I’m so excited to share this discussion I had with Drew. His book, Trouble I’ve Seen is your must-read for the year. And, the Englewood Review of Books just selected it as their March Book of the Month, so be sure to follow along with that discussion this month.
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You mention a few examples of talking to people who have sat through discussions about structural racism and yet still walk away, completely oblivious. It’s frustrating to think that it’s that hard to get through to people (and makes me examine myself even more.) Why do you think this is, and is there anything we can do about it?
Well, I think that people underestimate how deeply their own mental frameworks are socialized by our society. People think that they can merely intellectually assent to a couple ideas and then quickly move on, when in fact it will take just as much intentionality in undoing these racialized mindsets (that is years) as the force of the racial formation they have received over the years that has unconsciously influenced them. This is not about the good people vs. the bad people, this is about a society that has 400 years of white supremacist history, and the kind of logics that became normal and comfortable in our society that no longer saw anything wrong or strange about what was going on. Even if it is just subtle influences, it takes time and effort to unlearn these things. So, my advice is be intentional in growing, learning, and seeing things afresh once again.
[blockquote type=”left”]”Most people in the church…now agree that from 1619 to the mid-twentieth century, the majority of white Christians…consistently interpreted things wrongly with regard to racism. The vision of America as a place of justice and equality prevented most people in dominant culture from clearly seeing actual on-the-ground realities.”[/blockquote]
Do you think the white church at large is capable of the humility necessary to begin righting the wrongs? And how do you think we can personally cultivate that kind of humility? What will it take -or is it even possible – for white Christians to stop seeing through rose-colored eyeglasses to see reality? If the sustained movement of BLM hasn’t convinced white Christians they are not seeing clearly, what will?
Well, I don’t think that the issue is capability. All humans are capable of cultivating humility. The challenge is that when someone is a part of the dominant group in society, and that is any dominant group around the world, then it will be difficult to comprehend one’s own complicity in injustice because the narratives dominant groups tell themselves are always about how good, innocent, and exceptional they are. And these narratives have advantaged positions in society, in which education, media and news, and mainstream culture all promote how great one’s nation and dominant group is. When we see it in other groups we call it propaganda, but when we do it we believe it is gospel truth. So what we are talking about isn’t capability but instead difficulty. It is difficult to and hard to break from conformity. It is not easy to distrust your own gut and the narratives you believe so deeply.
However, I think that following Jesus, and not in the cute devotional sense but in a costly and courage manner of allowing Jesus to lead you through society, one will necessarily find that humility as their worlds are opened up. That is because we serve the same person, Jesus Christ, that is testified about in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And this living Jesus continues preach good news to the poor and proclaim liberation to the oppressed. (Luke 4:18-19) So our pride will be flipped upside down and converted over in God’s reign where the least, the last, and the lost are centralized, and where love of others rather than lording over others is the way people do life together. So, I don’t question whether white Christians are capable of seeing anew, I just want to know why the Jesus proclaimed in white communities seems to look and sound nothing like the Jesus testified about in scripture and the early church. That gap will not lead people to the kind of repentance needed.
You say that people in the dominant culture need to have deep and wide conversations with the black community. I gather that your description of what that conversation would look like is going to be different from what white culture’s would be. What exactly do you mean by that? What does deep and wide look like?
My usage of deep and wide, was an attempt to challenge people from running to their so-called one black friend as an authority on race and racism. Now, according to studies most white people actually don’t even have that one black friend, but that is a whole other issue. But the temptation is there for people to seek out the person or people that already agree with them. It is not common for white people to be enamored with black people that have views that are deeply in step with the white majority. Now they are welcome to their views, the black community is not and has never been monolithic. However, it comes off disingenuous to run to that person that is a fringe voice in their community and then stop there.
Instead, personally get to know a plethora of people and perspectives in the African American community. And the test is to not come up with a pre decided decision (prejudice) about what is going on in black peoples’ daily lives until you have patiently sought out to understand where black people are coming from. Listen to people’s stories and experiences wanting to see things from another perspective. And do that again and again, “deep and wide”, for years. I think that our 400 years of history in America should at least give reason to slow down and hear people’s stories before doing what previous white generations did, which is to conclude from the start that everything is fine.
[blockquote type=”left”]”I saw how a culture of niceness could be combined with the dangerous ideologies that are death-dealing to communities of color.” [/blockquote]
I was reading this and it struck me how I spent so many years in the church being warned against Satan. And how he wouldn’t appear with horns and a tail, but would be appealing and desirable, and so be on the lookout for the enemy, and all of that. I’m just kind of marveling that the church can spend so much time and energy on a ‘mythical’ kind of description, and yet work so hard to avoid dealing with the just as attractive but dangerous realities that are actually causing people to die in the here and now. I don’t really have a question here – the similarities just struck me. You know how people re-write John 3:16 and say ‘insert your own name’ – how about every time the NT mentions Satan, you sub in White Supremacy, and see how that Bible reads!
Yes, there is real evil in the world but people rarely see their own lives as part of it. It is easy to wag our finger at Germany and the Holocaust, but in response to 12.5 million Africans being enslaved for 250 years, Native American genocide and forcible removal from their ancestral lands, or the following white supremacist terrorism, racial apartheid, and violence, well in those cases we don’t want to think of America’s origins and ongoing life as evil. And it is precisely that people did it so “civilly” and were such nice people that we often don’t see how are lives are patterned in society in ways that need God’s transformation.
