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When most folks become aware of their white privilege, they tend to want to rush off to the brown parts of a city. To move into a black neighborhood or go to a black church. Sometimes they do this with a colonialist attitude of wanting to improve the neighborhood or the church. Other times they do it as an act of penance for being white. Both miss the mark.
I think the goal is to live simply, being humble as we share our resources with a submissive attitude. In other words, going into a city to help them the way we want to help is bad. But to go into the city and submitting to the brothers and sisters there and taking time to listen and learn...that is a good step.
It all comes down, in my mind, to find ways to actually and tangibly submit to non-white brothers and sisters. We are commanded to submit to one another anyways. And our problem is that for far too long we have asked the world to submit to us.
Mark, you are absolutely right, that the tendency is to pick up and "rush off to the brown parts of a city." And there's nothing wrong with that, but I would argue that we are called to simply treat everyone we meet with the kind of gentleness, mercy, and love that Jesus has shown us. And short of that, we should be willing to give them what we are willing to give ourselves. If we do that—and I'm not positive that we can in this world, but we should try for it with everything we've got—i really believe all the rest of this just falls away.
It got kinda ugly.
I get that we've come to this point in history with slaves. And war. And genocide. I get it. Really. But so has every other culture on the face of this planet. We just had badder assed weapons then those unforntunate other cultures 200 years ago.
By the way just like in Ezekiel, I can hear the rumble of the drums, the songs and the dance of the bones coming back with life.
When a White person prospers, he had it all handed to him. When he fails, it was his own fault. He was lazy, stupid, or any other derogatory adjective. When a "oppressed minority" fails, it was the white mans fault.
Some of this stuff is dependent upon where you grow up and other things. I have to recognize, that as much as I've found success in life through my own efforts, that the system favors my whiteness. And my maleness.
I think part of the Christian response to this issue is in repudiating what needs to be left in the past, and the willful sharing of what has been brought into the present. Rather than relying on or relishing in its earthly inheritance, the Church needs to fully own its heavenly inheritance. Owning it would seem to involve a eagerness or thirst for sharing resources and rewriting the rules of giving and receiving, in ways that might be foolishly bold to the societies we inhabit.
I think its also helpful to know that the kind of solidarity, which I believe you are rightly encouraging, with those who suffer from your privilege doesn't mean not being yourself or 'going native.' It means being willing to share a piece of yourself and accept a piece of another. It is playing Adam to Eve, taking out your own rib so that it someone else may receive the gift of abundant life. It's kind of like what third culture people do.
I am currently on a trip with bethel students visiting the civil rights sites in the south. as we have been going we are discussing and processing together. I am so thankful for my brothers and sisters of color who are showing me my white privilage. I am been facing these issues for the last 2 years as we live in north minneapolis (68% african-american) but I am still amazed at how often i don't realize my privilage or how painful my privilage is to others. I would encourage all to really listen to a person of color story, but as you do be ready to face so evil and painful stuff that is in you.
I recognize how much work it is to make the most use of or benefit the most people with the resources we have. I am continually convicted about what I waste. There is so much I need to give away because I do not have the time or the energy to manage the resources God has already given me. Too bad we don't use Aesop's fables in church. The dog in the manger lesson is a good compliment to Biblical criticisms of greed and its commendations to be generous. It seems like even if I give away something I think I might need in the future, God provides what I need when the time arrives.
Legal privileges are based on arbitrary distinctions upheld by force. In other words, they are the product of the state. Where land was taken from Native Americans by force, Europeans were acting just as pagan as the Indians. When Africans were enslaved and held in bondage, Europeans worshiped a false god, one that they fashioned in their own image, instead of recognizing the image of God in their fellow man. This is the root of the state, and its purpose, to create distinctions from differences, to create and worship false gods of our own choosing, and to legitimize force by some against others.
As Christians, it is important that we move down off the mountain. That is, we must renounce any unjust privileges we enjoy. (I am reminded of Alan Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country" and how the white farmer reached out and down to the township, even though it was his son who was killed.) But we must also work to level the land, to dismantle the mountain. Not to practice return of the land to certain groups, which punishes innocent descendants, but to eliminate the legal distinctions which maintain privileges and exercise force against innocents. This can only mean elimination of the machine which generates these privileges, and exists primarily to create distinctions and privileges, the state.
Nathanael Snow
ndsnow@gmail.com
There is no one innocent. Everyone on this planet resides on piece of dirt that was fought over and people were killed over.
