My Racial Autobiography

 “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” (Luke 12:48)

This past summer, our church began a task force to explore what we can do as God’s people to begin addressing racial injustice and inequality both in our community and world.  The first fruit of this effort is something we’re calling “The Story Project” – a forum for members and others to be able to share and listen to the personal stories, experiences and testimonies of each other regarding race.  You can read all the stories HERE.  However, as part of my blog for this week, I wanted to share my own racial autobiography that will be included in “The Story Project” initiative:

“Growing up in the 1970s multi-racial community of East Point, GA (near the Atlanta airport), racial discrimination, inequity, and injustice just weren't on my radar, much less concepts like “white privilege” or implicit bias.  After all, some of my best friends and playmates in school were African-American (one of whom is now Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court!), so consequently I thought of myself and my family as very open in terms of race relations.  And by the standards of the day, perhaps we were.

What I failed to recognize or understand at the time, however, is how the experience and life of most of my African-American schoolmates was very different from my own (and not always in  good ways), and how – despite my desire to be “color blind” (which I mistakenly then thought was a good thing) – I lived a very insulated and privileged life.  Growing up, I rarely wanted for anything material, never witnessed crime or violence immediately around me, never experienced discrimination because of the color of my skin, and my parents were never pulled over on the road for that reason, either.  All the people I remember my family socializing with were White, as was my church and my neighborhood.  Yes, I occasionally had my African-American friends over to my house play, but afterward, we went back to our own separate existences. 

Throughout my childhood, youth, days of college, and even my early years of ministry, I continued to have African-American friends, and considered myself (I thought) a champion for racial equality and justice.  Yet, in one of my later church appointments as Pastor of a nearly all-White church, I found myself surprisingly ostracized by many members for even suggesting that we as a church needed to look hard at our role over history in supporting (perhaps unintentionally) the inequities of that community. 

The good news was that, despite these challenges, with excellent leadership from our civic and religious leaders like our Mayor, Police Chief and Sheriff, Pastor-colleagues, and others, over several years that community made significant strides towards acknowledging its racist past and embracing a new inclusivity upon which to build a better future (more about this in a future story).

Through this experience, I came to realize that racism – which I thought had died back in the 1960s, and to which I had been oblivious in the 1970s and 80s – was alive and well in many subtle ways, and had instead merely gone underground, awaiting a new crisis to expose it once again (as the events of this past year have shown true).  I also learned that ALL people (including myself) are “privileged” in some way – racially, economically, socially, politically, materially – because ALL of us live life better than some others at least to some degree or another.  The question is not whether or not we are privileged, but what do we DO with that privilege?   Do we use it to help bring about a better world? Or do we use it to justify our denial about the differences and inequities of our world?  

In the Bible, Moses, Samuel, King David, the Centurion whose servant was healed by Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Gamaliel, Paul, and many others were all people of “privilege.” But they used their privilege to make a difference for the kingdom of God.  My prayer is that I would be able to do the same in my life.”

Always remember that God loves you and I do, too!