Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism

by Drew G. I. Hart

Payne and his research team began by exposing participants to either black or white male faces. (It is important to point out that the faces flashed on the computer screen so quickly that participants were unable to say that they had consciously seen them. But even when we can’t consciously see something, we can still be affected by it.) Immediately after participants were exposed to either a black or white face, they were swiftly shown a picture of either a gun or a tool. Unlike the faces, participants were able to consciously see the gun or tool. Payne asked participants to determine whether they had just been presented with a gun or a tool. He observed that when participants had been exposed first to a black face and then to a tool, they were more likely to mistakenly identify the tool as a gun than when they were exposed first to a white face

With such contradictions, I can only assume that it is not color that they are not seeing; rather, it is racism that is being missed.

That is, he could choose to never engage with or be changed by the range and beauty of the black community. Nor would he be penalized for it. That option of white exclusivity would not affect his livelihood or means of providing for his family. No one would question his qualifications if he didn’t know how to navigate black communities and cultures or understand the daily realities of most black people in America.

Racism isn’t first and foremost about a horizontal divide; it is a vertically structured hierarchy.

Many white people assume racism is only about individual racial prejudice and hatred, and therefore they are always on the lookout for the “bad racists” to scapegoat.

The only difference was that this area had drenched itself in romanticized black stereotypes

Although race is a lie white people invented that divides humanity into categories used to oppress nonwhite people, the concept has created tangible people groups. These groups have felt, and continue to feel, how very real all of this has become. Race is a social construct that not only shapes how we perceive particular people groups but also justifies oppressive hierarchy and European domination over nonwhite people.

This definition of racism actually protects both those who operate out of racial bias consciously and those who operate out of racial bias unconsciously, because they can always deny it. Furthermore, it turns our attention away from the way that our entire society is a racialized system. We must rid ourselves of this definition because it leaves us with nothing but subjective assessments of individual moments, in which people or incidents are rarely assumed to be racist. In fact, the only time that American dominant culture accepts accusations of racism is in cases of so-called reverse discrimination. According to many white people, then and only then can this thin definition of racism be applied with certainty and without proof.

Critical race theory asks a particular set of questions: What is the meaning of race in a society? How is society organized by race? What are the origins of racism, and how does it operate in and affect our daily lives?

the scapegoating of Paula Deen is the sophisticated cultural reflex of a highly racialized society that doesn’t want to own up to how racism works systemically.

Caesar’s imperial life at the top of the social ladder actually distanced him from what God had done on the margins in the person of Jesus.

Taking for granted that God is with them, most people grow up always presuming what God is like. Many intuitively believe that God blesses America and thinks of it as a divine vehicle in the world.

For this gentleman, all of my analysis of the history of race and racism was right on the money. But when that same lens was applied to a current issue, we seemed to fall back to square one.

In America, the white dominant cultural way is often assumed to be the right way.

As racism mutated in different eras in America, each adaption proved to be just as deceptive for those in the dominant group—not because of their race, but because of their social networks and social location.

They must allow the eyes of the violated of the land to lead and guide them, seeking to have renewed minds no longer conformed to the patterns of our world.

Harlem and this black church gave him new eyes.

What gets lost is that Bonhoeffer was able to speak and see the injustice and evil of the Third Reich in a way that most of his German theological colleagues could not at that time.

“Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything Black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionaries and see the synonyms of the word Black. It’s always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word White, it’s always something pure, high and clean. Well I want to get the language right tonight.” And therefore King encouraged the crowd to affirm their humanity to themselves: “I’m Black and I’m beautiful!”6 In

Discipleship is the cure for dominant cultural blinders that leave people’s intuition and vision impaired and unreliable. Not going with your gut, when it is socialized by dominant culture, and moving toward counterintuitive solidarity with the oppressed, must be understood as a Christian discipline, as necessary a practice for Christian formation as is praying, gathering in Christian community, reading Scripture, sharing resources, worshiping, and giving thanks.

To be white is not only to be Euro–American; it is also to identify with, and participate in, the life of a sociopolitical collective that created this artificially constructed racial identity to accomplish something. People move from identifying with a particular European people group—for example, the Irish—to identifying as a white person for a reason. This is a decision European immigrants made over and over again in America, such that the definition of and borders around who was white continuously expanded.

many people don’t realize just how socially constructed a white identity is, and how it has been conveniently changed over and over again to let some people in and to exclude others.

immigrants in the early twentieth century understood very well what white status meant if obtained, and therefore they went to court arguing to be recognized under the law as such.

This means that white men with a conviction have more positive employment responses than black men without a conviction.

