Racism: What I Have Seen

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Over the past few days, our nation's attention has once again been turned to the topic of race. This time, it was because of violence that began when a group of white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, VA for a rally. Counter-protests soon formed, and over the weekend 3 people lost their lives, including one woman who was hit by a car that drove through one of the counter-protests.

White Supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA (Aug 2017)

For many white Americans, this all may seem baffling. Some white Americans are still amazed that such hate still exists. Meanwhile, others still find a way to shift the focus and blame onto groups like "Black Lives Matter." Still others point to the decision made in Charlottesville to remove a Confederate statue a few months ago as the inciting incident.

But, events like Charlottesville are merely the tip of the iceberg. It's not as if racism hasn't been pulsing throughout our country this whole time. The reason so many whites have a difficult time dealing with situations like this, or only speaking up against racism when it reaches this level of obviousness is that we don't usually have to think about race because of white privilege. When you benefit from white privilege, it's also harder to see that same privilege. It becomes your culture and your worldview, and as such is difficult to notice until you have an encounter with other cultures and stories.

So, what I hope to do in this post is speak to my friends of European descent. I think one reason white people struggle to handle topics of race well is that we are not trained to see racism. And when we are smacked in the face with it, or when others ask us to give up some of our privilege to pursue an equal society, we tend to get uncomfortable or even defensive and hostile. So, in this post, I want to share a few of the ways in which I have seen racism rear its ugly head so my white friends can begin to get just a sliver of a taste of how racism remains present with us in every community.


So, here are a few of my stories. As a disclosure, most of my personal observations relate to racism as it pertains to the black community since those are the interactions my journey has taken me to. However, if you just ask around a bit, you can easily find others who can better speak about stories relating to Hispanic, Native American, Asian, or other cultures.

I also offer up that these are only what I have seen as a white male. Because of my own whiteness and status, I have personally experienced far less than my black and brown brothers and sisters, and even things that have happened in my presence I am less likely to notice because I am a white male. However, perhaps that underscores the point even more. If I have seen this much in a few short years as a white male, how much more is actually going on that others go through every day?! Anyways, here is what I have seen:

• Just recently, a local black church in our area was broken into and vandalized, including with graffiti of a swastika and the words "Trump" and "Satan." 
• I lived in small Texas town for about 6 1/2 years and served as a youth pastor for 5 years while there. Thankfully, our youth ministry was pretty diverse with near equal numbers of white, black, and Hispanic students.  Within my first two months there, we had 2 of our black students who were walking home after church on a Wednesday night and had a person from a neighboring church shout "niggers" at them.
• I've heard white members of a past church catch themselves using the N-word to refer to some of our black students.
• When we had a white student visit one Sunday, we had one lady tell my wife and I that she was happy to see that student and that we "need more white kids."
• I have gotten complaints from some church members that some of our (black) students would wear a backpack to church service, but never heard any complaints when white students would do the same.

There's also more subtle things I noticed:

• While many white members of past churches I've been to felt free to express their political opinions, including disparaging remarks about Obama, I can't say our black students (many of whom supported Obama) ever felt the same freedom to make political comments, likely because they felt in the minority and feared reprisal based on other comments they heard condemning their points of view.
• In Texas, "Juneteenth" is a holiday celebrating when slaves in Texas received word that they were free. While there are numerous events, parades, and celebrations for this holiday, and despite the fact that nearly all the black churches in town would get involved, I never heard any suggestions from our white churches should do something for Juneteenth. It either didn't matter to them or simply wasn't on their radar.
• When events like the Charlottesville protests or the Charleston church shooting occurred, many white churches do not even acknowledge such events during their worship, despite a willingness to bring up other non race-related tragedies in worship services. (Thankfully, my current church incorporated a time of mourning and prayer in today's service for the events in Charlottesville.) 

Then there's the history of towns I've lived in.

