A while back I had a conversation with a white friend who was working as an activist in racial justice. I told her that I was beginning to study more and take an interest in the particular role that faith communities could take in racial reconciliation. She drew back and quickly replied, “we don’t like to talk about ‘reconciliation.’ We focus on ‘justice.'” She was so uncomfortable with the term, that even upon my clumsy attempt to clarify my point and to assure her that I understood exactly why she had recoiled at the word, our discussion ended and she turned to speak to several other people in the room.
I was able to infer from her reaction that in her experience, “reconciliation” was not to be trusted, particularly at the utterance of another white person. She had seen what I had seen: that reconciliation often meant a shallow and insincere decision to resist racism, but not oppose it. Reconciliation meant everyone shakes hands and agrees not to “hate” one another, but then we all leave and return to our separate corners. “Officially” we agree segregation is bad, and we abolish it in our laws, but it continues in our lunchrooms and our communities and our churches. I got my friend’s point, and while I shared her anger about this, I refused to release “reconciliation” to be defined in that way.
For many of us entering this discussion as white people, it’s hard to shake the “I come in peace” attempts of white folks past. A post from 2008 over at Resist Racism describes exactly what I’m talking about: the long shadow cast by a Well-Intentioned White Woman. We all know the type. A sister comes along wanting to fight her perception of racism, perhaps in her own effort to push back against what we southerners call, her raisin’. Maybe she was brought up in a home where the N word was used without pause or apology. Perhaps she was “warned” against dating a boy in high school because of his color. Whatever her baggage may be, she comes determined to prove she’s not “like them.”
And she talks about reconciliation—a lot. But what it means to her is that she comes to the discussion expecting to be welcomed, even rewarded for her participation. As if she is doing something exceptional by deigning to hang with the black folks, or what have you. Now while I do think it is a good thing for a white person to, in essence, abdicate whatever measure of comfort and privilege they have in their enwhitened communities, the act itself should be not be considered “exceptional” it should be “expected.”
Often when white people talk about reconciliation, they do so thinking that what it means is we say sorry and all y’all get over it. In their book, Divided by Faith, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith examine the racial relationships and fractures in the evangelical church. At one point, they quote Carl Ellis, head of a ministry called Project Joseph and a participant in evangelical efforts at reconciliation:
Tears and hugs and saying I’m sorry is a good first step, but for me, the question is not one of changing the hearts of individuals as it is dealing with the systems and the structures that are devastating African-American people. [p.67]
While many white people of faith are willing to shed the individual behavioral markers of racism, very few are willing to engage in combating the systemic remnants of Jim Crow and the myriad of racially disparate structures in our society. Emerson and Christian add,
Without this component, reconciliation was cheap, artificial, and mere words. It was rather like a big brother shoving his little brother to the ground, apologizing, then shoving him to the ground again. [p. 58]
As a white woman, I often get frustrated by the suspicion that accompanies my best efforts to become a true anti-racist. Still, I cannot deny that mistrust is warranted in most of these situations. In my understanding, reconciliation is about putting the needs of others ahead of our own. Though that requires repentance at the individual level, it also requires that collectively we turn from the wicked ways of our past and present.
I’m not talking about a general apology for slavery or internment or death marches. I’m talking about actively considering the issues and concerns of our brothers and sisters of other races. It often means taking up their cause as our own. Because, ultimately, it is our own cause. White folks do not really benefit from our established system of privilege. These divisions rob us, too. But we have to be willing to see that and then to act in opposition to it: whether that means shifting our ideologies or physically moving ourselves into a different neighborhood or faith community. It may mean we take our turn as the minority for a while (a demographic inevitability anyway, if current trends continue in the U.S.). It very well may mean we risk the scorn of those who have been taught to distrust our motives.
Emerson and Christian conclude their book with this:
Good intentions are not enough. But educated, sacrificial, realistic efforts made in faith across racial lines can help us together move toward a more just, equitable and peaceful society. [p. 172]
These problems can and should be addressed personally and with individual efforts. Yet that alone will not bring us together, and none of it will happen overnight at a retreat or a conference of the well-intentioned. Genuine reconciliation requires humility and commitment. And for us white folks earnestly trying to prove ourselves in this movement, patience.
