White Awake: An Honest Look at What It Means to Be White

by Daniel Hill

personal challenge in the form of a reflection exercise. To help me begin my exploration, he invited me to catalog carefully the primary voices that informed me as a person and shaped my thoughts and values. To simplify, he organized the exercise around four groups of voices: my closest friends, the mentors I looked to for guidance, the preachers/teachers/theologians I relied on for spiritual guidance, and the authors of the books I was reading. The instructions were simple: Comprehensively list them. Take note of the cultural backgrounds they represented.

hypersegregation of the white American church, a term Emerson and his colleagues coined when researching racial segregation in cities. They measured each city based on a range from zero (complete racial integration) to one (complete racial segregation). If a city measured 0.90 or higher, 90 percent of one group would have to switch neighborhoods to achieve integration; in that case, the city was hypersegregated. A score that high indicated a city’s racial makeup. As Emerson said, “Values this high could usually only be achieved through laws, discriminatory lending and real estate procedures, threats, and other racially unequal practices.”1 It was sad but not surprising to see that a number of cities in America approached the value of 0.90. I was vaguely familiar with the racial history of our country, so it seemed plausible that certain cities still reflected the effects of unjust laws, procedures, and practices. What I didn’t expect, though, was that this level of racial segregation reached beyond just cities; it was present in the American church as well. Emerson and team applied the same research criteria when studying congregations and discovered that conservative Protestantism exceeded these values of 0.90. This seemed statistically impossible, which led Emerson to suggest, “Even if someone were in control of all conservative Protestantism and had the power and will to consciously assign whites and nonwhites to separate congregations across the nation, obtaining a val...

In the naiveté of youth, I quickly became the annoying, self-righteous white guy. I felt I had finally seen the light, and I was determined to make everyone around me see it.

How did I think starting Metro 212 was going to address those racial problems?

I was blind, but I didn’t know I was blind. And that’s the most dangerous blindness of all.

I worried that my missteps reflected poorly on me as a person.

Richard Rohr,

“We need a contemplative mind in order to do compassionate action.3”

This is a journey he longs to lead us on and a journey we’re invited to participate in. But the price of admission is a full acknowledgment of our utter blindness. Only when we embrace our lack of sight can we authorize Jesus to begin the process of illuminating the truth that we so badly need to see.

It is particularly important for white Americans to approach this subject matter with the right goals in mind. Our goal must be sight. Our goal must be transformation. Our goal must be a renewed consciousness. As such, I urge you to let go of preconceived notions of expertise or understanding that you feel you might be bringing to this.

Culture shapes the way we order our life, interpret our experiences, and evaluate the behavior of other people.

“Culture consists of concepts, values, and assumptions about life that guide behavior and are widely shared by people. . . . [These] are transmitted generation to generation, rarely with explicit instructions, by parents, teachers, religious figures, and other respected elders.”3

culture plays a direct and significant role in how we learn to see both our neighbors and ourselves. Culture shapes how and what we see, and how and what we see shapes our everyday behaviors and actions.

“two-ness”—the experience of operating in one America that’s white and one America that’s black. W. E. B. Du Bois, the famous sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist, coined the term double-consciousness to describe this experience of two-ness. In his seminal book The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois described double-consciousness as the psychological challenge of “always looking at one’s self through the eyes” of a white society.5

while the white eighth grader had sincere intentions, it didn’t change the fact that the consequences of her actions led to pain for her friend. A lack of vision often places us in the same position: sincere intentions but harmful consequences.

A lack of vision often places us in the same position: sincere intentions but harmful consequences.

The normalization of white culture dramatically affects cultural identity development, and both white people and people of color feel its effects.

Though you can find the presence of colorblind ideology in all sectors of society, a uniquely powerful version is circulating in the Christian context. The ideology of Christian colorblindness is fortified by theological truths that are unfortunately misapplied to cultural identity. The short form usually sounds something like this: “God did not create multiple races; there is just one race: humankind.” As human beings, we share more in common than difference. We have all sinned, we are all in need of redemption, we are all equals at the foot of the cross, and through faith we are all one in Christ. Every part of that sentence is theologically accurate; sin, salvation, and redemption are equally applicable to people of every race and creed. The problem is that those same truths are incorrectly applied to cultural identity, leaving us with a dangerous form of colorblindness.

