I want to share some thoughts and pieces of my story that are hard to share. Light and grace always defeats darkness and shame so here I go!
Today after I was listening to a news story about racism some things hit me. There was a black man interviewing an older white man, a retired police officer. he shared a story from the 70's after asking if it was okay about an instance that he described as bad where the man used the “N” word in a rough situation at work. The man went on to say he’s not racist today and I have no reason to disagree with him but it made me think.
I am a GenX white man. I came up in a relatively affluent suburb in the Midwest. There was racism in this time period that wasn't rampant but definitely was present. I was taught to be thankful I was born white. Also, friends and I would share racist, sexist and homophobic jokes as young as 5th grade. All the while I was also given an inconsistent Christian upbringing of words with little action. When I was younger and even during this racist time in my life I admired and had a love for Martin Luther King. Cognitive dissonance is hard to recognize in ourselves at any age. This odd foundation led to an undercurrent of racism that was present through my teen years. Friends would always share in the racist jokes, I wasn't alone in my views. I was an "Angry White Male" but just a bit younger. (I will likely elaborate more on this shame in another blog someday.) My racism was nuanced. I saw myself as the victim in a culture that seemed to be pro-black. I did not recognize that white culture was and is the dominant culture. With my evidence of movies like Malcolm X which seemed racist through my eyes, the Reginald Denny incident during the LA riots, rap music seemingly supplanting metal, fear of affirmative action and popular comedians such as Martin Lawrence who always seemed to make fun of white people. This was the evidence in a troubled young man's life. Yet God had not abandoned me to these ignorant thoughts. Somehow, I held the contradiction of a Jewish Messiah being the Savior of the world.
Then as a young man I entered Job Corps and was in a scenario where I became a minority. There were 500 people on campus with about 20 people that were white. The vast majority were black people. This began the shift. I began to see people more as individuals. I was never messed with for being a white guy. I finished Job Corps and returned to the Midwest.
One Evening I was by myself and chose to watch Schindler's List. This movie shook me. In the back of mind, I always knew that Nazism was evil and the American extermination campaign against Native Americans was also evil. As a child I recognized the evil of the suppression of black people in the south and thus loved the work and person of MLK. Part of my cognitive dissonance was unraveling.
There was a pivotal shift within me at that point. I was no longer racist. Racism was wrong and I went about my life without looking down on or making fun of other races.
There was more work to do. I still had other ways I looked down on people. Immigrants, saved/unsaved and LGBTQ people were the easiest for me to justify prejudice in my mind due to fear and misunderstanding as well as being supposedly 'Biblical'.
As time progressed the Spirit steadily knocked down more walls in my heart. I had begun the necessary work on my unfinished business of the dysfunction and woundings I experienced while growing up. I attended a seminar called Breakthrough that further rocked these prejudices, aided in healing and continued the life long journey of really seeing and experiencing people. The Lord was rocking my world as I was struggling with the Evangelical faith that always had an agenda and tended to only focus on salvation while ignoring Jesus' actual words and actions (at least this was my experience). This has and continues to shake and convict preconceived notions. The Lord is good and won't leave us. I was wrestling with Jesus' admonition in the 'Woes's' to the Pharisees and Scribes in Matthew 23 and the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25. These lessons in the Gospels cannot be taken lightly if taken seriously.
For awhile now, I have recognized the ongoing need for repentance for the views I once held. I am hopeful my views did not cause too much actual harm, though that could be my privilege attempting to cover up the bones. Simply moving on without acknowledging the evil that was in my heart doesn't bring about change and can make me think it was all within me and doesn't recognize that the Lord is bringing me/us to greater likeness of the Son. This is healthy shame. I am not defective. I held defective beliefs. My direction has changed. I am truly sorry for every careless racist, sexist and homophobic word I have ever uttered. I am truly sorry for how I have looked down on my brothers and sisters who are different from me. I ask for forgiveness and mercy for myself as well as the millions who are still stuck, stiff-necked in their own 'rightness' to hear the whisper of the Spirit.
May we have 'eyes to see' and 'ears to hear', this we pray.
