This one was very hard to write. But in light of George Floyd it must be shared. It is personal and I share my shame. It is a healthy shame today. A shame that I can understand. Not a toxic shame that screams defective. A loving shame that points to the evil and arrogance we were never intended to indulge. In a way it is a confession and testimony of change. I fear it because the toxic shame whispers “you will be judged” yet the Spirit is saying in vulnerability and grace there is healing, not only for yourself but others. So here it goes!
I grew up in a middle class family in the Midwest. A pretty white area. I am a true Gen Xer at the tail end of the generation. My family definitely had dysfunction but we weren’t particularly racist. There were the occasional racist jokes but not often. There was an air of dominance to being white. At least I don’t remember being told to “Be thankful you were born white”. I definitely see the advantage of being a white male in America. We were middle class and had various struggles. Our lives were not easy. I was a religious kid and I was really drawn to the goodness of MLK. My household would say he was a good man but never really elaborated about the struggle he was fighting. In the 80’s and early 90’s, Johnson County, KS was very white. I had never seen a black person in the flesh until 2nd grade!
But in the 3rd grade we moved south and we had black neighbors. They had a son my age and we played together. The mom was a banker and dad was an architect. I’m sure they were doing better money-wise than we were. This was around the time I was given the “be thankful” lesson. We had fun and were friends, I’ll call him Bobby.
Because of the dysfunction in my own home I was a bit of a hot headed kid. One time Bobby and I were messing around in his garage and he hit me with a ball in the face and I got ticked off. I started fighting him in his garage. This was a bad move on my part. I am still sorry to this day that I was such a jerk to Bobby. His mother heard the ruckus and came in and freaked out. She pulled us apart and started hitting me on the back. I was probably 10 years old at the time. Once I got out I was so sad, scared and angry. This is an early time when the ‘seeds’ of “being thankful for being born white” turned into hate.
I had another neighbor friend who saw me upset and I proceeded to tell him how “That ni##er kept hitting me because her son is a p#ssy!” This other friend of the same age commiserated with me as I launched into racial hate. I never told my family and I am very glad I didn’t. That mom was completely out of line and so was I. She was the adult and it is sad she didn’t have a better reaction but she didn’t.
It’s odd that I was a religious kid who would punch you in the nose but that was due to the volatility of my home. My mother is a raging alcoholic and my father is a present but neglectful parent. I am the youngest of 4 and my family placed too much value on being tough and manly. I think the definition would be categorized today as “toxic”. I was taught to fight whenever you are messed with. It’s strange that my family is Christian and yet I was never taught to “turn the other cheek.” hmmm. A lesson not taught often enough it seems.
My parents divorced a year or 2 later. I had stopped being all that into God and was more into the idea of girls and partying. I lived with my Mom and continued to not be much of a priority to those who were taking care of me. I was a difficult young teen, just like a lot of us. I was really into heavy metal and /or party music. Guns-N-Roses was huge at this time. They definitely had a F-You attitude and my young teen brain loved it! Cue the detractors- observing the music I consumed is not blaming the music exclusively. Ironically I also loved N.W.A. and Eazy- E. Sadly, this music confirmed black stereotypes. The forming of many a racist is cumulative and chips away with insecurity. Cross colors, Malcolm X and Spike Lee were also popular. Black culture was being embraced at large or so it seemed. Martin Lawrence was popular and always seemed to be cracking jokes at the expense of white people. My parents and teachers had taught me that MLK was a good man but Malcolm X was for Black Power and violence. Whether Malcolm X really was like that I didn’t know but I believed them because of soundbites I had heard. All this cauldron was brewing. Around the age 14 or 15 the Rodney King verdict came out and LA burned. Everyone in the nation could clearly see Mr. King was beaten with excessive force but the jury did not find the officers guilty.
When being taught about slavery, and the extermination of native peoples it was definitely white-washed and glossed over. I ditched a lot of school as I got older so the education was incomplete. This added another component to this toxic cocktail, ignorance.
Due to being a handful and partying my Mom shipped me to live with my Dad outside of LA in the High Desert of Lancaster, CA. I was a partying hippy kid. I wasn’t overtly racist at this time. I would have said “I liked black people but hated ni##ers”. I was moving to where life was way more diverse! The school make up was roughly a third white, a third black and a third Hispanic. Culture shock! The long haired partiers were self-segregated whites who sometimes hung out with Hispanics. It seemed like everyone in Cali had a chip on their shoulder about race. It made sense with the Rodney King beating, acquittal of the officers involved and subsequent riots. It was right after the riots that I moved there.
The white partying kids there were not hippies, a bit rougher. At least the folks I gravitated towards. These kids saw the Reginald Denny brick to the face as the equivalent to King and believed the hate and prejudice was mutual. LA was just volatile. There was a disorganized “gang” that I joined after a year there. It wasn’t quite skinhead but it was close. We would get messed up and talk racist trash and jokes. I would maintain my underlying belief in God and found the racism against Jewish people wrong but I was okay with bigotry towards others and this included LGBTQ people. This was a dark time for me in terms of my heart, It was hardening.
Thankfully my dad was laid off and I moved back to KS. A bit changed after my time in California. My mother was giving up her lease to move in with her boyfriend and for some reason did not want me to live there. I moved to rural Alabama outside of Huntsville with my oldest sister. She had recently been widowed. Her husband had been murdered by a black man. Murder is always wrong and the circumstances of the murder never came to light. Due to her pain the prejudice continued. I had a dark philosophy that sadness hurts and anger and hatred was easier. It’s true but temporary. It further hardens the heart and takes us even further away from being human. Alabama was just odd. Folks were friendly but I was definitely a Yankee and felt out of place. Prejudice was there but California was actually worse.
