Racism Alone? ��� Reflections on the Current National Divide

When I heard the decision not to indict the killers of EricGarner, my outraged response was, ���here we go again!���  If the Michael Brown case lacked moral clarity, the senseless tragedy of the Eric Garnercase was much more clear.  No matter whatthe circumstances were, here were two more African American men added to thelist of senseless killings, arousing strong reactions nationally andinternationally.

Some claim that these killings demonstrate the existence ofracist structures that permeate our society. Others claim that these killings resulted from criminal behavior or ���alack of personal responsibility.���  Whileboth positions point to contributing factors, they both continue to ignore theelephant in the room, namely culture��� a factor that dwarfs the previous two. 

We have made astounding progress against racism thanks tothe Civil Rights and Black Consciousness movements.  Yet in the ���hood, conditions have notimproved accordingly.  Today, there is a growingculture of dysfunctionality eatingaway not just at the ���hood, but at our larger society.  It is often government funded through wellmeaning but mismanaged subsistence programs. It is having devastating effects across cultures, yet is felt mostprofoundly in the ���hood.  Itis a culture derived from the old ���redneck��� South ��� a culture nurtured bystructures of oppression and one that wears down initiative and personalresponsibility ��� whose value system elevates and encourages anti-achieverism,fatherlessness, dependency, helplessness, hopelessness, self-sabotaging/self-destructivebehavior, fratricide, etc., and in extreme cases, nihilism. 

What we are witnessing today is more a cultural divide thana racial one.  I am by no means denyingthe reality of the remaining vestiges of racism; I am saying that racism byitself cannot fully account for the frustration of those who feel the sting ofnon-acceptance in, and hostility from, the larger society.  This is because valued behavior in theculture of dysfunctionality is often devalued in the culture of functionality,and vice-versa.

A major dogma of today���s politically correct milieu is, ���Valuesystems and cultures are equally valid; therefore, thou shalt not evaluate themlest ye become guilty of ���blaming the victim.������ Thus, without the culturalfactor, the entire problem of marginalization is attributed only to racism. This partly explains, perhaps, why the overwhelming majority of senseless Black on Black murders across the country do not arouse the sameintensity of anger.  It does not fit the narrativeof ���sola racisma��� (racism alone),leaving us with no adequate basis for rallying widespread outrage and protest.

Dimensions

Figure 1: The National Cultural DivideThe vast majority of African Americans are not bound by the culture of dysfunctionality.  Yet this distorted culture has gained a dominant influence among African Americans, aided largely by the mass media. However, the functional vs. dysfunctional is not the only cultural divide. There is also another dimension, namely, the dominant vs. subdominant (Figure 1).

Most African Americans have experienced some form ofracism.  There are few of us who haven���tsuffered or witnessed some form of overbearing police misconduct by White andnon-White officers.  Because thesubdominant culture tends to experience more oppression than the dominantculture, there tend to be divergent views of police.  Thus, while most in the dominant culture seerecent excessive police use of force from the perspective of the rule of law,many in the subdominant culture feel these incidents as paradigms of injusticeand oppression.

Furthermore, from the perspective of the culture ofdysfunctionality, it is easier to see police as an ���occupation force.���  From the perspective of the culture offunctionality, police tend to be seen as ���upholders of law and order.��� 

Hence, our current national crisis has uncovered anunfortunate point of contact between members of the subdominant culture andthose trapped in the culture of dysfunctionality ��� a suspicion of police.

In the wake of recent events, there is much talk of healingand reconciliation.  Unfortunately, astime passes there is a diminishing possibility for this.  Why? Because at the same time, our society is dumping its historic corevalues all in the name of ���inclusiveness��� and ���multiculturalism.���  Many of us have forgotten that appealing tothese essentially biblical core values made the Civil Rights Movementpossible.  We are increasingly losing thebasis for building a consensus to distinguish right from wrong, and justicefrom injustice.

If this current trendprevails, we will degenerate into a culturally balkanized society and everyonewill lose.

Paradigms

Oppression is sin plus power ��� the imposition of sin or itsconsequences on others with less power.  Thiscauses the oppressed to push back.  Asthey resist oppression, they tend to overlook their own sin, and the oppressionalone becomes the paradigm for all their problems.

Solomon said, ���there is nothing new under the sun.���  A similar scenario of national crisis happenedto the people of Jerusalem 140 years before the time of Nehemiah.  Recall that when the Israelites returned from70 years of Babylonian captivity, they had high hopes.  Opposition to rebuilding the temple delayedits completion.  However, as they beganto rebuild the city wall, the opposition succeeded in halting its constructionand destroying the work that was completed. Because their oppressors continued to thwart all attempts to rebuild thewall and restore the gates, the people of Jerusalem continued to be vulnerableand helpless.  This had a devastatingeffect on the Israelites.  As a result,they lost their vision and sense of dignity; their culture degenerated into chaos as they slippedinto apathy, self-sabotaging behavior and self-destructive life-styles.