• Like most southern towns, the schools of a town I recently lived in were segregated in the past. The black school and the white school only merged in 1968, within my parents' lifetime.
• After desegregation in the late 60's and economic downturns in the following decades, my last town experienced the phenomenon of "white flight" as many (richer) white citizens chose to leave town in search of better (and whiter) pastures. This further hurt the city's economy and the many families of color who remained.
• As I would drive through the town in which I served as youth pastor, I quickly noticed a huge difference in the architecture of the churches in town. The largest, tallest, and nicest churches were historically white. Whereas most of the black churches in town were much smaller, less ornate, and looked more run down. Now of course, the measure of a church is not in its building, but in its people, but this noticeable difference speaks to the historic inequality that has existed in the incomes and opportunities between the white and black citizens of our town.
• Although segregation officially ended in the 60's, towns I have lied in are still segregated by geography. In my last city of residence, what is known as "the south side" is almost exclusively black (with a fair number of Hispanic families now as well). Incidentally, this also happens to be the poorest part of town with abysmal infrastructure. Roads are hardly paved, many lots are overgrown, and houses are older and smaller. Meanwhile, the students in my youth ministry referred to neighborhoods where I lived as "the white part of town." This did not necessarily mean that there were only white people in our neighborhoods (for instance, we had 3 black families on my street), but it was because it's where you found the white people. And in the past, these areas would have been exclusively white as African Americans would have been prohibited (by cost and by law) from buying or even renting these homes. Not surprisingly, these were the parts of town with nicer houses and better roads. I have seen this same phenomenon in countless cities I visit in central Texas as a part of my current job. Often, the phrase "wrong side of the tracks" has a very literal meaning, even in small towns of less than 10,000 people--and the side you are on is often partially determined by race.
• And an unofficial segregation still exists in the schools in that same county in which I used to live. Even though whites make up about 40% of the city's population, the city school district is probably 90-95% black and Hispanic students. So, where do all the white kids go? Well, they go to surrounding school districts that are supposedly "better" academically, even though test results don't always bear this out.
• But, the reputation of this school district as an academically poor school is also tied to its reputation as a "black" school. For instance, when one of my white friends who was a counselor at our school district went to watch her son (also white) play a basketball game at a neighboring school, the people doing admission automatically directed her to sit with the opposing team's section because they couldn't imagine a white person sitting on our side. There was an implicit assumption that our school (and basketball team) would be black and that a white player would not be playing on our team.

But before you just assume that this one town is some horribly racist town, realize that such instances of racism and privilege are common all over the place:

• One of the most eye opening experiences on race I've had came a number of years ago when I was in seminary. I was going on a school retreat (that doubled as a preaching class). During this retreat, one of my classmates, who is black, told us a story about an experience he had the morning he left to drive out to the conference site. We were reading several novels and books for the class, and my classmate still had to pick up one last book. So, he got up early the morning the retreat began and drove to a local bookstore. He arrived a few minutes before they opened, so he sat in his car and waited (since it was a cold January morning). Within a few minutes, he had a police officer come up and knock on his window. The officer began to interrogate him about why he was waiting around and what he was doing. Even though my classmate was also a youth pastor like me and had a legitimate reason for being there, he had an experience that I would likely not have, all because he was a black man wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Apparently a black man sitting outside a bookstore is planning on robbing the place because surely he's not there to actually buy books (sarcasm).
• As shocking as this is, it gets even worse. As we talked about this experience, another black student chimed in and asked, "Did the officer 'apologize' by saying that they had had a report of another black man in the area who matched your description?" My classmate who had been questioned by the officer replied by saying that that's exactly what the officer said. At this point, a third student (also a black male) nodded and affirmed that he's had the same experience (multiple times). Again, I have never had this experience, but all 3 of my classmates had (again, multiple times). And, it's not that these three were troublemakers or anything. All of them were pastors and had families and held good jobs before going to seminary. That evening, each of these three proceeded to share several of their stories of being pulled over or stopped by the police despite not doing anything wrong. For example, one was stopped and questioned intently by an officer when he was driving a van for a country music radio station he worked for (perhaps the officer thought the van was stolen since surely a black man couldn't work at a country music station--again sarcasm).
• This past fall, one of my interns at work (who was also a college student) told me a story about she witnessed a group of white males had shouted a bunch of racial slurs and insults at a female Muslim student on the college campus following the election of Donald Trump. This is in addition to an incident in which a black student was called a N***** on Baylor's campus.
• When I was searching for an apartment a few months ago, I did so with the knowledge that the options for minorities when it comes to buying and renting homes has historically been limited. There have been so many structural ways in which minorities (blacks in particular) have been prohibited from buying homes or renting homes in particular neighborhoods (read The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein for more on this). And since the past impacts the present, this means that the sins of the past continue to impact the housing options and geography of today.
• When I was in school, we learned about the "big moments" as it related to race--slavery, the Civil War, Martin Luther King Jr., Brown v Board of Education--but there were so many aspects of our racial history that were never even touched. For instance, we learned about the GI Bill, but not about how most of the benefits of GI Bill disproportionately helped white veterans and left black veterans out to dry. We did not learn about the many ways in which our housing markets and neighborhoods were intentionally segregated. We did not learn how the 13th Amendment (supposedly banning slavery) left a big loophole allowing slavery as a punishment for a crime and that southerners in the post-Civil War era made up ludicrous crimes in order to arrest African Americans and force them to do work they had just been freed from. For that matter, we did not learn that racism was just as prominent in businesses and society in the north as in the south. We did not learn about the contributions of black employees at NASA in getting to the moon (as depicted in the film Hidden Figures). And worst of all, we were taught to view racism as an historical issue, one that largely ended during the Civil Rights movement. These are matters in which I am only now beginning to educate myself about. But, I am also actively seeking out this information because I've personally seen how racism is still alive and well. This means that most white Americans are still blissfully unaware of these historical (and modern) realities.