I moved back to Kansas briefly and then on to my dad’s in eastern Virginia. A diverse environment. I didn’t have many friends there but hung out with my cousins. They were not prejudiced at all from what I could see. I studied and got my GED. I also got my driver’s license. I would party when I could but it was less. It sucks to be eighteen with few friends and little direction. My dad sensed that I needed that direction so he helped me decide to
go to Job Corps in Washington D.C.
Job Corps was another culture shock. There were 500 people there and only about 15 were white. I had seven roommates in my dorm room. I was the only white guy. I was always afraid I would mutter something racist in my sleep and get beat. It never happened. This is when the racism in me began to crack. I remember my roommate Paul and I talking about race once. He said “You know how white folks are scared to go the city? We are scared in the country. Big ole hungry jack white boys can string a brother up.” I was ignorant and had no awareness that black people could fear white people. But what he said made sense. In Alabama there was a Triple K Steakhouse. That is foreboding.
I was at Job Corps for 6 months in the plumbing pre-apprentice program. I started going to church on my own and began to think rather than just react to my perceptions. I began to
question what I was thinking.
Ezekiel 36:26
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (ESV)
I graduated the program and moved back to Kansas. My mom’s boyfriend’s renter had moved out and I was able to stay there to begin my career and get started towards adulthood. I had heard of Schindler’s List but had never seen the movie. One evening I decided to watch the movie. I was completely convicted as I watched. The pure racial evil of Nazi Germany was too much to fathom. I saw that what I believed was the seeds of the very same hate. I repented. People can change and evolve. Don’t deny that to be the case. The racism that had been a coping skill to divert away from my personal pain was falling away.
I still had numerous problems with partying and insecurity but the racism was dying and today I hope, pray and believe it to be dead. If it comes up, I remind myself that it is evil. It is a journey of transformation. I embraced my faith much more fully and there is no room for racism with the God who is Love. This made me look more closely at the cultural sin of racism in America and the religious sin of LGBTQ bigotry which is so very similar and horribly evil.
The white oppression of black people from the beginning of this nation up until the present day. The civil rights movement helped and we have made great strides but there is still more work do. The neglect of native peoples and near extermination is pretty much overlooked by the vast majority of white America. It is hard to look at our sins. It is easy to say “it wasn’t me that did xyz”. It is easy to say that compliance with police officers is the reason so many black people are denied due process and killed when you are white and have no reason to fear when you are pulled over. I had an occasion where the officer actually apologized to me for pulling me over. I am relatively sure he was simply good natured.
This change in me is a work of the Spirit. Change of direction is what She does best. There is no scapegoat to the world’s problems. It begins in the mirror and is very complex. Learning to look at our shadow honestly with an awareness of our own sin need not be a place of shame but of redemption. Writing people off as doomed, damned or less than is the beliefs of zealots and fundamentalists that promote terror.
It is a difficult thing to look at our subconscious prejudices, ego and shadow side. It often needs to be spoken and seen in order to wake up. Black lives in America have simply not mattered as much as white lives. It is easy enough to research the incarceration rates of minorities. An underlying racist thought is in the back of many white minds “if they would just stay in line”. It is hard to find white folks that will admit this is a cultural racism. It is. Of course white people are denied due process at times but there is a disproportionate amount of it happening to the black community that represents only 12% of the population. I believe there is an underlying fear within many whites that black people will exact revenge on us and carry hatred for us due to what has been done. It is because we know, even if we cannot admit, it is true. The oppression and conviction rate of black America has also led to a vacuum of black males to be fathers and guides. It is often easy to embrace a thug culture in a culture that already looks down on you. F the Police in a song is just as evil as the white oppression and keeps the patterns repeating. The black community loses when this is embraced. There is work to go around. Empowerment is not about hatred.
We do not want to redirect the same kind of prejudice towards the police. The vast majority are trying to do their job right and without prejudice. The ‘bad apples’ cliché is applicable. We do have to remember that we have a very armed populace and police face dangers daily that the average person cannot comprehend. They can and often are truly heroes.
There needs to be a movement (anti-racism is happening and gaining steam) within the white community that combats racism every time it is seen. That is a full-fledged ally of Black Lives Matter where we love all our neighbors, not tolerate them. This requires a Spiritual Awakening. May we pray for it every day and with that prayer take action. The Spirit is moving. A movement of ongoing repentance and seeking grace. A movement that embraces justice and recognizes the difference between justice and retribution. If a confederate flag is flown it must always be a reminder of rebellion, racism and prejudice, not heritage. Neo-Nazis and Klansmen need to be ignored and ostracized and educated that the white people are not the ones who have been oppressed. If MAGA has racism within ,there is some evidence, it must be disavowed! If it won't be, it must be defeated in the ballot box. If not any ideals of the GOP will die in the future.
The ‘Irish slave’ is a myth, don’t buy into white oppression in America. White people can definitely have very bad lives, poverty and lack of opportunities. The family you are born into and natural disposition makes a big difference. A big difficulty in America is that we are also a meritocracy and many people are not equipped. This is why the work of the Poor Peoples Campaign is important. It recognizes that many fall through the cracks. We need larger safety nets and better education of just how the system works. It takes incremental work and we are not likely to have any drastic changes which can have their own issues. Revolutions are typically bloody and tend to result in new oppression as horrible as the old.
Faith, hope and love are the way forward. Repentance and ownership together with reconciliation are the way forward. Loving our neighbors, regardless, as we love ourselves is the way forward. Trusting the Spirit within to convict and change not simply endorse is the way. It may very well be the way of the cross and suffering but we are meant for resurrection.