Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

by LaTasha Morrison

Why was I so uncomfortable with hearing this?

When we lack historical understanding, we lose part of our identity. We don’t know where we came from and don’t know what there is to celebrate or lament. Likewise, without knowing our history, it can be difficult to know what needs repairing, what needs reconciling.

As I learned more and more about the injustices wrought against my ancestors, I began to realize that we deserved justice. This realization awakened within me indignation, pain, and a holy discontent.

As I spoke with my Black friends across the country, I came to understand just how divided the non-White culture and majority-culture churches are. But why is it this way?

This is true in non-religious communities as well (i.e. “black businesses” and “white businesses”)

I found that many were oblivious to the full scope of American history and its multicultural realities. With that realization, I made a conscious decision: I’d do my best to build a bridge between the majority and non-White church cultures.

challenged us to remove the words them, those, and they from our vocabularies,

Many of my White friends admitted that if it weren’t for the group, they might have ignored the context or dismissed the events of Ferguson. Attending the monthly circles ensured they wouldn’t remain silent, wouldn’t be complicit. As they became aware of racial injustice and the history of discrimination, it became impossible for them to turn a blind eye.

Though grieved that I did not join this cause earlier, I feel as if the recent events have woken me up to this reality, and I can no longer be silent or passive.

If you’re White, if you come from the majority culture, you’ll need to bend low in a posture of humility. You may need to talk less and listen more, opening your heart to the voices of your non-White brothers and sisters. You’ll need to open your mind and study the hard truths of history without trying to explain them away. You’ll need to examine your own life and the lives of your ancestors so you can see whether you’ve participated in, perpetuated, or benefited from systems of racism.

Since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, the racial divide in America has only gotten worse.

God is inviting all of us to be active participants in racial reconciliation, to show the world that racial unity is possible through Christ. So, in the pages to come, I’m inviting you to journey with me toward racial reconciliation. I hope that as you do, you’ll engage with the prayers that conclude each chapter and use them to form your own prayers.

I must admit, I have not. It’s time to start now!

I do recall being enamored with the period of the Harlem renaissance during high school and writing a paper about that time period. I was drawn to a beauty that was different than the one I was familiar with. This has been the case (being drawn to a beauty that is other) since that time, but I have not moved toward discovering more of minority cultures’ history.

I have (in my head) approached these conversations as if I have the answers. My nurture is difficult to ignore/move beyond. I pray that as I continue to listen and learn, I will take a posture of humility, the Lord will expand my mind’s capability to comprehend and exercise wisdom and my own chains of bondage to the complicit sin of racism will be broken.

I hope so!

Some of my White friends thought color shouldn’t matter in the body of Christ, an easy thing for them to say.

The typology of Black people is a racial reality in America.

If they judged me more assimilated, more controlled by the majority-culture narrative, I was more accepted.

Ouch

What’s more, the process of desegregation lacked recognition of psychological and emotional effects on both the White and the Black communities.

Her opinion of our emancipating president had been formed primarily by the economic effect his administration had on the American South.

“Love,” I said, “brings freedom, and slaves didn’t have freedom or choice. Family doesn’t leave family in bondage.”

The truth is that each ethnicity reflects a unique aspect of God’s image.

The truth is that race is a social construct, one that has divided and set one group over the other from the earliest days of humanity. The Christian construct, though, dismantles this way of thinking and seeks to reunite us under a common banner of love and fellowship.

In the love of the family of God, we must become color brave, color caring, color honoring, and not color blind. We have to recognize the image of God in one another. We have to love despite, and even because of, our differences.

we can’t fix what we don’t understand or acknowledge.

Let’s consider this foundational truth: God didn’t create race. Did he create different ethnic groups? Yes. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, scriptures identify different ethnic groups.

To participate in the family of Christ alongside the non-White culture, the majority culture must understand non-White perspectives and the truth of historical narratives.

Jesus can make beauty from ashes, but the family of God must first see and acknowledge the ashes.

Shouldn’t her name be written on courthouses and public buildings, places where justice is supposed to be found? Can you see why the Black community might think so?

What Bekah didn’t understand at the time (though she does now) was that her role wasn’t to do anything. She didn’t need to say anything or strive to find a related example. Her role was to listen and learn.

By becoming aware of the realities of racial division, she could grow in empathy, and empathy is the first step toward racial solidarity. Empathy would allow her to sit in someone else’s pain.

The acknowledgment of the harm was the beginning of the healing balm my mom so desperately needed. Still, it was difficult, she said.

Acknowledgment and lament have led me into the healing process.

Awareness of the truth is useless without acknowledgment of our complicity or its effects on us.

We can’t shy away from the

conversations just because they’re uncomfortable or awkward or unpleasant.

To lament means to express sorrow or regret. Lamenting something horrific that has taken place allows a deep connection to form between the person lamenting and the harm that was done, and that emotional connection is the first step in creating a pathway for healing and hope. We have to sit in the sorrow, avoid trying to fix it right away, avoid our attempts to make it all okay. Only then is the pain useful. Only then can it lead us into healing and wisdom.

But it’s no secret that we as a culture are uncomfortable with lament. Rarely do we look to share our pain publicly.

American culture teaches us not to sit in sadness and despair.

As agents of reconciliation, it’s never too late for us to acknowledge and lament racial injustice. It’s never too late to understand the historic depth of racism and to ask God to show his mercy and heal us.

By the end of the massacre, which lasted only two days, over three hundred African Americans had been murdered.5 More than forty square blocks of homes had burned to the ground, and ten thousand African Americans were left homeless.6 Businesses were lost forever, and the once-thriving community was desecrated in one day by citizens, the police force, the National Guard, and governing agencies.

Like so many injustices, the Tulsa massacre has been intentionally buried in the archives of American history.

If they knew the truth, it might help frame the injustices of urban redlining in the city, where Black people were refused certain services based on race.

Willful ignorance of the facts, willful bias and prejudice—these things keep us from the awareness that leads to full acknowledgment and lament. They keep us from moving into the hard work of racial reconciliation.

It looks like acknowledging the hurt done to their community. It looks like lamenting their loss and pain. It looks like confessing sin, as Police Chief Jordan did, and asking God how we might restore honor to communities that suffered oppression at the hands of greedy and jealous men. It looks like becoming part of the reconciliation and restoration process.

A year later she returned. She rejoined the online group and signed up to begin a Be the Bridge group in Montgomery. Where her family had once committed racist acts, she is now working to bring racial healing.

In fact, why hadn’t I been taught any Black history in high school?

I sat at my desk without speaking, drowning in shock, anger, and pain.

Whatever the case, it was one of the loneliest hours of my high school career. And in that loneliness, I felt ashamed for bringing up the idea. I felt guilty for rocking the boat.

the school cafeteria is the second-most-segregated place in our country, behind only church.

Those parts of history might make the White students and teachers feel guilty, we were told. They might also embarrass or shame Black students and teachers.