The manner in which black men in the employment process are being discriminated against—not to mention other racial minorities and women—directly benefits white men, because now they have a greater chance at getting a job because of the lack of opportunity experienced by racial minorities.

For too long, too many have assumed that nice white people couldn’t be complicit with a white–controlled and white–dominated society, because they are so fun to be around.

The missionaries came promising Jesus. But Christianity was so entangled in Western culture that the missionaries imposed Western civilization on people in the name of Jesus rather than vulnerably bearing witness to the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus in word and deed and then letting the Holy Spirit do its work.

Dominant groups anywhere in the world are prone to overriding the narratives of marginalized people with their own perspectives. A popular African proverb articulates it perfectly: “Until the story of the hunt is told by the lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

These assumptions run directly against Christian practice and teaching, which affirm humanity’s finiteness, limitedness, and the fact that we can now only see dimly. Dominant groups are always in danger of thinking that their perspective is synonymous with God’s perspective. They frequently lack the humility to question their own ways and to be vulnerably open to the marginalized people in their society.

as a social construction, whiteness is specifically about domination and violence.

Performing and identifying with whiteness ends when we drop everything to be with our Christ.

In the church, everyone from every background must recognize that black people ought to be loved and valued, because we too are made in the image of God.

This is a call for the church to take seriously the antiblack ideology and sentiments that are so pervasive in our country. Loving others we have been socialized to devalue should be a familiar practice for the church.

Clark doll experiments.3 For those not familiar with this research, I’ll give a brief synopsis. In these tests, young black and white children, one at a time, answered a series of questions. A white doll and a black doll sat in front of the child during the whole exercise. An interviewer would ask the child things like “Which doll is the good doll?” and “Which doll is the bad doll?” Other questions included “Which doll is the pretty doll?” and “Which doll is the ugly one?”

we must affirm the lives of everyone in the black community. Not just men, or those who dress well, or those who are highly educated or middle class.

What is most amazing about our history is that, over and over again, black people have frequently not turned toward violent revolt.

Most white people need to get past their faulty and insufficient understanding of black history and grasp even a fraction of the nonstop assault on black humanity that persists even to this day. If that happened, they would join the movement of God unfolding in history among the despised.

That Jesus identified so intimately with “the wretched of the earth,” even to the point of death, should result in God’s church daring to see humanity from the perspective of God.

The task for us as a church is to allow the resurrected Jesus to be present with us, inspiring us toward risky and controversial love, even when society tells us that the recipients of our love are not worthy.

Following Jesus means never accepting and conforming to the sentiments and patterns of this world. It means being transformed after the image of the Son, taking on a renewed mind that is no longer socialized by and indistinguishable from dominant society.

All of American society is enticed by the American trinity of money, power, and respect.

The forces at work in our culture that define the good life in America are hidden from the awareness of most Americans. Christians are not an exception. Our inability to discern the mold that our lives are unconsciously being formed into, or judged against, doesn’t make that mold any less a reality. Social hierarchy enables a people group to make their values and norms dominant.

As I looked out the van window at the unending conditions that masses of black people live in, I kept going back to London, where we just had been tourists. In London we saw palaces, grandiose churches, and the residue of a generational legacy of imperial wealth. Kenya had been a British colony up until the 1960s, my new Kenyan friend John reminded me. It became very clear how direct a connection there was between the wealth and infrastructure in London and the poverty endured by many of the Kenyan people.

So there, with my Kenyan friends, I questioned the logic of what made some language proper and some language illegitimate. My point—which I have also made during discussions of black vernacular in America—is that those who violently colonized you ought not set the standard of what is proper and respectable.

Those living on the margins must be critical of the definitions of right and wrong by those who have influence over society to make their own logic seem inherently right and good.

John's passage

Jesus promises an alternative to the imperial imprint that tries to determine our values and practices; that alternative is the kingdom of God.

Those who held to the doctrine of respectability hoped that the trajectory of white supremacy would shift if black behavior changed. This framework looked at everything from the perspective of “the negro problem.”

Today, when we discuss issues around mass incarceration and police brutality, too often the conversation turns toward how black people should act: pulling up pants, taking out earrings, and speaking “properly,” as if such behavior merits being treated as less than human.

Paul knew what it was to live under imperial rule. The Roman way of life was a dominant force that could not be ignored. Rome’s occupational presence was so great that it can only be talked about as one of the largest empires in history.

Raquel's passage

nonconformity is a way of life that runs directly contrary to imperial logics while increasingly embodying the story of Jesus portrayed in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Nonconformity, in the Pauline sense, is ultimately about conformity to the image of the Son.