. I read America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis. He explains,

America’s problem with race has deep roots, with the country’s foundation tied to the near extermination of one race of people and the enslavement of another.

The most beneficial experience I have had in my racism recovery began when our small church brought on an African American as our Associate Pastor. He and his wife were very patient with me as I started developing a relationship with them.

I have them and their influence on my life to thank for my progress over the past eight years. This couple took me under their wings and worked to teach me what the world looks like from their perspective.

Today, this young man and his wife are my pastors, and I consider them two of my best friends.

Recap

Here are just some first steps to my recovery. I would encourage you to examine these and apply them to your life.

1. Look for multi-cultural events to attend to get out of your comfort zone.
2. Do your work. I would recommend the book I read above, along with the book I mentioned from the CCDA workshop I attended: Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery.
3. Strive to build relationships with people of color. I used to say that I wasn’t racist because I had some Black friends. While I considered the people of color in my life friends, I never bothered to take a look at the world from their perspective.

As you get to know them, strive to see the world through their eyes. I toured the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, in Memphis, TN, with an African American friend.

Seeing all the exhibits through his eyes was a completely different experience than when I walked through the same museum two years earlier, alone in my whiteness.

If you’ve made it this far, I want to say “Thank you.” I hope that reading my journey has been encouraging and challenging for you. I have a long way to go, but I am very grateful that I’m nowhere near where I once was.

My journey continues as I strive to stand beside my brothers and sisters of color to confront systemic racism. More to come soon.