So, there are a few of my stories. The list could be much longer if I included the countless Facebook and social media posts and comments I've seen that have been racially insensitive. It could be much longer if I included the many in-person comments I've heard (including within the church) that demonstrate a complete lack of awareness and knowledge on the part of whites of how much racism has marred our country's past. And again, it would be much, much longer if I were not a white male and was actually the recipient of racism and bias.

I don't post these stories to badmouth anyone or to say that individuals guilty of racist comments or actions are always bad (some are very kind people who simply don't realize what they are doing). I post these stories to simply point out that racism and bias and white privilege do in fact exist today and that we cannot choose to inaction. And it's not just in random white supremacist rallies that happen to pop up. It's everywhere. It's in the north and in the south. It's in big cities and in small towns. It's in the world, and it's in the Church. And it's not merely a "few bad apples." Racism built our society. It laid the bedrock on which we now stand, and as such it continues to affect the present. Bias continues to be built into the social systems that benefit those of us who are white. We cannot ignore this anymore.

If you have your own personal stories you have experienced, I encourage you to share them. It's time for those of us who are white to stop trying to be "colorblind" and to realize that our society is not truly equal yet.  "Colorblindness" might be a great ideal to strive for, but as long as racism and inequality continue to exist, those of us who are white cannot afford to ignore race because doing so simply gives us permission to continue benefiting from a system that is rigged against our neighbor.

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Where is the Starting Line?

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Before white Americans jump to say that Affirmative Action is "racist" or "unfair," here are a few things to consider: "Affirmative Action" means any policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer or have suffered from discrimination within a culture. In other words, the critics are right in saying that it is a form of "discrimination," but it's a positive one. It is a kind of "leveling of the playing field" so a segment of the population doesn't fall behind (or farther behind).

But one fact that most white Americans don't consider is that many of them are direct beneficiaries of one of the largest (and most expensive) affirmative action efforts in our history: the GI Bill. After WWII, the US Government created the GI Bill to help level the playing field for returning veterans. Since most veterans had gone to war and suffered, they had lost several years worth of education, work, and experience at home. Without some program to help them out, they would likely fall behind in society. As President Eisenhower put it, returning veterans "are entitled to definite action to help take care of their special problems." The GI Bill funded veterans to continue their education, provided loan guarantees for veterans to purchase homes, and provided job training/placement. Now was this "unfair" to non-veterans. You could certainly make that argument. But the rationale was that we owed this to veterans to make sure they didn't fall behind. We wanted an equal playing field.

But here's the kicker--the GI Bill primarily benefited whites. Because of concessions made to Southern lawmakers, black veterans benefited almost none at all. African American veterans were denied housing and business loans, were excluded from job training programs, and faced active discrimination in enrolling in colleges. So in effect, the GI Bill was affirmative action for whites.

This in and of itself could be an argument for affirmative action in higher education for minorities today. While white families benefited educationally and financially from the GI Bill, creating a stepping stone up for their children and grandchildren, the children and grandchildren of black families would face an extra obstacle to overcome.

Protesters against the Brown v Board of Education decision.

But sadly, that is not the only obstacle minority families face today. Even if we claim that today's society is a perfectly equal society with no current racism or discrimination (which we are in reality far from), you really cannot argue that everyone has an equal starting point. Our nation was literally built upon the backs of slaves. Racism and discrimination existed in every state and city in our country for over 2 centuries. If a war that lasted less than a decade is enough to warrant affirmative action, shouldn't 2 centuries of discrimination and oppression also warrant it?

You see, here's where I think the challenge is in this debate. We (white Americans) don't really believe that the past has much impact on the present. We think, "I'm not racist and I don't see much discrimination today (especially compared to the past), so minorities have no excuse today not to succeed." We also tend to believe in the American mythos that you can become anything and achieve anything if you just work hard enough. If we buy into this mindset, then of course any "affirmative action" plan will be flawed because we have bought into the idea that the playing field is already equal.

However, the past does impact the present. You success is more than simply the sum of your actions. Who you are today is at least partially the result of your parents' decisions, education, wealth, and success. Much of your path was already determined for you by where you grew up, by the schools you had access to, and by who your neighbors were. And yes, if your skin is not white, then you inevitably (even today) will face unique challenges, if from nowhere else then at least from a few remaining "bad apples."

The point is this is not just about the present realities, whether we make equal opportunities available or not. This is also about starting lines. If certain segments of our population have a starting line 200 meters behind ours, then we have an obligation to take actions to fix that, especially if our own government took actions in the past that set the starting line for others so far back.

A St. Louis campaign flyer advocating for housing segregation in 1916.