I believe that choosing to remain colorblind is willful ignorance. We would never tolerate a form of Christianity that minimizes sin as it relates to conversion or discipleship; we should therefore never tolerate Christian colorblindness either.

It’s important to wrap our minds around the doctrine of the imago Dei because it’s a theological foundation we must stand on as we learn to critique and condemn the social construct of race in America and our historical reliance on white supremacy. Stated simply, the imago Dei declares that all human beings are valuable and of infinite worth. God is the one that makes this declaration, and no human being is allowed to challenge it. To do so is to play God. Yet when we created the American construct of race, that’s exactly what we did. We undercut the imago Dei by establishing the narrative of racial difference. The fact that we recognize racial difference is not the issue. The theological danger comes with a system of race that assigns value based on the differences. Assigning value to human beings is in direct contradiction to the heart of God, and it is a sin of the highest order.

The fact that we recognize racial difference is not the issue. The theological danger comes with a system of race that assigns value based on the differences. Assigning value to human beings is in direct contradiction to the heart of God, and it is a sin of the highest order.

white trauma.

Charles said that reconciliation conversations tend to focus on the historical trauma that communities of color have faced, and he affirmed that this must continue to be the case. The problem, he suggested, is that the conversation around trauma stops with them. But what about the white community? While the traumas experienced by victims and by oppressors are qualitatively different on every level and can therefore never be compared, it’s impossible to be complicit with centuries of traumatizing oppression without becoming traumatized oneself. This was a groundbreaking idea for me. While I had grown to recognize the ways our racial history has traumatized communities of color, I had never considered the ways white America had also been traumatized by this same history. I had a new appreciation for why denial is such an accessible temptation for every white person: it’s easy to turn a blind eye toward history at an individual level when our nation still does so at a corporate level.

The most plausible answer is white trauma. At a corporate level, it’s traumatic that a country that aspires to be a place of equality for all people did this to its own citizens. And the risk of trauma is high at a personal level. Once we open up this history, who knows what else we’ll find? I think of a white friend who came from a long line of preachers and the anxiety he felt about exploring his lineage. He knew his grandfather pastored during the height of the KKK, and he was quite apprehensive about what he might discover if he began to poke around. Versions of this same anxiety live within many of us.

On the contrary it tells us that we need to look at our own serpent of bronze if we want to embrace healing and live. The very trauma we suffer and want to escape from is the very trauma we need to look at.3

When addressing the reality of white trauma, Mark Charles regularly quotes Georges Erasmus, an Aboriginal advocate, political leader, and well-respected spokesperson for indigenous peoples in Canada. Erasmus says, “Where common memory is lacking, where people do not share in the same past, there can be no real community. Where community is to be formed, common memory must be created.”

He asked her to consider this: Was it possible that her conflicting emotions from this conversation were a sign that she was drawing too much of her sense of worth from being white? Was it possible that in the development of her identity and sense of self-worth cultural cues about whiteness were playing a more formative role than the words of God were?

Each era of growth for our community has been beautiful but has also overlapped with confusion about what to do next. Disorientation is an unavoidable stage if you embark seriously on a cultural identity journey, so it’s not worth investing energy in a futile attempt to avoid those feelings. It’s more helpful to understand why we feel disoriented and to learn to push forward even as we feel uncertain of our footing. As you follow the transformational path from blindness to sight, a variety of factors may lead to disorientation. Each is important to understand, and each needs to be conquered if you are to keep moving forward. Here are the four most significant contributors to the disorientation stage: lack of exposure low stamina limited theological understanding crisis of identity

That’s why I initially fought back when my first mentor on race proposed that my world was cut off from the voices of people of color.