Pointing fingers is useless.
Dave, I too have had thoughts like yours, so I don't want you to think you are alone and the rest of Jesus Manifesto is a bunch of crazy Affirmative Action pushers. Privilege and power is about more than race--there is a certain socio-economic phenomenon that can create disenfranchised whites just as much as other groups. The color of your skin alone does not necessarily determine your place on this mountain. It's more complicated than that. Thanks for the reminder that "fault" is shared, and that scapegoats are getting old.
I just wanted Dave to know that just because he was "white," the inequality he experienced wasn't any less a result of sin and power hording than it would be for an ethnic minority. Race is a difficult issue that has to be dealt with in a sensitive manner, especially by people like myself, who is a part of the majority and privileged group more often than not. A lot of this is new to me, and I'm just now in the stage where I can monitor my reactions and inner anxiety on the topic before popping off and saying something unproductive and damaging. Right now, for instance, I'm experiencing some anxiety over the statement "it is often coming from whites that we should move beyond race and talk about class..." We would all do good to monitory our anxiety in these conversations, and admit where we are uncomfortable and where we are ignorant. I think that is a big key to any progress in this area in the Church.
I agree that there is a certain cautiousness with African Americans when issues of race are hastily pushed aside to make room for other areas of legitimate conversation, but in this case, I think a healthy attention to race will necessitate a healthy attention to class and other areas of social identity. My understanding of what is both redeeming and regrettable in black culture is informed by my social class. Even the way I tell the story of black history and culture reveals my class status in the community.
The only way you'll understand the whole of black identity and its relationship to both Christian faith and American privilege is to see how diverse those of us who hold that identity are. That is why race and class for me is not either/or but both/and.
the reason i made the point was to help those of who are white to slow up and not move to quickly through the issue of race.
Know that i am right there with you with the anxiety thing. We all have a lot of work to do around this, and part of it is facing our anxieties, like you are doing.
Let's put the language of race aside and talk generally here. We live in such a world where the sins of the fathers is visited to the following generations. The past shapes the present. We shouldn't use the past as a tool in simply casting blame or trapping people in a cycle of hopelessness. But to act as though the past doesn't shape our present is not only unhelpful, it is profoundly unbiblical.
When we come to Christ, the dividing walls fall. And we, the followers of Christ, embrace one another as brothers and sisters. But any glance around the world shows us that while our kinship is secured, it doesn't really play itself out.
We live in a world divided by all sorts of walls. I agree that you and I as white dudes shouldn't be held liable for the acts of of some other white dudes in the past. But neither can I act as though we all, each human being in the world, enters the world with a clean slate. We are all born in certain places with certain cultures and certain struggles.
If we cut off the past from our understanding of why the world sucks so bad, then I have to look at Africa and its problems and the US with its success and assume that Africans are worse people than Americans. After all, we're born with a clean slate, right? I don't think so. And I don't think that you're saying that. But what you're saying comes close.
Leaving the realm of nations for a moment, and peering into the worldwide family we call the "church," I am left with a certain number of realities:
1) Some Christians are prosperous and esteemed.
2) Other Christians are suffering and treated poorly.
3) Most of the time, these Christians don't find themselves in a place of prosperity or suffering purely by their own merit (though that certainly can play a role).
4) Those in different situations tended to have inherited their situations, for the most part.. Sure, a low-income person in North America may have to work hard to become Middle class, but even a low-income person looks like a King to the average person in Madagascar or Sri Lanka or Peru. There really isn't too much mobility for the vast majority of people in the world...especially among the bottom 50%.
5) The New Testament TENDS to promote an economics of Jubilee...where the ones with much share with the ones with little.
6) The Bible TENDS to assume this economics of Jubilee regardless of the personal culpability of the ones with much, or the righteousness of the ones with little.
What we do with these realities makes all the difference. If the knee-jerk liberal response is to want to create a class war because of these six statements, the knee-jerk conservative response is to find ways to embrace the status quo. In Christ, we should move beyond both of these in order to seek ways that we can express our shared kinship in Christ. And we should also, to the watching world, invite all people into that kinship.
I regard it as part of my "kinship in Christ" to be part of righting the wrongs. I regard it as my joyful vocation in Christ to be about redeeming the past, like the rest of creation. If we want to be judged on our own merits and not follow in the mistakes of our forebears we must remember the past. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. I've learned during my brief time in ministry that much trust is gained in the willingness to grieve with others for the wrongs of the past, whether we were the source of the pain or not. Only then can we trust one another to walk into the future, the inheritance that Christ has given us.