And that has happened. In addition to the discrimination faced by blacks and others in the GI Bill, our very housing maps have been largely segregated by government action. Mortgage companies and the federal government refused to give loans to African American families for years. Whenever a black family would move into a white neighborhood, real estate agents would begin "blockbusting" and scaring white homeowners into moving because they believed their home values would begin dropping (even though black homeowners often paid double for the same homes because they could not get mortgages for homes in other neighborhoods).

Similarly, many white neighborhoods had "restrictive covenants" that made it illegal for black families to buy homes in that neighborhood. State and local courts (and not just in the South) upheld evictions of African American families who had legally purchased homes in white neighborhoods.

When it came to schools, our schools were intentionally segregated. Separate schools were built for African Americans, and these schools were usually underfunded. Even after integration took effect, many communities found ways to practically continue segregation. Sometimes district lines were deliberately drawn to irregularly dissect neighborhoods to ensure that black and white students would not attend the same schools. Other times, white families would start up expensive private schools to for their children knowing black families could not afford them (simultaneously draining money from public schools that looked increasingly brown and black). Or, many schools remained segregated as whites continued to move out to suburbs where there were jobs and opportunities and left minorities in an economic vacuum to also deal with an impoverished school district.

This is not even to consider the horrors of ways that the criminal justice system has often been prejudiced against minorities throughout the years, or other ways in which minorities have been harmed and disadvantaged throughout our past. Once you start to consider the extent to which African Americans and other minorities had been oppressed, then you also begin to realize that the starting line is not in fact equal.

Now, none of this is to say that minorities and oppressed populations cannot succeed or overcome these obstacles to become successful. They most certainly can and often do. But contrary to some critics who argue that affirmative action is "insulting" to minorities by assuming that they "can't make it" without a "handout," I don't think that's the intention or mindset of affirmative action programs. I think such programs simply recognize that, even if the current situation is devoid of racism or discrimination, the starting line is not in the same place for everyone. So, the point is to remove some of the obstacles that exist. And, if a non-white individual ends up experiencing more success because they're used to working twice as hard to achieve the same outcome, well, that's not really their fault and that's not really "unfair" to us whites.

So, before you jump to talking about how horrible affirmative action is, consider whether your family is also a recipient of affirmative action and consider the extent to which others who look different from you have experienced hardship and setbacks. Because I suspect that if you jump too quickly to thinking that affirmative action is "unfair" to you that you probably have never actually studied and pondered the full measure of discrimination and racism in our country's history.

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*Another critique of affirmative action is that it supposedly sets "quotas" and a completely unqualified person can get into a school because of the color of their skin while a very qualified person who is white will get denied because of it. Now, while it may be true that some white students may miss out on a particular school because of affirmative action policies, I can assure you that a minority student can't just get into any school they want. Having worked in a community with a poor and academically struggling minority school district for a number of years, I can guarantee you that those students did not just have "free rides" into colleges. It is still arguably much easier for a white, suburban student to get into the college of their choice than for some of those African American or Hispanic students to get into any college.

**If you'd like to read more about our nation's checkered past, a few good reads are America's Original Sin by Jim Wallis, The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.

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Baptism and Racism

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I recently started reading Jim Wallis' newest book "America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America." I'm only part way through it, but so far there has been lots of good food for thought for white Christians and white churches who often neglect issues of race in our liturgy and worship, preferring to pretend that racism is a "political issue" not a "faith issue."

However, early on, there is one quote that jumped out at me. In the opening chapter, Wallis writes:
"The political and economic problems of race are ultimately rooted in a theological problem. The churches have too often "baptized" us into our racial divisions, instead of understanding how our authentic baptism unites us above and beyond our racial identities."

I think Wallis is onto something here. In American Christianity, particularly the white evangelical variety, we tend to preach and adhere to what Scot McKnight calls the "soterian (or 'salvation') gospel." The "gospel" that gets preached from our pulpits is that you are a sinner, Jesus died for your sins, and so you must believe these truths and put your faith in Jesus and you will be saved from hell and death. Frequently this gospel is also accompanied by a gnostic over-emphasis on heaven as the final destination of the saved, rather than an emphasis on bodily resurrection.

As McKnight and others point out, this "soterian gospel" ends up being extremely individualistic. The "Gospel" is good news for me. Jesus died for my sins. The point of Jesus' life and death was so I could get into heaven. Even within more Reformed traditions that point back to God's glory as the purpose for His actions, the center of the narrative still remains focused on God's actions for individuals.

To bring this back to Wallis' quote, if we are believing an individualized gospel, then it naturally flows that we are also practicing individualistic baptisms. In most baptism services I have seen, the focus of the moment is almost always on the personal profession of faith and the salvation of the one being baptized. Don't get me wrong, that focus is good, but it's incomplete.

Usually absent from modern baptisms is any language of being baptized into a community or of entrance into a new kingdom and people that crosses cultures, race, and language. This is unfortunate because the early church understood this concept.