An inability to see or consider significance in the perspectives of people of color

This is pretty much definition ofnwhite supremacy

So the first reason white people experience disorientation is a lack of exposure to authentic interaction and engagement with race. For the most part, white Americans are raised in and continue to live in segregated settings. Even when a person has contact with people of color, rarely do relationships deepen to the point of exchanging meaningful ideas about the system of race. Therefore, it’s important to acknowledge our “representational and informational” segregation.3 In chapter ten, I propose a number of different ideas for reversing this trend and actively encourage finding new ways to become proximate to and to learn from those whom we are segregated from.

After pondering the words of this black pastor, he admitted that he’d never considered how privileged he was to be able to come in and out of conversations without any real cost. He also acknowledged that “tired” for him couldn’t compare to the fatigue of being a person of color talking about issues of race on a daily and even hourly basis. His confession opened a door to a new level of growth in his cultural identity process and positioned him to go to new depths in his journey from blindness to sight.

DiAngelo often tells her audience that white people tend to confuse comfort with safety, and that can be a helpful idea when navigating the disoriented stage. Because our stamina is low and tolerance for racial stress is weak, we often have conversations about racial justice being unsafe (consider the opening story from Drew Hart as an example of this). But it’s rare that these situations are actually unsafe; they’re uncomfortable because we aren’t accustomed to that level of discourse.

This is problematic in many ways, but most pressing is the way in which it bifurcates our understanding of the gospel. For reasons that go beyond what I can explore in this section, American Christianity (particularly evangelicalism) has often lost sight of a holistic understanding of the gospel. There’s an emphasis on proclamation of the good news, but it tends to be theologically disconnected from demonstration of that good news. There’s an emphasis on loving God as expressed in the Great Commandment, but it’s theologically disconnected from loving neighbor. There’s an emphasis on being reconciled to God through Christ, but it’s theologically disconnected from being sent into the world by Christ as ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:20

Dr. Snodgrass is quick to point out that there’s nothing theologically wrong with this invitation. In his studies of the apostle Paul, he has found that there are at least five places where the language of Christ “in us” or “in me” is used. We can detect an imbalance when we look at this through a larger frame. When the apostle Paul wrote about the nature of Christian faith, he most frequently noted how we are to be “in Christ,” a phrase used an astonishing 164 times. If we’re told that Christ can come “in us” five times, but we are told to be “in Christ” 164 times, where should the emphasis fall in the way we talk about this? To draw out this contrast, Snodgrass says, “If Christ is only in you, then how big is Christ? Not very big, and you can tuck him away when you don’t need him. But, if you and all other human beings are in Christ, as well as all of Creation, then how big is Christ?”

focuses on the word reconciliation, the linchpin of almost every letter from the apostle Paul. I believe reconciliation is the single best word in the Christian lexicon for communicating the full nature of our walk with God, yet few appreciate the ways this word saturates the New Testament.

“How did I grow up in a Bible-believing church yet never once learned about the ministry of reconciliation?” That question is a summary for what I’m hoping to convey in this section. Theology should inform the way we live each day “in Christ,” yet many of us have inherited a limited foundation as our theological starting point.

Think about it like this: from the time I opened my eyes, I have been told that as a white person, I am superior to people of color. There’s never been a space in which I have not been receiving that message. From what hospital I was allowed to be born in, to how my mother was treated by the staff, to who owned the hospital, to who cleaned the rooms and took out the garbage. We are born into a racial hierarchy, and every interaction with media and culture confirms it—our sense that, at a fundamental level, we are superior. And, the thing is, it feels good. Even though it contradicts our most basic principles and values. So we know it, but we can never admit it. . . . We have set the world up to preserve that internal sense of superiority and also resist challenges to it.8

George Yancy's antiracist racist

“I appreciate you apologizing, but we don’t need your apologies. What we need is your resilience. It’s okay that you’re feeling weak, disoriented, and unclear as what to do. What’s not okay is that you quit because of those feelings. I need you to be resilient and to stick in the game and to walk alongside us who have no choice but to move forward.”