You talk somewhat about respectability politics, and this is something I’ve run into a little bit personally, and I’m curious what you’d say – what do you do with the idea that being in solidarity with black people means to be in solidarity with respectability politics? Obviously I’m not going to disagree with them. But it makes for an interesting dynamic. And I’m sure many of us know white people who side with Ben Carson, say, and so how do we address that? Or should we? Is the discussion of respectability politics an inter-black discussion?
The black community is complicated and very diverse. And we all are in different places in our journeys. Some of us are less aware of the reality that we have completely accepted the norms, values, standards of beauty, and overall culture of the people that oppressed us for centuries without question. Globally there are some a lot of conversations around colonization and particularly how our minds can be colonized. In the United States we call this internalized racism. As I explain in Trouble I’ve Seen, we are all (every racial group) internalizing these messages because it is part of the air we breathe in America. Racially hierarchy is internalized to different degrees by black people, as it is by white people. We are all human and susceptible to wholesale uncritical acceptance. And it becomes particularly hard for us as Black Americans, because we have had so much stripped from us (names, place of origin, tribal group, stories, indigenous wisdom) that we have always had to constantly and creatively improvise in the moment culturally. But it is not hard for the overbearing presence of the dominant culture to override this beautiful tradition we have.
Towards the beginning of the book you say, “How could my time among white Christians have been more painful for me as a young black male than my time among white non-Christians?” Do you still feel that way? Is there anything people can do to make that less painful?
Since that experience, thankfully, I have found more and more righteous white folk. That is, people who were conscious of their history, their culture, their identity, and who were doing the hard work of self-examination, relearning, and speaking truthfully in their own networks about what they have seen and learned. So, there are white people that have been deeply encouraging to me. But that is not the norm in America. Most white people still strangely insist that they are colorblind while they continue living extremely racialized lives. This contradiction is still very prevalent. And unfortunately, I do think that white Christians continue to be more likely to be in denial about race and racism than non-Christian white people. The solution is simple, the Church, particularly white Christians, need to get their head out of the sand and take a new posture of seeking to understand what is going on. And then they need to take responsibility for their individual learning. There is so much black scholarship as well as antiracism scholarship out there, so there is no reason to be waiting around until black history month once a year to sit and learn from a black person. Take initiative. See it as part of your Christian responsibility to put others interests before your own.
I find it interesting that you think change is still possible in the church. We wouldn’t have had the America we had without the church, and if the white church was to change, that would require breaking from America as they’ve known it. But the white church is so tied to the myth of the city on the hill…..it’s hard for me to envision a large-scale church movement in America that isn’t tied to being American.
Do you think because of how the white church has historically operated that fundamental change is even possible? Or is it always going to be operating in the margins? Do you have hope that enough small groups will be enough to make systemic change?
Well there is no doubt that soon the contrast between two contrasting Christianities in America will become more evident. Especially as Christianity begins to decline numerically. Frederick Douglas said in his slave narrative that there was “true Christianity” and then “Christianity of this land.” He saw the hypocrisy of those that were enslaving, raping, and severing families on Saturday and then praising God on Sunday, and called their bluff. It didn’t matter how earnest and pious they seemed, they so fundamentally departed from Jesus and his teachings that he could not recognize it as true Christianity.
It may seem that things are impossible given our situation, but Jesus reminds us that all things are possible with God. And so I believe and trust that our God is able. That kind of hope is the stuff Black faith has been made of. Now, I’m not suggesting that I expect any great revival by the mainstream Church, though that is possible, but I do believe that God is holding and keeping the Church throughout human history, and will continue to do so. While I do believe that some people have fundamentally departed from the way of Jesus, in the end I will leave it up to God to judge and discern who has truly placed their lives on the rock of Jesus and his way, and who has not.
[blockquote type=”left”]”Black skin in our world has been designated as a marker for all things bad….the black psyche has been routinely attacked and crushed in our society.”[/blockquote]
You mention in a few places how draining and crushing living in a black body in America can be. I was listening to an old podcast with Saeed Jones the other day, and he said, in talking about the effort involved in telling personal stories of racism and the surprised and disbelieving white responses to them:
“Do you not think I haven’t been wearing myself out trying to rationalize and make excuses – do you not think I haven’t been doing that since it happened? Of course…the truth is by the time people take to the streets….they have been exhausted and internalizing and trying to make sense of it for years. For years. And the difference is you get to a moment when it’s just too much.”
I wanted to thank you for being vulnerable enough and willing to pour out your heart in this book like you have. And I was wondering, especially in light of MarShawn McCarrel, if there are any concrete ways that allies and accomplices can help you and others shoulder that burden and help alleviate the pain?
Thankfully I have a community of people in my life that know how to give, receive, and share love. So, I’ll be okay, but I do appreciate the gesture. My challenge is for white people to intimately join into the lives of those that are oppressed, speak truthfully and courageously within white social networks, and continue to allow Jesus to guide you into faithful lives that are capable of resisting the racialized patterns and mindsets that have become so comfortable in 21st century American society. Thanks for the conversation. Peace to you!
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Don’t forget to get your copy of Trouble I’ve Seen, and for another great conversation with Drew, check out the one Cara Meredith just had with him.