Certainly, such an individualistic gospel and baptism will cause (and is causing) countless theological and practical problems for our churches, but I had never really made the connection between this watered-down baptism (pun not intended) and racial problems we face within the church. This is likely because of my own white privilege. For us white Christians, we simply don't think about race and racism enough and so it's natural never to ever bring such communal aspects into our baptismal liturgies. But, we would if we were paying attention to the Gospel found in the New Testament and to the modern realities around us.

There's good evidence to suggest that Paul's words on baptism and community in Gal. 3:26-29 were actually part of an early baptismal liturgy used during baptisms. In contrast, we reduce the baptism moment into only a celebration of that individual and their own personal salvation. But what would it look like if we used language similar to Gal 3?

"For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise." (Gal. 3:26-29)

For the early church, baptism was less about a symbol of personal conversion to a religious or psychological belief. It was more about an initiation into an entirely new people, culture, and society. Being submitted under the water was not just a symbol of death to sin (as we commonly approach it). It was a ritual depicting death to one's entire old way of life, including one's cultural, racial, and social identities. All those old identities were washed away and you were raised up into Abraham's family, into the people of God. Imagine what it would look like if we recaptured that essence? What if we too disposed and repented of our racial, cultural, and national identities at baptism and allowed ourselves to truly take on a new identity in Christ?

It's no secret that, as Dr. Martin Luther King used to say, that Sunday morning is "the most segregated hour in this nation." Perhaps one reason for this is because the gospel we preach and baptize into falls short of the gospel and baptism of the New Testament. Central to the Bible's Gospel is the fact that Jesus is the fulfillment of the story of Israel, and that He is creating for Himself a new people drawn from every tongue, tribe, and nation.

Paul reiterates this Gospel truth in many of his writings, including when he writes in 1 Corinthians:

"For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit....But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it." (1 Cor. 12:12-13, 24-27)

Central to our baptism is the truth that all other identities are submerged beneath our identity in Christ. We are no longer defined by nationality, gender, race, language, or social status. We are all part of Christ. Perhaps if the Church in America could better grasp and preach this communal truth from both the pulpit and the baptismal, then maybe the Church could be the one to finally lead our country toward the racial equality and healing we so desperately need.

In the words of William Stringfellow, "The issue here [of racism] is not equality among human beings, but unity among human beings....The issue is baptism. The issue is the unity of all humanity wrought by God in the life and work of Christ. Baptism is the sacrament of that unity."

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What if Kaepernick had been Tebow?

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I confess, I am tired. I'm tired of the ongoing racial arguments that continue to spin in circles. I'm not saying these conversations don't need to happen--they do. But I'm tired of the ignorant, knee-jerk yelling that often takes place. I'm tired of people plugging their ears and refusing to listen to other opinions. I'm tired of the countless memes and diatribes white folk put out there that surely make my black friends and peers shake their heads.

I've avoided jumping into discussions about race in the past few months for this very reason, and perhaps I should apologize to my black friends, former students, and co-workers for not speaking out. But this time there are just too many notable points for me to ignore.

On Friday night, 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, protested the continuing "oppression" of African Americans in the U.S. by refusing to stand for the National Anthem. While quite a few praised his actions, countless other heaped ridicule upon him. Social media lit up with angry and critical memes such as these:

There's also no shortage of videos and articles mocking and attacking Kaepernick's protest. These arguments mainly attack his person and character: Kaepernick is "spoiled," is rich, is "half-black" and therefore is disqualified from speaking about oppression. He's a second-rate quarterback. Sitting down is not "doing anything" meaningful. He's never served in the military.

Even worse, I've seen many arguments that he is protesting an "imaginary" oppression. One video even flat out states that "there is no oppression." Such arguments inevitably go on to discuss how the NFL is 70% black, how we have a black president and congressmen, and how more white people are killed by police than blacks. If you can prove that equality exists, then you also discredit Kaepernick.

At the end of the day, Kaepernick committed 2 "sins." First, he challenged the claims of American nationalism. Second, he challenged white privilege. Combine these two sins, and the inevitable outcome was for adversity to come his way.

However, for me, I can't help but wonder which of these two is really driving people's angst. Is it his seeming "disrespect" for the American flag and anthem, or his claims about oppression of people of color? This led to a thought experiment.

What if it had been Tim Tebow who had protested the flag? What if Tebow had tuned into some stray Anabaptist vibe Friday night and decided to sit during the national anthem? What if after the game he linked his actions to abortion? Imagine if Tebow did this and said something like: "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that kills the unborn and calls this acceptable." I wonder what the reaction would have been, particularly from white Christians.

This is a tough questions to answer, but I have a good feeling that white Christians would have responded quite differently. I suspect one of two things would have happened. If this scenario had taken place, I suspect white Christians would have only criticized Tebow for dishonoring the flag or not criticized him at all. I highly doubt many Christians would have taken issue with Tebow's critique of abortion.