I totally agree with the statements made here, and don't endorse a 'I got mine, now you get your's' attitude. I think the the Church has paid a lot of lip service to the idea of justice. There has been a lot of misguided attempts at 'reconciliation. Most of it has been to appease peoples guilt for the prosperity they have horded. The 'system' isn't set up to recognize concepts such as jubilee, and I don't believe that we as Christians are to be rooted to the system. We have a responsibility to live as Christ, and that applies to the prosperous and the poor. While hoarding wealth and privilege is wrong, living in bitterness, jealousy, and resentment is as well. So to the 'rich' I say 'spread the wealth': to the poor I say don't demand it.
I had 5 people of color read your blog and they think that you need to be welcomed into a conversation with a person of color.
To quote MLK: The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand in times of challenge and controversy.
So, do you make the stand on what has been done wrong, or do you 'man up'? Do you let life pass you by, or fall to show up, because your waiting for someone to come along and...what, give you a free ride? Or do you forgive and move on? If I waited for the people who have done me wrong to come around and 'repent', I'd have never grown as a Christian.
To be honest, I think what you are saying comes off as a bit caloused.
Let me make an analogy. Let me say my grandfather killed your grandparents and then took over your farm, forcing your father and his family to make it on their own.
The farm passes to my father, and then to me. And let's assume that the farm is worth millions. Do you or your family have any claim? If so, when do we draw the line that says that descendants have no claim on any of that wealth?
Let us take it a step further. Let us say that you go to church with me. I am the farm owner. And let us say that because of the wrong done to your grandfather, your father's weakness and sin grabbed a hold of him and he became an alcoholic. And let us say that that resulted in a shitty upbringing for you to the extent that you had the deck stacked against you?
What are the obligations I have to you? Which are based upon the wrongs of the past? Which are based upon my kinship to you now as a fellow Christian in the present? Which are based upon common decency?
My hope is that this analogy will help to get some clarity on the issue. Maybe not much, but hopefully some.
Is there a place for the Bill Cosby-esque message of: "Don't stay a victim; take a hold of the situation and make it better for yourself?" Yes. There is. But that message isn't the whole story. And, I'm not trying to pick on you, but it doesn't mean a lot coming from you. Your statements tend towards justifying your views and defending yourself. Not once have you seemed to recognize anything worthwhile in anything else anyone has said in this whole conversation. That is, by definition, "knee-jerk." There is wisdom in what you say, but it isn't the full wisdom. One can realize taht there is more at play than a person's character. The Bible is chock-filled with all sorts of stories where the descendants pay for the sins of the ancestor. Nations are wiped out. Sin comes to fruit. Debts are collected.
Where is the balance between personal responsibility and a recognition that we all enter into the world with baggage that we did not choose for ourselves?
I don't feel defensive. My thoughts on this are long thought out. The acts of repentance required are of the class warfare variety, but of individuals and Christian communities making commitments to be Christlike.
I live in a nieghborhood where the average family of 3 lives on $13,000 or less a year. so these issues are not just some issue to me but they are peronal and real. It is not about us wanting a free ride but us wanting those who have to do the right thing.
And to be honest with you, as you continue to tell us to just work harder to just move on, we will move on, we will grow, we will continue to love each other and try to make ends meet. the question for those who have is where they are going to grow and start doing the right thing.
Those who have need a change of heart. Period. You can't force them to change. Same with those who are 'down and out'.
I have a friend from Mexico who is a pastor of a Church in Washington state. He taught me that spiritual well being has nothing to do with money, status, jobs...I learned to be happy (joyous even) while working in a saw mill for 'the man'. It was dirty, dangerous work with no benefits in a poor, depressed town filled with a few rich people who ran the politics of the community and were set on making sure that nobody prospered except them. If somebody wanted to open a business, they'd make it impossible to do it. If it was a good idea, they would steal it. They all went to the same church!
But Raul, who also worked at the saw mill, and an illegal immigrant to boot, invited me into his home, prayed for me when I had pneumonia and couldn't afford to go to the hospital (I was healed, by the way)...He told me in Mexico you either had faith, or people died.
I know poverty. I know oppression. I've lived on the wrong side of the tracks. I also know that pulling yourself up by your boot straps isn't the answer as well. The answer is Christ: Living Him, Breathing Him. I'm probably too simplistic for this discussion because I see Jesus as the Answer for everything.
