"Just a White Man Talking"

My friend and co-moderator of the 222nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Tawnya Denise Anderson posted on Facebook this morning: 

I'm relying on white folks to talk today. I've simply run out of energy to defend my humanity or point out this country's hypocrisy. Talk amongst yourselves. #tiredAF

OK.  My turn.  

[takes mic]

Hi, I’m David.  I bet I’m not a racist, but…,

My kids have this thing (a lot of kids do, and it’s so famous the Family Circus cartoon has numerous examples).  I’ll ask, “Who left this trash on the coffee table?”  The kids chime in, “Oh, not me.”  And, “Ida know.”  “It must have been (one of the others).” 

And honest to goodness, for most of my life, when faced with blatent racism in the world, in my community, I felt like I could say, full-throatedly—“I didn’t do it.”  And even, “I’m not like that.”  Therefore…, don’t blame me, or especially, “It’s not my fault.” 

Because if only I had been in charge, it would surely have been different.  #probablynot.  #privilegeisthewaterIhavealwayslivedin.  #iamblindtomyownracism. 

I’m a white, American, Protestant, male, six feet seven inches tall and I weigh more than 300 pounds.  I get treated differently, am the recipient of much more grace, the “benefit of the doubt,” and privilege than I deserve or should ever rightfully be entitled to.  While it’s “nice, I believe it’s not right, and when I think about it carefully I really think it sucks.  Honestly, I wish I could share.  My physical size, the color of my skin, my gender, allow me to interact with people differently—my mom says by the 5^th grade teachers were afraid of me because I was sizeably larger than any normal child they’d ever dealt with in the classroom.  #Imabiggun  It took them a while to know and trust that I was a true softie.  And not retarded.  And not held back. 

I am a softie.  Which is often why I don’t have the microphone, and I’m not on the front lines, and I’m usually not the first person to pipe up and say that something’s wrong, or particularly that people are wrong.  I’ve been raised and taught that forgiveness is paramount, that there is hope and new life for everyone in Christ.  Sometimes, “helping someone see the light,” especially when it involves systemic problems and even if it’s only truth-telling, seems like undue influence, or forcing someone to adopt my own views—and maybe I should just keep quiet. 

When I saw the video of Philando Castile, when he was shot, I thought immediately that it was somehow “fake.”  Modern technology, the CGI we love about Star Wars films, allows people with smartphones to doctor images, alter real video, etc. etc. etc.  It. Hardly. Seemed. Real.  But also because, what kind of police officer would do this after all the headlines?  No one would be that stupid. 

But it also did not surprise me that it was real.  And I wept at the unimaginable horror the 4-year-old in the car had witnessed, and the violence that had unfolded in front of my own eyes, knowing these were not characters in a movie but real citizens.  “It could have been me” NEVER passed through my mind.  It couldn’t.  This kind of thing NEVER happens to people like me.  A drive-by shooting, the result of gang-violence, being in the wrong place at the wrong time—but not this. 

And because this kind of thing keeps happening—the last few years being a steady drumbeat of black Americans dying because white American cops shot them to death—I know that something is terribly wrong.  And in truth, somedays I’m tempted to believe that part of the problem needs to be laid at the feet of the training programs we require for our police officers in this day and age when they must be taught threats are everywhere. 

We insist our police and first-responders train for every scenario that it doesn’t take long before they are hair-trigger responders.  Shoot first; ask questions later.  The truth?  Our human brains are simply incapable of being constantly charged with “flight or fight.”  Malcom Gladwell explores this in his book, Blink.  Surely, part of the reason is our insistence that we be kept safe.  But then, in a way that is unserving of our real needs, we overwork and underpay our police and other first responders.  It’s a wonder this doesn’t happen more often! 

And if it did, we should expect that the story would already have been written differently.  The incidents and deaths would involve people of more diverse backgrounds and means. 

But these stories do not.  They are instances of black victims shot by white police officers.  Training, yes.  But somehow we just don’t see the “other” as ourselves. 

And these circumstances and events keep happening because it’s overwhelmingly true that we simply think this is someone else’s fault or responsibility.  We’re caught looking around the room for someone else to have to admit their racism rather than trying to recognize that what is happening is wrong, and we’re in the room, too.  I’m in the room. 

What is happening is wrong. 

While it’s true, white people ARE killed by black police officers—but not at all like this or these kinds of circumstances.  

White people ARE victims of racism—but never like this. 

I’ve never been stopped because something was wrong with my car. 

Not getting to serve on a church committee that reserves a “quota” for minorities is not “reverse racism.” 

I get the benefit of the doubt when I don’t have my I.D. when I go to vote; or when I need to sign papers for a loan, or open a bank account. 

The argument is often, “We’re just trying to keep people safe.  We must remain vigilant.” 