But here lies the problem if that scernario actually took place--it reveals a deep hypocrisy and moral shortsightedness among white Christians. If we go with the first outcome (attacking Tebow's lack of patriotism), then we should pay attention to our Anabaptist brothers and sisters who point out that such unwavering belief and allegiance to any nation is dangerously close to idolatry. However, if the second outcome had happened (Christians take no issue at all with Tebow but support him), that reveals our problem is not really with patriotism, but with our refusal to acknowledge racism.

However, this scenario is even more damning for us white Christians when we think about it because BOTH likely outcomes reveal a lack of concern about racism. The truth is we would support Tebow's critique of abortion even if we disagreed with his means. You would NEVER see statements from conservatives or white Christians trying to discredit Tebow for attacking abortion, even if he did so in defiance of nationalism.

You would never see memes declaring that "abortion is not a problem," or "Tebow is not a real American hero," or "Tebow is rich and spoiled [and therefore knows nothing about the realities of abortion.]" You might see some left-wing memes assert things like this, but certainly not from conservatives or most white Christians.

This thought experiment reveals that the vitriol directed against Kaepernick is not just due to a passionate patriotism, it's also due to a lack of concern about racism among whites. And that's a problem..

It's a problem because RACISM DOES EXIST. Sure, it may not exist is the same overt, violent forms as 50, 100, or 200 years ago, but it sure as hell exists today (and I'm no universalist when it comes to hell).

Yes, we have a black President, but how many white Presidents were there before him? How many racist attacks have been slung at him in 8 years? And remind me how getting a black President magically made all racism in this country disappear.

Yes, there are many African-Americans in the NFL and in Congress, but in how many countless other professions are they underrepresented and underpaid ? How many times has a black man been passed over for a job because of an unconscious bias and fear of black men in the minds of many whites?

Yes more white people are killed by cops, but there are also a heck of a lot more white people in this country than black people. When you look at the same stats proportionally, black men are more likely to be killed than whites, and that's a fact.

Yet, one of the big problems I see in all of these conversations is that, in the absence of "legal" racism, we have created our own form of segregation as whites remove themselves from all areas of black life. We moved out of the cities, we refuse to integrate our churches, and we formed nice subdivisions away from poverty and diversity. But this has the nasty effect of blinding us. How many white individuals complaining about Kaepernick have more than 2 or 3 close black friends (or have any at all)? How many of them go to church at a place that has more than 1 or 2 black families (if any at all)? How many of them have shut their mouths for a minute to ask a black friend their honest thoughts and opinions about #BlackLivesMatter or Kaepernick or anything along those lines? I suspect not many.


For me, I tend to operate with the default assumption that, as a white male, I have NO RIGHT to criticize a person of color when they point out oppression or racism. I recognize that I have benefited from centuries of white privilege and from a history that has silenced voices of color. As such, I recognize that it's time white males like me just shut up and listen, even if it's uncomfortable. We've done enough talking over the years, it's time for other voices.

I've been blessed to live for the past 6 years in a city that is 45% African-American, and to have worked with numerous black teens, seminary students, and co-workers, and to have several black friends. And here's what I've seen and heard as I've listened.

I've seen firsthand black teens have racial slurs hurled at them. My wife was once told by a white church member that the church needed "more white kids." I've seen how racism continues to devastate an entire city through white flight. I've witnessed a school garner a bad reputation for little more than the fact that less than 5% of that school is white.

I've talked with fellow seminarians who've experienced discrimination from others, including from law enforcement. One fellow student once related how he was stopped by white officers in a parking lot while he was waiting in his car for a bookstore to open so he could buy a textbook. No good reason was given by the officers for this inconvenience. Sadly, ask about any black male and they can easily relate multiple such stories.

I've also listened as many whites equate being black with being poor (which itself is a racist oversimplification of reality), but then never think to ask about what systemic problems may exist that keep so many people of color financially depressed.

Both my wife and I have occasionally been the target of what some might call "reverse racism"--the tendency of some persons of color to be hateful towards white people simply because they are white. Although it's certainly uncomfortable for me, I don't get upset and I certainly don't use those incidents to justify by own racist tendencies. Instead, I wonder how much hate and racism that person has experienced in their life to conclude that all white people are bad. But then again, as I reflect on history, I could very easily come to the same conclusion if I were in their shoes.

So, don't tell me that racism doesn't exist today. Don't tell me that there's no oppression. I've seen too much of it, and I'm not even someone who has to live through it.

As we think about and respond to Kaepernick, I hope my fellow white people, especially those who claim to follow Christ, will shut up for a few minutes and humbly listen to a different perspective. And as Kaepernick looks to continue his protest, let's think seriously about what we are truly upset about. Are we really upset simply because he refuses to stand during the national anthem, or would we be less upset if he linked it with a cause we cared about?