The problem is this doesn't really account for "privilege" all of the time, especially the the privilege I was born into being white, middle-class, and American. Another problem I have is seeing where my parents fit in this. My parents worked their asses off, my dad working all the way through college to graduate, get a job, put three kids through school with another on the way, etc. etc. I am really proud of my parents for doing their best, working honestly, and sacrificing their wants to provide a "better life" for us. They innocently provided privilege for us, their kids. How do I deal with this? Does anyone else have similar issues? How do I respectfully accept their efforts while still trying to "level the field"? I'm having trouble...
There were some Bangladeshi and Indian 'teaboys' they were called; men, not boys, whose sole job was to fetch tea and refreshments for the engineers and managers.
After months of deliberately going into conversation with them, learning cricket scoring and rivalries and sub-continental geography, my father convinced one to join our family for dinner.
It was horribly awkward for the fellow. As kids, we tried to say hello and make conversation, but his English was limited and we didn't understand the invisible barriers that truly separated us.
The same went for the Sri-Lankan grandmother that we permitted to clean our house twice a week. We didn't need the cleaning, but she needed the work and preferred it to a handout. After years she became like a grandmother to us, and the relationship became close, but it took years and initially there was a strong master-servant dimension no matter what we did; even to us as kids.
Racist and classist subtext underlies our realities, whether we admit it or not. Recognizing them is one step, and beginning the walk down the mountain is the next, but expect resistance, and not always from who you expect. The status quo is the status quo for a reason, and like Israel yearning for Egypt, the uncertainty of creating a new, loving and equal 'status quo' is often more frightening and uncertain than sticking to what you know, whoever you are.
I still struggle with this constantly, but if I wasn't struggling I would be concerned.
Just a little background about myself first so you all can see the position I am coming from. I am white. But I did not grow up with everything just handed to me. I grew up eating govt. cheese and wearing 2nd hand clothing because we couldn't afford better. I never was able to attend any college to get a degree. Even community college was out of my reach. I have also spent a number of years living in a foreign country where whites (all foreigners really) were discriminated against. It was perfectly legal there to discriminate against foreigners.
Now, having said that, I want to leave the issue of race behind us. If we are christians, we should look upon each other in a Christ-like way. That means that we are simply brothers and sisters, regardless of the color of our skin. To accept anything less is wrong. I read a lot of talk in the posts here about fault and guilt. We have to remember that we all have been forgiven because Christ took our punishment. Once again, to accept anything less is wrong.
Now, we need to talk a bit about responsibility. We all have a responsibility to help each other and ease each others burdens. This is a two way street. Those who have much have a responsibility to help those who have little. But on the same token, a person who has little may also be able to ease the burdens of one who has much. We all have gifts that we are expected to use to help each other out in times of need, regardless of the position that society has put us in.
One final point... We need to be content with our position, regardless of what that position is. This may seem to be a bitter pill for some, but it is the truth. Whatever our position, be that one of prosperity or one of poverty, God has put us there for a reason. We should be content to be where God wants us to be. God has put each one of us in the place where He knows we can do the most good. To reject the position He has put us in is to reject His plan for our lives. Some who are rich will become poor. Some who are poor will become rich. God's plan for us is ever changing. We just have to remember that God blesses us all and He blesses with more than simply material and worldly possesions. Many of His greatest gifts to us have no monetary value.
There have been land reallocation policies in Africa, where the land was taken away from the white "colonists" and given back to the native tribes, which actually caused more suffering for the Africans than if there had been no "justice". The persons who received the land did not know how to make it productive which resulted in famine and economic collapse. We cannot support our current population on the agricultural practices of a pre-European era.
It seems to me that the vast majority of "ministry" to the poor gives the gospel of capitalism, or is an avenue where those who have can show how much more they have than those who have not. St Francis is a personal hero to me. He brought the message of joy in Jesus to the poor because he was poor. There wasn't any double message like "you can be happy in Jesus if you give your heart to him AND GET A JOB". I think capitalism is the way the economy works, but its not the same thing as the gospel message.
If you want your church to be culturally diverse, then you have to be pro-active about it. You have to play culturally diverse music, invite culturally diverse speakers, have culturally diverse art, be willing to periodically change the format of the service, serve culturally diverse food at church functions. Even doing all those things won't make you culturally diverse, but it opens the doors to seeing and experiencing life in a different way. It makes for a welcoming environment for those who are "different" to fit in. We all ache to belong. It is easier to belong when are differences are celebrated.