I definitely agree with your point that white people shouldn’t expect a pat on the back or some kind of award just for showing up. Even when getting involved in anti-raicsm doesn’t come easily, even when it comes at some cost psychologically or socially, a white person getting involved in anti-racism is really only doing what she or he should be doing.
And white people should not expect immediate and total trust when they first show up. If we are sometimes met with suspicion, it’s not without reason. We need, as you say, to be patient and earn people’s trust over time through real and sustained effort to combat not only prejudice within ourselves but racism in the larger culture. Any “reconciliation” without concern and action for justice is, as Emerson & Christian said, cheap and artificial. If there is no sincere effort to resist systemic racism, we are not truly “anti-racist.”
The passages from Emerson & Christian’s book reminded me of another, recently written, about how true love cannot exist without justice: “[Authentic] charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is ‘mine’ to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is ‘his,’ what is due him by reason of his being or acting. I cannot ‘give’ what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just to them. Not only is justice not extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to charity: justice is inseparable from charity, and intrinsic to it. Justice is the primary way of charity or… ‘the minimum measure of it,’ an integral part of the love ‘in deed and truth’ to which [we are exhorted]…. charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples.”
Caritas in veritate shoutout! I keep thinking I should change my “Political Views” on Facebook to that.
Here via trackback from the Resist Racism post you linked — I know I’m late but I feel the need to point something out. I very much agree with most of what you said, but I heard the sound of screeching tires in my head when I read this sentence:
“White folks do not really benefit from our established system of privilege.”
WHAT? Okay, I agree that “these divisions rob us, too”, but of course we benefit from our established system of privilege! That’s why it’s called “white privilege”!
Look, I know we would benefit from the elimination of racism because the world would be a better place overall, but we already benefit from the established system in a different way — we are treated as superior because of our race. And that’s not even getting into the history of racist oppression that we’re benefiting from just by existing.
I’m wondering how you could agree with the Resist Racism post so much, while still holding the opinion that we whites do not benefit from white privilege.
Thanks for coming over! I’m happy to respond to your question. I think the current system of privilege actually *harms* white people. While, yes, I would definitely say that there are economic and social advantages given to white people, those advantages do not mitigate the damage unchecked privilege has done to our well-being. As a Christian, I go to what Jesus says, “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36)
I’ve seen privilege breed ignorance, greed, entitlement, selfishness, prejudice, racism and xenophobia in the hearts of people, and most of them were white folks. It has kept us white people in gated commuities of whiteness and created fear and divisions that keep many of us from enjoying the fullness of brotherhood God wants for all of us. As unjust as privilege is for people of color (and it undoubtedly is), by elevating whites and allowing us to be a beneficary, seperate class of humans who, at times, are complicit in injustice against others, we too, have been deprived.
There is something said about this issue in anti-racist circles (I’ve seen it attributed to both Frederick Douglass and Andrew Young, perhaps the latter quoting the former), that the abolition/Civil Rights movement was about “saving black men’s bodies and white men’s souls.” I think this is a great way of expressing how detrimental a system of privilege is for white people. I don’t think anybody ever intrinsically benefits from being considering superior to others. And while I work for physical, social and material manifestations of justice, I’m as interested in seeing justice and healing in the workings of hearts and minds, and yes, souls. I don’t think those two interests can be divided.
I agree, Cayce. Quoting Jesus on this is right on the mark: “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Where sexism prevails, women suffer egregious injustices and wrongs to the ostensible benefit of men, and men may enjoy it for a time, but men are also inflicting deep and hidden wounds in themselves: they are no longer able to be and become fully human. Similarly, where racism prevails, people of color suffer egregious injustices and wrongs to the ostensible benefit of white people, but the advantages are shallow and white people are also inflicting deep and hidden wounds in themselves: they are no longer able to be and become fully human. Our freedom, our humanity, our good–they are so intertwined that no one can truly have and enjoy them while participating in the oppression of another.
Dr. Martin Luther King understood this very well, which is why he spoke of the “need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.” It is why he exhorted: “In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.” It is also why he followed this latter by saying: “many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.” He may not have actually said, in so many words, what is so often attributed to him, that “no one is free while others are oppressed,” but it does represent a vital truth in his thought.