If we conclude that we'd be less upset if he'd pick a different cause, then we must also conclude that he is "sitting" against us, because we've become the oppressors.

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"But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." 1 Cor. 12:24-26

Missing the heart of the matter...again

The debate surrounding the death of Michael Brown is still raging. Tempers have flared on both sides and many opposing points have been thrown into the arena. I have had many thoughts throughout this ordeal, but have refrained from posting most of them. However, as I continue to watch reactions and comments from my white friends, I feel a need to point out that most whites (particularly white Christians) have missed the heart of the matter.

When this tragedy and the subsequent protests first began, I blogged and made a prediction about how most white Americans would react (read it here). Towards the end I predicted that  "many whites will minimize or dismiss charges of racism" and that this would be the most common response for white Americans to Ferguson. In particular, I noted that these same people would prefer to focus on the rightness or wrongness of police action.

Sadly, the 2 weeks that have passed since that blog have proved me more or less correct. As I scan my Facebook feed, more than half of the shared articles about Ferguson from my white friends follow this trajectory. Most of these articles amount to defaming the character of Michael Brown and attempting to defend Officer Wilson's choice to use deadly force. To summarize most of these articles--Mr. Brown stole cigars from a convenience store, was a trouble-maker, got stopped by police and assaulted this police. Officer Wilson, then fearing for his life, shot Mr. Brown to death after sustaining serious injuries to his face.

However, all of this ultimately misses what is perhaps the most important takeaway from this whole tragedy. As I mentioned in my first article, such discussion sidetracks us from more important questions. Why is the black community so upset? Why are there charges of racism every time a black teen is gunned down by police? Why are so many whites silent about this story when so many African-Americans are speaking out? Perhaps the key thing we should take away from this story is that there are still serious race issues in America. Furthermore, the black community is willing to talk about this race relation problem while the white community, by and large, is not (perhaps we can call this racist?).

So, to get back down to the bottom line: An unarmed, black teen is dead. Sadly, those articles that attack Mr. Brown's character or reputation completely ignore this point. Even if we accept the most damning account of Michael Brown's character, it still does not justify his death. If he did shoplift (an offense the responding officer supposedly did not even know about at the time), jaywalk, and assault an officer, these are still not crimes deserving of the death penalty. And even if they were, Mr. Brown still would have been entitled to due process and a trial. So, no matter what, it was AN INJUSTICE for this teen to be gunned down in the street, regardless of his character or actions.

What worries me about these articles attacking his character is that they have a nasty implication. First, it implies we do not really believe in America's justice system (and believe too strongly in violence). We do not believe in due process or human rights. If there is a criminal, we don't really care if something bad happens to them. They deserved it, right?

Or, at least we don't care if the criminal/victim is black. When we focus on the possible flaws in Mr. Brown, instead of grieving with a family affected by injustice, we unconsciously imply that the death of a black man does not really matter. We show no pain or remorse because deep down in our minds, he wasn't a person.

Which brings me back to the core issue many whites are overlooking: race relations. When many whites look at the protests and the angst among black Americans, they just shake their heads in confusion. They call the protests immature. They talk about "playing the race card" or "reverse racism." They look for stories of whites teens who were killed by police to dismiss race as an issue.

But race is the issue.

Let's step back beyond the actions of Officer Wilson. At this point, I don't care if his decision to shoot was motivated by racism or by a genuine effort to defend his life in the line of duty. I don't know the answer to that, and no one besides Officer Wilson probably will. However, in all our efforts to vindicate Officer Wilson, white Americans have ignored the ultimate reason why the black community is so upset. It's not because one single black teen was shot. It's because there is a whole system of racism that continues to work against them.

And so, the character of Michael Brown doesn't even really matter. What white Americans should have been thinking and talking about is why so many were so quick to criticize the situation. And the answer is because the death of Michael Brown is too similar to countless injustices the black community faces on a daily basis. Whites continue to have more power and influence than blacks. Whites continue to be less affected by poverty. Whites don't have to have talks with their sons about how to respond to police officers to avoid confrontation. Whites don't get stopped by police and searched for no good reason. White men don't worry about being viewed as suspicious simply because of the color of their skin. The black community isn't upset just because one teen got killed. They aren't upset because they are trying to be racist back to whites. They are upset because this death carries too many echoes of continuing racism and the white community persists in ignoring racism altogether.

So going forward I pray that my white friends and readers will stop criticizing Michael Brown or attempting to defend Officer Wilson. Instead, I pray they would do two things. First, I hope they will offer sympathy and grief to a family and neighborhood who lost a teen, remembering that this death was an injustice no matter the exact circumstances.