I like where your comments are going. The privileges we have can serve as gifts if we allow them to do so. The biblical story of Ester is a good example of this as well as Wilberforce. Privilege can also be a curse as well as a gift if it is a zero sum game in which someone else has to needlessly suffer or have their opportunities limited for the sake of your gain or inheritance. The Israelite prophets are continually speaking to this, and its I believe the reason behind Mark's original post.
As a Christian, I'm always weary of the ways in which political powers institute reconciliation in broken societies, often the measures regress into a series of "paybacks" I think Christians involved in development work with poor throughout the globe have to say on the one hand, we can't simply return to the pre-industrial past, but on the other hand, we can't do things as they would be done in Europe or the US. You can't xerox development or reconciliation, rather it has to be a contextual process that gives the people you work with dignity, and value in their own culture.
As for cultural diversity in the Western Church, having engaged in some of that ministry I think the first step before offering things which "appeal" to different cultural groups is to learn about their stories and ask them about their needs and desires. There is so much assumption that goes on about how to engage with or reconcile with different cultural groups. It's often based on anecdotal information from the few people we know, and then projected over the entire group. Listening, I believe is the first prescription for dealing with the Mountain of Bones.
WRT cultural diversity, the suggestions that I proposed while they might "appeal" to other cultures, I think the the biggest reason to strive for diversity isn't as much for the out reach possibilities as it is our own enrichment. (Although if they work that way, great!) We can't force relationships with other cultures, but we can prepare ourselves for those relationships by making use and exposing our selves to elements of other cultures that are easily accessible. If we start the enrichment process before developing relationships with other cultures, we have the chance to take a few of our own cultural blinders off first and rub off a few of our own cultural rough edges and insensitivities before we become blockheads in a cross-cultural relationship. We might have lost enough of our assumptions to actually have ears to hear another person's story without lots of cultural baggage that may or may not apply.
on your final point, i would respectfully encourage you to put some serious thought and meditation into the idea that God has willed / planned some to be poor/ have a position of suffering that leads to death. Viewing God as the creator of suffering and pain is a very bitter pill for me, and I don't see that in the life of Jesus.
I guess I am justing asking you to sit with the question "If God desires people to suffer and die, then what does that say about who God is?"
This question implies that suffering and dying are things that might not be consistent with God's character. I don't see anything wrong or evil with either one. I see God leading by example. Pain is not any less holy than happiness. There are times when reading the Bible when I get the opposite impression. That having pain, contemplating death, living with the dying, etc. is the means by which we become holy. I see God as desiring us to become holy. I don't associate this desire with the same kind of psychotic pleasure that some humans get from seeing others in pain. God the Father doesn't have human emotions, and God the Son was the most compassionate person there ever was. Compassionate persons don't get pleasure from other's pain. Good parents desire their children to grow up well. They understand that sometimes their children need to suffer in order to grow up properly. It may even be necessary for the parent to orchestrate such an environment. The parent knows that if the child learns an important lesson with a little bit of pain now, it can save the child having to learn the lesson later with a lot more pain later. And while any parent would like to protect their children from pain, humans seem to learn a lot quicker when there is some pain involved.
After all...James instructs us to consider trials a joy. And when the apostles were persecuted, they considered it an honor. This at least opens the door for a way of understanding suffering as potentially useful for making us holy and Christlike.
Jesus' sufferings accomplished something in service to God...and in that place we see God demonstrated in a powerfully horrific way. And later, Paul tells us that his own sufferings complete the work of Christ.
I think my problem happens when a theology of suffering is used to justify oppression...or at least tolerate oppression...among Christians.
Maria and Mark also make good points.
I also want to express a semantic preference for contentment "in" suffering rather than "with" it. To add my own experience to the mix, of all people I know with little or no economic means, in my family, the US, and globally, few would describe themselves as content with having so little. They are not content with being unable to properly feed and nourish their households. They worry, and necessarily so, about their future or that of their children if they have them. The ability to have joy in such dire straits is only I think part of the resiliency of the human spirit as a gift given of the Holy Spirit. Also, so many people in poverty have a stoic quality to them that masks pains, worries and concerns that they are often relunctant to share with outsiders. All this being said, I think its difficult to make a direct correlation between poverty and contentment or to pinpoint what human beings should feel about their particular distress. What is worth seriously considering, I believe, is how I am either helping, neglecting or hurting their situation as an ambassador of Christ.