Rant on Racism

Where to even begin. The idea of racism was something was taught in middle school history class when we talked about the Civil War. We learned about slavery and how people would be abducted or sold by people in Africa and then shipped to the US like cargo only to be sold to the highest bidder. It always puzzled me how anyone could ever do this. How could you look at another person and think that you could buy and sell them? How could you look at someone and think that they are beneath you? How can someone simply see someone of different race and think, “they don’t deserve anything more than being beaten and forced to work for no pay”? That was what I had learned of racism.

However now when I look at the subject I realize it is so much bigger than the things I learned in school. Whether or not you are looking for it, we see black people being abused by cops, government, and really by basically every kind of person. We as white people often decide to look at other issues and justify our lack of response with those. We cite black on black violence, problems in the black community, and so on and so forth. Do some of those problems exist? Absolutely. Every community whether white, black, hispanic, asian, or any other race have issues. However what we are seeing today cannot be justified by saying there are other issues. In all honesty that never justifies things like what is happening right now. Black men are being put to death on the streets by cops and self righteous “vigilantes”. In other words they are being killed by racists. Not every cop is a racist, but the ones like the man who killed George Floyd and those who stood around a watched are. The police force needs to be held accountable. Our government officials who deal lightly with those people need to be held accountable.

I whole heartedly believe that all men are created equal and that all men are created in the image of God. Not everyone is born with equal opportunity but each and every one is of equal worth. It is up to those who are born into better opportunities to help those in lesser opportune circumstances. Before anyone tells me that people just need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, remember that Christ, through Paul, tells us to look out for the needs of others before our own. In general people should help one another instead of harm. For us Christians we are directly commanded by God to do so.

I want to make a move to a slightly different subject. I want to discuss our internalized racism. This is something I and I honestly believe everyone struggles with no matter of your race. We make snap judgments of people as soon as we see them. This can range from judging someone by how they’re dressed all the way to judging by their skin tone. I will be the first to admit that I do this. I will look at a group of black guys and immediately my head says to stay away and that they may cause trouble. Of course this is an absolutely untrue statement and very racist. Why do I initially have that thought? Because it’s bred into me. It’s a mixture of the influence media has on me as well as the surroundings I grew up in. My family is not racist, I know they would do anything to help anyone. I’ve seen them do it time and time again. However being raised in the south does have its complications. There are stereotypes that get put into you whether you like them or not. Just because someone has that impulse are they racist? No. We all have impulses from time to time about lots of things that are not right. It is how we deal with those impulses that determine what kind of person we are.

Like I said earlier, when I have that impulse about a group of black guys I have to tell myself that what I first thought was incorrect and I should be looking at them through the world view lens of Christ. How I respond to the thought is what defines who I am as a person, and also how my life is growing closer to or falling away from Christ. If you have those urges and impulses, remember to give thought to your words and actions. By reacting immediately and giving no thought to your actions you are far more likely to make decisions that are biased and unfair. The group of black guys did absolutely nothing to warrant any judgment of me and therefore I have to make the decision to straighten out my thoughts and act accordingly.

To my black brother and sisters and all those who have felt the weight of racism, I am sorry. I have made mistakes in my past that did not help your cause and for that I apologize. I promise to do my best to stand up for you and to help in any way that I can. While there are things happening that I don’t approve of, I cannot use those things to justify any inaction. We are seeing that racism is not some thing that only lives in the history books, but it is something that is being performed today and is causing the suffering and even death of men and women who are created in the image of God. I cannot stand by the side simply hoping things get better. I have to help things get better. We can do so much better.