Second, I pray that more white will pause to ask why many black Americans are so upset. Withhold judgment and protest and instead listen. Listen to the countless stories of profiling, discrimination, suffering, and racism. Racism may not be as blatant as 60 years ago, but it is still very present. Our blindness to racism may not be a willful blindness, but it is a blindness nonetheless. The worst thing whites can do is minimize it or ignore it. For, if we continue to ignore it, there will only be more Michael Browns and more protests.

Warring Issues in Ferguson

Racism or Militarized Police?

These are the two main issues at stake in the protests and riots currently occurring in Ferguson, MO. I am no policy expert, and I am not a reporter on the scene, but I do feel like this news story may prove interesting as far as what it reveals about the American public. In particular, how will Americans (namely white Americans) respond to these two issues.

Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown's mother

First, there is the complaint that racism is still at work. As the argument goes, Michael Brown was unfairly targeted and shot to death more or less because he was black, not because he deserved it. Had Michael been a white teen, he would have escaped with his life--if he had been troubled by police at all. This side of the story is very similar to the case of Trayvon Martin a couple of years back.

When the Trayvon Martin case was in the news, we basically saw white Americans take two different sides. There were those who sided with the black community and demanded justice because they felt Trayvon had been killed simply for the color of his skin. Then, there were others who more or less defended George Zimmerman. They questioned whether Trayvon was truly innocent and they attacked the idea that his character that night was spotless. They defended the law that allowed Zimmerman to use his gun. They denied that race had anything to do with the murder and claimed it was just certain black activists "playing the race card."

However, the problem in Ferguson is a little different. The accusation of racism does not center on a black individual and a white individual. Rather, this case centers on a black teen and an entire system. In particular, it is a system almost everyone, conservative or liberal, recognizes is probably in the wrong. While the shooting itself will likely be disputed in much the same way Trayvon's death was, the reaction of the police that followed has startled Americans. The brutal crackdown of police on protestors has left many Americans in shock.

This sets up two powerful issues that people are seeking to correct--racism and the militarization of the police. What I find interesting about this story is that those white Americans who would normally lament the overreaction of big government/police state are also the same ones who would often ignore or minimize the existence of racism in shootings like this. However, with the problems in Ferguson, we have both of these issues closely linked. It becomes much harder to condemn the use of military/police force without also simultaneously condemning the police for racism. If the police are treating ordinary citizens this harshly, is it really that hard to believe that an officer shot an unarmed teen because he was black? In both narratives the police of the city are out of line.

And so, I wonder how white Americans will react to this story. In my mind I see 3 basic reactions that will (and have begun to) occur.

First, a few white Americans will condemn both wrongs. They will admit that racism played a part in this murder and will also condemn the extreme force that was used against protestors.

Second, others will minimize the problems that exist in Ferguson. They will point out that the media has made the police reaction sound worse than it actually is (for instance). The police have not overreacted, instead the media has overreacted. Of course, this also has the effect of suggesting that the media (and blacks) have overreacted on the race issue as well.

Finally, and I suspect this will be the most popular option among whites, we will focus mostly on the militarization of the police and on big government while practically ignoring the accusations of racism that began it all. Instead, we will debate the rightness or wrongness of the police handling of the protests. Even worse, many whites will minimize or dismiss charges of racism.  I have already read of few stories and comments attacking Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for simply going to St. Louis because they want to be on camera. Yet, these same stories and comments will also ignore countless other black leaders who are calling out the racism implicit in this situation.

In my eyes, the situation in Ferguson is an excellent opportunity for white America to wake up to the reality of racism in America today. In particular, it provides a chance to examine implicit racism that may exist in law enforcement and in criminal justice systems. But most importantly, it should give us a chance to look at the racism inside each of us as well.

For instance, I am appalled by the fact that just about any adult, black male you ask can tell you stories about when they have been pulled over or stopped by police for seemingly no reason apart from the fact they are black. In fact, many of my black friends can even joke about these occurrences because they are such a common experience. But for me--the white male--I have no such experiences. I can honestly say I have never been pulled over because of the color of my skin. Not so for many of my friends and colleagues.

Racism is alive. I have seen it at work too much in central Texas. However, I guarantee it exists all over the country. Whenever we as whites assume that "white" is the default color for humanity (as most of us unconsciously do) we are giving into racism. We notice that this person is "black" or that person is "Hispanic/Asian/etc.," but we don't really notice that those like us are "white."

When the color of our skin allows us to drive around without fear of being stopped by police or being harassed about where we are going, we benefit from racism.

Whenever I wear a hoodie and don't have my character or honesty judged, I benefit from racism.

And so, I will be watching carefully as the story in Fergusson unfolds. Where will the emphasis be? What will my white friends focus on? Will they find a way to think about the police actions along with the issue of racism? Or, like usual, will we fumble through the question of race and continue ignoring ways we allow racism to live on in our country contrary to the Kingdom of God?