January 20, 2020
It’s Martin Luther King jr. day as I write this reflection. And in a time where racial injustice has been on the forefront of our minds, I’d like to tell you a story in hopes that maybe you will learn a lesson I learned and join me on the journey of striving to be anti-racist.
I know some of you probably wanted to stop reading after the first bit, and that’s okay because a first lesson for you all that I learned the hard way is this: being confronted with your own privilege and racism is uncomfortable. That’s why we don’t want to talk about it and avoid it because we have been trained as people of privilege and Americans that if we don’t like something, we don’t have to do it. The second thing I hope you gain from reading this today is this: as people of God, we are called to engage in the work of anti-racism, so we fully see the image of God in our neighbors of color.
I went to college at a Lutheran Liberal arts School, Lenoir -Rhyne University in Hickory, NC. We looked forward to holiday weekends so we could sleep in have fun, etc. My classmates in the religion department and I were pretty annoyed that we had a mandatory lecture to attend on Martin Luther King Day to be given by the Reverend Dr. James Cone. We didn’t want to do that we wanted to lay around or party.
So, my classmates and I attend this lecture sitting in the back, and I’m surprised to see the auditorium so full. This is where my privilege comes into play, I didn’t know who Dr. Cone was or that it was a big deal to hear him speak. I remember listening to his lecture, he literally wrote the book on Black Liberation theology. Something I hadn’t been exposed to previously. I remember feeling uncomfortable, guilty, and surprised.
I learned something about myself that day that I had never confronted before, that I might be racist. That I unknowingly did things, said things, and participated in activities that were racist. It wasn’t like I was running around saying the N word, but it was subtle things like being able to walk into a store and find that the main displays of shampoo and makeup were catered toward my hair type and skin tone. It was being able to turn on the television and see people of my race widely represented. It was being able to move through life without being racially profiled or unfairly stereotyped.
It took doing something I really didn’t want to do to confront my own privilege as a white woman in America and I am so glad our department made me listen to Rev. Dr. Cone that day. I didn’t appreciate sitting there at the time, in fact didn’t want to be there at all—it was uncomfortable to look in the mirror and see your own sin for what it is, to be confronted with the truth. But because of that lecture and that feeling that day, I started reading Dr. Cone’s works Black Liberation Theology and The Cross and the Lynching Tree. I think my ministry as a pastor and my life as a follower of Jesus Christ is richer because I had to listen to that lecture that day.
I’m not telling you this because I’m on some higher plane for having listened to this lecture or read a bunch of books, or to tell you how good I am. I’m telling you this because, “we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves” for us as white people in America, one of the sins that has held us captive for a long time is racism. It has many forms and structures, and most of us don’t even know we are participating, but it is my hope that by trying to practice anti-racism we might do better, more fully loving our neighbors, freeing our world from the evil sin of racism that has plagued us for so long.
Here’s some questions to help you reflect on this and some scripture to engage with:
Have you ever said or done anything racist? Did you realize it at the time?
Genesis 1:26
Do you watch shows with people of color in them? Read books by authors of color?
Acts 10:9-23
.The Bible has often been used to support racism. What are some ways you have
heard or seen this happen?
Jeremiah 9:23-24
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