This is why Brown contends that shame is a poor tool for instigating transformation, despite the widespread belief that it’s helpful for keeping people in line. She believes it’s not only wrong to use shame to motivate people but also dangerous. Her research suggests that it’s virtually impossible to correlate shame with positive outcomes of any type, as there are no data to support that shame supports good behavior.2 Instead shame is more likely to cause destructive and hurtful behaviors than it is to open up solutions. When we’re filled with shame, we tend to engage in self-destructive behaviors such as addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders, and bullying.3 Guilt, on the other hand, has all kinds of potential to yield positive behaviors. Brown says it like this:

“What we would ask for you to do is lament.”

The dichotomy between these two is the basis of Rah’s book, and he contended that the modern American church has over-elevated praise, which he called triumphalistic. Churches that are triumphalistic share a set of common characteristics: they elevate stories of success, gravitate toward narratives of exceptionalism (a view that sees America as inherently different from other nations, with a unique mission to transform the world), emphasize problem solving, and are marked by a can-do attitude backed by a belief that human effort and positive thinking can conquer the big problems we face.

We’ve been groomed to search for quick and easy answers to complex problems, and we rarely have the ability to appreciate the act of crying out to God in brokenness and pain.

When my pastor friends were looking for ways to integrate lament into their services after the release of the video of McDonald’s shooting, we emphasized treating services like funerals. This proactively prepares the congregation to let go of the temptation so common in the dominant culture: to go on the hunt for immediate resolutions to the problem of racism—a temptation that can be difficult to curb. The imagery of a funeral creates much-needed boundaries, as no one would attend the funeral of a friend and then try to rally a group for an immediate problem-solving session.

Even one degree of self-righteousness is enough to knock us off course, which can send us far off course in the long run. This is true in many arenas of the spiritual life, and it’s especially true in the journey of cultural identity development.

same level of environmental “enlightenment.” I’m not minimizing the importance of holding to a personal opinion or conviction on a topic. Scripture is clear that we as Christ’s followers are to align our beliefs with the teachings of God rather than conform to the ways of the world. The problem comes when we subtly shift from appropriate conviction to sinful comparing. The Pharisee in this parable was sinfully comparing in order to separate himself from the people he judged to be unworthy of God’s love and favor. Self-righteousness points to a deep foundational reality. It has to do with identity and how we pursue an inner sense of belonging. It has to do with our sense of being right with God, with the world, and with our neighbors.

When we allow our sense of belonging to be shaped by the in/out, us/them binary of good and bad, we fall into what entrapped the Pharisee. We exert inordinate amounts of energy trying to prove that we belong in the good group (with earning, achieving, and validating as ways of proving it). We also can’t help but look down on those that are in the other group with judgment and at times even disdain.

For white people, their identities rest on the idea of racism as about good or bad people, about moral or immoral singular acts, and if we’re good, moral people we can’t be racist—we don’t engage in those acts. . . . In large part, white fragility—the defensiveness, the fear of conflict—is rooted in this good/bad binary. If you call someone out, they think to themselves, “What you just said was that I am a bad person, and that is intolerable to me.” It’s a deep challenge to the core of our identity as good, moral people.

being classified as good). For those seeking union with Christ, the implication is clear. While being a Christian always entails seeking right behavior and avoiding wrong behavior, our vision for transformation is always hampered if this is the limit of our sight. Instead our transformation requires that we first are able to take an accurate appraisal of ourselves. We must embrace the fact that we are far beyond misbehaved or immoral—we are sick. A sick person can’t cure her condition with hard work or good deeds. The only hope is a cure from the outside. The only hope is Jesus.

No, I repent all the time because I believe I’m surrounded by the sickness of racism. I see the sickness in the ideology of white supremacy and have no doubt that it has infected me. I see the sickness in the narrative of racial difference and have no doubt it has infected me. I see the sickness of systemic racism and have no doubt that I contribute to it in ways I’m not aware of. I’m surrounded by sickness, and I am sick. I am in need of the great Physician. It’s the only hope I have to be healthy.