So, at the end of the day, some of us are safe; others of us are not.  The white people stand a better chance, the black and brown people don’t. 

The truth is, this is wrong.  This is all wrong. 

[gives back the microphone] 

It Was Pentecost After All

It was the Day of Pentecost. 

The scripture lessons in worship pointed to the Holy Spirit’s appropriation of human speech in a way in which believers become the mouthpieces of God’s purposes.  Going out.  Telling others.  Communicating the stories of Jesus and God’s kingdom. 

It was no surprise that after worship, during fellowship, several people wanted to testify about their experiences of the Holy Spirit—where people communicated and understood using other, non-native languages.  One person shared how this passage had recently been a topic of conversation within her family; and then there was my other conversation. 

The “tradition” in our congregation is that we don’t talk about politics—at Church.  But occasionally it comes up in one-on-one conversations.  Amongst pentecostal pleasantries, someone commented how inappropriate it seemed for the United States to have ever entered the Paris climate accord, since it turned out to be economically unfair and that the standards the United States agreed to were far more tough on our country than others. 

At least we did it to ourselves. 

But I said I was particularly sad, in response to the news that the President intended the United States to leave the Paris accord,  because as far as I could tell, the United States was relinquishing its leadership on the world stage—which for me, is a preference for sitting in the back of the bus rather than driving it.  My counterpart suggested that at least now, he hoped the agreement might be renegotiated. 

I was thinking of my friend, Bill Davnie (the Stated Clerk for Twin Cities Area Presbytery, and a former foreign service officer in the State Department) who wrote in response to the President’s announcement online: 

Some other ways of looking at withdrawal from the Paris Accords:

1.    An unhappy U.S. inside the Accord, but undermining it in various ways, would complicate its implementation more than our being outside of it. The signatories will likely be able to work more effectively without U.S. whining.
2.     Market forces will continue to support at least some transition to renewable energy in the U.S. Utilities won't be building coal-fired plants when natural gas, wind and solar are better options.
3.     Trump has just complicated any renegotiating of trade agreements he wants to do, because countries can now use greenhouse gas issues against us in negotiations. As we complain about intellectual property rights, say, they will complain about our carbon emissions.
4.     Our abdication of leadership in this area will move the international community in the direction of a broader, multi-polar rebalancing in international relations. The world is moving in this direction anyway, but American politicians either don't see that, or can't talk about in public because it sounds "declinist".
5.     More people know more about the Paris Accords now than a few months ago. That's good.

My friend and conversation counterpart was excited about the end of the agreement on our part, not for any of these reasons, but out of a sense of fairness—that we all share and contribute to the problem of climate change and should share more equally in the burdens of resolving it. 

I was thinking about how I wanted Jesus, or our love of Jesus, to somehow be the answer. 

My friend’s concern was the inherent unfairness of a climate agreement that gave clear advantages to the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and others, who—he was sure—would continue to pollute in massive amounts having an economic advantage over the

United States.  Indeed, this always smacks of unfairness; it is surely unequal; but MY frustration is that rather than see it as the carrot that helps the world get to a better place, we see it as “woe is us,” or in this case, that we had given away too much economically, politically, and practically by entering an agreement that treated our nation or others, “un-equally.” 

But then, what occurred to me was maybe, just maybe, our willingness to boldly enter into an accord that asked a lot of us as the United States, was ultimately because we dared to believe we ought to be doing as Jesus did.  “If the United States gave too much away at the conference table,” I said, “maybe it’s because we took our allegiance to Jesus seriously and we did the kind of things Jesus would do.” 

I’m not sure at all what I meant.  Feeling for a moment like I had to answer something “reasonable” it’s all I could come up with.  We loved Jesus.  Therefore, we took the shorter straw. 

“It could be,” I said, “that we’re in this kind of place, where we actually see the need to ‘give away advantages at the bargaining table’ that we were called to make ‘bad deals” as the President calls them, because we really do love Jesus.  That sounds like something Jesus would do, and would want us to do, too.” 

This kind of reason rarely makes any practical or “reality” sense—and it connected with my conversation partner in the way you might expect—it was a crazy way to suggest what our national motivations might have been or could have been.  Pigs might be flying in Iowa or hell might be frozen over in Texas, too.  But this does seem to be how the gospel works—when someone makes an economic sacrifice for another’s gain, because that’s the kind of thing Jesus does. 

I know this will not make any sense at all to TV pundits or bureaucrats enacting the President’s “tweets.”  I’m afraid they can’t possibly hope to get it.  Not even after years of therapy and education.  They don’t believe like I do! 

But, the people of Jesus—the whole world over—do get it.  And we should not be deterred in the meantime. 

It was a fleeting moment of clarity. 

It was Pentecost, after all.