Heart Check: Am I more of a racist than I think I am?

In the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville earlier this month, my Facebook feed has been flooded with my friends speaking out against hatred and bigotry, and over and over again I saw the common thread that all said something to the effect of, “love shines brighter than hate… let this be a reminder to LOVE!”

I couldn’t agree more. Just one question: what does that “love” look like?

Love isn’t passive. Love has legs, and arms, and vocal chords. Simply being passively or generically kind isn’t going to cut it anymore, and frankly, it never did, did it? Thankfully, events like this in our nation are a reminder that unless our love is the kicking and screaming alive kind of love, it’s dead and ultimately useless. It’s commendable sentiment, coffee mug quote worthy, at best, but it can’t possibly be the kind of love that changes the world.

Let me say it this way: I don’t think I have a single friend that I would describe as a true racist, and I would imagine your friendship network is much the same. Certainly there are real racists in our country, but I personally don’t know anyone that flies Confederate flags, uses the n-* word, opposes interracial marriage, or thinks people of color are inferior in any way to whites. Some of my best friends, even some that are politically conservative, are bi-racial couples, my wife and I included. Many of my friends have even adopted children of other races than their own. I love these friends of mine to the moon and back and am consistently humbled by their faith in action, because they are actively involved in tearing down walls of race.

But that’s not enough, is it?

It’s not enough that we don’t use offensive language, that we would never speak disparagingly of another race, or that we personally don’t share an ounce of the ideology of white supremacy. It’s not even enough to adopt a minority child from the foster care system, or to marry a black chick, check the box, and move on, convincing yourself you’ve done your part to eliminate racism.

I’m not here to convince you simply to do “more,” or that your efforts to tear down racial barriers don’t matter. We do need to do all of the above. Any time racial walls are actively broken down, it’s a beautiful thing. What we have to come to grips with is that no matter how socially aware we think we are, we each probably still have blind spots when it comes to race.

Profound blind spots.

Let me give you some examples:

1. Have you ever heard yourself saying something like, “the schools in that neighborhood/part of the city are horrible. I would never want to live there/work in those schools/send my kids there”?
2. Have you ever found yourself calling a certain part of town “the ghetto,” and consistently avoiding spending time there?
3. Have you ever looked around your house of worship and come to grips with the number of non-white families in attendance? Does your church have any non-white pastors, or even staff members? Have you ever sung a worship song together in Spanish, or Russian, or Zulu?

Have you ever thought through what these realities mean? Why do you avoid the “ghetto”? Do you know what that word means and implies?

To hit really close to home… why do you live where you live? Why do your kids attend the school they attend? Obviously there are many factors that go into these decisions, but I can’t help but become more and more aware of the frequency with which white middle class families live in the suburbs. Clearly, you want your family to be safe. You probably don’t naturally desire to live in neighborhoods where break-ins are common, and you don’t want your child getting offered drugs at school (as if this only happens in inner cities). But have you ever thought of the why behind these concerns?

Why is that school district so bad? Is it incompetent leadership? Perhaps. But then why are all the best schools almost always found in predominantly white, suburban parts of town? Why do some of the best and most promising teachers and administrators boycott inner-city schools and choose the relative comfort of suburban posts?

My five-year-old daughter’s elementary school has late-model iMacs in the library.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Why is that necessary? Why does my daughter get access to such an extravagant level of excellence just because her parents can afford to live in the Liverpool school district, when kids 5 miles away live in abject poverty, and have correlating education experiences to that poverty?

Listen, I’m not an educator. I don’t know nearly enough about the education system to speak to all of the whys and hows of the disparity in our schools. There’s many, many smart people working hard on those questions every day, and I’m grateful for them. I am working to learn more, but I’m a pastor. The realm I live in every day is the realm of worship gatherings, of engaging people of faith with issues of justice in their community and pushing them to see and do something about those realities.

With 1 or 2 notable exceptions, I have become keenly aware that in the dozens of diverse local churches I’ve worked with, all over the country, race continues to be the giant blind spot that the church either doesn’t know how to or refuses to address. I’m becoming more and more convinced that the education system is one of the primary justice battlefields for ongoing racial reconciliation today, and that the church has to begin engaging this reality more proactively and seeking out the intersections with education where justice can be pursued in tangible ways.

Just because segregated schools are illegal does not mean segregation doesn’t exist.

School districts are still one of the most segregated sectors in our nation. The other, unfortunately: church.

I know these are two very different discussions (race re:church and re:education) but I think both are indicative of a great societal tension that permeates our shared space down to the very air we breathe, a deeply inbred racism that will take great intentionality to root out.

Frankly, I think it has a lot to do with where we live. We tend to attend church in our part of town, and our kids certainly attend the school district they live in. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I want to put the bug in your ear —

Residence as an exercise in social justice.

Why do you live where you live? If you’re an educator, why have you chosen to work in the district you have? Why do you attend the church you do? If you’re a school administrator or church leader, why have you made the staffing choices you’ve made?

We naturally move away from the unfamiliar. No matter how open-minded, progressive, or “woke” we are, it’s a constant mental battle to refuse to retreat to our personal comfort zones and surround ourselves with friends like us. We like people that live and think like us. It’s human nature. People of other races, classes, religions, political persuasions, or sexual orientations represent, on some level, a threat to our status quo, even if we don’t recognize or identify it as such.

To be clear, I’m not advocating for gentrification, or some contrived, patronizing form of justice so you can pat yourself on the back and check something else off your “good person/I’m not a racist” list.

I’m talking about intentionality in every sphere of life. Be on mission to your city. Shop places that are out of your comfort zone. Be intentional about actively tearing down racial walls every chance you get. If you are in a leadership position at your church, ask the hard questions, the whys. If we want our church to be diverse, why do all of our staff and leadership look the same?

I’m grateful that many, many church and denominational leaders are actively engaging these questions. But we have to ask them more, and demand more real solutions. We have to be relentless about it. The political and journalism world continues to ask these questions and seek solutions. What are we as people of faith doing? How can we do better?

Feel free to comment with thoughts and resources for further reflection. And remember the prophetic challenge today from Scripture:

“He has told you, mortals, what is good in His sight. What else does the Eternal ask of you but to live justly and to love kindness and to walk with your True God in all humility?” (the prophet Micah)