If you asked any Jerusalem resident to describe theirpredicament, they would reply, ���The walls are broken down and the gates areburned with fire.���  They would identify Sanballatand Tobiah as their oppressors.  Whilethis paradigm of oppression was astatement of truth, it overlooked the Jew on Jew exploitation in Jerusalem,where the wealthy elite exploited the non-elite through tax manipulation andhuman trafficking.

For African Americanscaught in the culture of dysfunctionality, the comparable paradigm ofoppression has been racism.

Rethink

The ongoing unrest about Michael Brown, Eric Garner and others is a cryfor a new and overdue movement.  Fifty-plusyears after the Civil Rights and Black Consciousness movements, there stillremain unresolved problems and issues. What many protesters don���t understand is that the movement for whichthey foment will not be realized based on old worn out paradigms andslogans.  The new movement will need a newparadigm that will revolutionize our outlook, offer symbols with moral clarity,and promote rally cries that will articulate the essence of both.  

For example, the Civil Rights Movement weaponized thetheology of suffering that had been with us from the beginning of our Americanexperience.  The idea of theology as aweapon caused a major paradigm shift in our outlook.  Thus for the first time in the civil rightsstruggle, we knew we could actuallyeffect change.  Hence, the rally cry, ���Weshall overcome��� came forth and the Civil Rights Movement was born, making many gains before it degenerated into the civilrights industry.

The emergence of Black consciousness as a movement alsoresulted from a paradigm shift and a rally cry. As gains in civil rights advanced, we began to experience more fullyanother dimension of our American ordeal. Up to this point assimilation into the dominant culture was seen as keyto our success.  This was the generalconsensus.  However, as we experiencedgreater degrees of success, we began to more fully experience culturaldissonance in the area of aesthetics. Conformity to a Euro-centric standard of beauty was absurd for most ofus.  This phenomenon had moral clarity andgave rise to the rally cry, ���Black is beautiful.���  Unfortunately, the rising dominance of theculture of dysfunctionality has pushed us toward another refrain ��� ���Black isghetto.���

The politically charged left and right wing approaches tothe current crisis are woefully inadequate. They ignore the cultural factor because they lack a robust basis foranalysis and resolution.  Biblical wisdomstill stands as the source for true understanding.  It empowered the Civil Rights Movement andundergirds our sense of human dignity and worth as it affirms that we are inthe image of God ��� the foundation for ���Black is beautiful.���

The paradigm shift we need today involves recognition of thecultural factor in our current difficulties; we need to rethink what it meansto be African American.

Revolution

There is no such thing as a value system that accepts allvalues.  Likewise, there is no such thingas a successful movement that embraces all behaviors.  Just as the early advocates of ���Blackness���identified assimilation into the dominant ���White��� culture as ���anti-Black,��� wemust identify the culture of dysfunctionality and the resulting behaviors ascounterproductive.  However, it is notenough just to identify the crippling value system of this culture, we mustseek to free our young men from its grip ��� a nexus that continues to set themup to be devoured by the jaws of the rapacious ���prison industrial complex.���

Rising above this cultural morass will require an intense and gutsy form of discipleship.  It must first awaken our young men to thefact that they are being used as canon fodder by those who profiteer from the culture of dysfunctionality, namely, drug cartels, unscrupulouspoliticians, race hustlers and poverty pimps, etc.  Second, it must not only empower them fromsinfulness toward righteousness, but from dysfunctionality towardsfunctionality and from foolishness toward wisdom.

This partly explains whathappened in Jerusalem under the guidance of Nehemiah when he shrewdly marshaledthe resources at his disposal to empower the people to rebuild the city walland gates.  With biblical wisdom, he led themto rise above their cultural crisis through a Godly paradigm shift; Jew on Jewexploitation was ended, the affected families were restored, and the people regainedtheir vision and sense of dignity.

Ifdone right, the contemporary approach to discipleship will influence more than individualsand families.  It will also impact theculture itself through the use of powerful art forms like ���spoken word,��� video,hip-hop, blogging, music and drama, to name a few.

This task is fraught with opportunity and danger for thedisciple-maker, but it must be done. With God���s help, it can be done.

It is time for a new and different type of liberationmovement ��� a cultural revolution informed by Nehemiah,

anchored to a transcendent reference point and rooted in transformative biblical wisdom.