I had a conversation one time with some friends, back when I was still conservative and struggling with it. One of them knew a person who was going to get an abortion, and wanted my friend to go with her so she wouldn’t be alone. And my friend wasn’t sure what to do – she wanted to be loving, but not condone it, and most of our friends agreed with her that she shouldn’t go with. Because holding fast to their morals was more important than being with someone in a time of need.

And I remember saying, ‘well, at least people know where your love stops.’

Because that’s it, right? We all have these lines where our love, our concern, our empathy, our money, our votes, our relationships, our principles stop.

 

I will agree with you up to this point, and then no more.
I will spend $200 on a phone, but it will not be an iPhone.
I will move to this city, but not to that neighborhood.
I will be your friend, but not if you do xyz.
I will support anti-racism, until my feelings get hurt.
I will be generous with my money, but only on my terms.
I will help people, but only if I get the credit for it.

 

Because if I help someone – if as a society we help a group of people – and we do not get thank you cards in the mail, don’t we feel unappreciated? Even taken advantage of?

This is what politicians and leaders play on when they talk about handouts, entitlements, the ‘deserving poor’. They play on (by and large white) people’s desire to have their way of life and their money, and the fear that these others – these undeserving, unappreciative people (of color) are taking it away.

Did capitalism kill empathy?

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I learned some basic economic terms a couple of weeks ago in my anthropology class, and one of them was negative reciprocity. An exchange where the giver is trying to get the better of the exchange, and self-interest and profit-making are the motives.

And I was thinking about how with friends you don’t have this negative exchange. You just help each other when needed because you want to. Because you want to see them succeed and flourish, and maybe even because you love them. And I wondered what it would be like if white, middle-class people were in like, honest-to-God relationships with people who were of other races and economic status.

What if knowing people who were different from us drove us to do better, to be better, to give up some of our money and power. What if divesting ourselves, at least a little bit, from capitalism is a requirement of racial and social justice?

I know, I just hit your line, right?

But really. What are we willing to give up for people? Where does our love for our neighbor stop? Where does our willingness to be in solidarity with others end? Is it diversity, but only on our terms? Would we be willing to give up one extra-curricular activity for our kids and give the money away? Hours to volunteer? Our opinions? The way we vote?

Where is our line economically?

Because economics comes back around to racial justice. And the politicians and churches who manipulate you with it do so to enrich their power, stoke your greed and ultimately, to maintain the oppressive, racist status quo.

 

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Let us not tire of denouncing the idolatry of wealth,
which makes human greatness consist in having
and forgets that true greatness is in being. – Oscar Romero

 

How is the church preaching interdependence and solidarity? Not just ‘the church’, but your church. Or your organization or association. Are the people coming into your food bank just takers, or do you need them? How are you learning from them? Are we dependant on people of color in a non-exploitive way?

Are our lives structured so that the beauty and creativity and wisdom of people who are different than us fill our lives, and make us give up power and our oppressive ways? If not, what is standing in the way?

What would your life be like if you were not concerned with paying the bills. Or if you lowered your cost of living so the bills were less. What else do we have besides the values and efforts that capitalism tells us to have?

Are the marginalized just an abstraction to us? What would it look like if our lives were not centered around status and wealth (and whiteness)? How might we as a communities be a greater force for good if those with the money, power, and platforms created true relationships with those forced into the margins?

 

Let’s take Charlotte, NC and Elevation Church as an example.

The church has over 17,000 people and is 28% black. Just in the last year or so they’ve spent $40 million on buildings to expand the brand, and their statement about outreach is “We believe one of the best ways to make a difference in someone’s life is to demonstrate the love of God through giving or serving.”

Meanwhile, in Charlotte’s schools:

“Today, one in three of Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools is isolated by class—meaning at least 80 percent of their students live in poverty.
One half of our schools are isolated by race—meaning at least 80 percent of their students are of one race. In one in five schools, 95 percent of students are all of one race, termed “hypersegregation.””

And in the city, the police department is doubling down on ‘Public Safety Zones’ which would ‘create areas of the city that would be off-limits to people who have been arrested’. Which, in addition to seemingly being illegal, is going to place a bigger burden on poor people and people of color.

 

I could be wrong, and this whole example should just be thrown out, but it seems like Elevation, an influential, white, upper-class church, has been silent on these topics. I assume because the large majority of the congregation and leadership are not in real relationships with the people affected by them. And when the mode for interacting with people on the margins is giving and serving, and not interdependence and solidarity, why should they be? If you are all about that publicity and brand, then of course you’ll think ‘true compassion demands action’ means tweeting at another famous mega-pastor about how awesome he is, and not about showing up to school board and city council meetings to learn how to stop the segregation and bad policies.

If we only view the people who have been oppressed by racial and economic systems as mantels to hold our white savior trophies, then maybe we need to re-evaluate a few things. If structuring our way of life around the values of capitalism and wealth means we are apathetic about life-affecting social issues because they don’t affect us, then maybe we need to reconsider the values of capitalism.

 

How many renters do we know? How many people who live in Section 8 housing are our friends? This story and speech out of Portland is incredibly moving and spot on. How would our cities look differently if the issues of landlords affected the majority of people?

How many people do we know that are homeless? How would that change us, change our cities? I was recently told a story about a city near me that had a homeless population on the nicer side of town, so they put spikes on their benches. They put spikes on their benches!!!! They finally just removed the benches altogether, because presumably spikes are a big sign that you are a jackass of a neighborhood, and now the homeless are gone and the community can’t sit and enjoy the parks. How would that have been different if the community interacted with them and got to know them and they advocated together for better solutions?

I have a friend whose son has cancer. And the state has a program that pays all of the medical bills. Which is amazing, and my conservative friends think it’s amazing. Because we know her. Because we can empathize with the pain of a sick child and high medical bills. And so this method of government charity is ok. But if we can’t empathize with people who have been over-criminalized, who are excluded from jobs, who have generational poverty, who are forced to shop in food deserts, then we think it’s a misuse of money to feed and house people. Our willingness to spend tax dollars and personal money is dependant on our relationships with people.

Because when it comes to white people and money, we think we’ve earned it. We think we deserve it. We do not think there is truth to the story that black people have been denied means of wealth building and fair wages. We don’t think that poverty is traumatizing and generations of oppression and trauma might lead to life choices and decisions that are different from middle-class ones. So we feel no shame in reducing people to takers, to judging their stereo systems or cell phones or rims, or anything about how they live their lives. We feel no shame in being judge and jury because capitalism gives us the explanation for it.

And because capitalism worked for Dave Ramsey, then by God, it’s going to work for us. To hell with justice, empathy, and even love – just give me what’s mine.