Black History Month Is Almost Over. Now We Can Return to White History Year

Last updated on: January 4, 2017 at 10:49 am by Paul Louis Metzger

Black History Month Is Almost Over. Now We Can Return to White History Year 2017-01-04T10:49:47-08:00 Paul Louis Metzger

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Creative Commons

A White friend of mine from Oregon met with African American civil rights leader Tom Skinner years ago in Washington, D.C. During their conversation, Mr. Skinner asserted that my friend was a racist. His response, “Tom, how can I be a racist? I don’t even know any Black people!” As he recalls it now, my friend chuckles. He realizes how foolish his response sounded: just because we who are White might not know any Black people or have not consciously engaged in racist activity, still we may be racist. Moreover, Washington D.C., where my friend lived, was 80% African American at the time. How could he not know any African Americans, as Tom Skinner asked? And for what it’s worth, one could make a case that historically Oregon (where my friend is from) was by and large intentionally White for quite some time. That encounter impacted my friend. In addition to meeting regularly with Tom Skinner at that time, he now meets regularly with a very diverse group of friends of diverse backgrounds, several of them African American. He understands how important it is to cultivate diverse relations. One must be intentional to expand one’s exposure to ethnic diversity through diverse friendships, or one will reinforce pre-conceived cultural barriers.

Our concerns over what is most important may also reflect racial convictions. Take for example a talk I heard last year on bioethics. The large Evangelical audience was largely White, as was the speaker. The waiters and waitresses at the dinner gathering were mostly African American. The speaker gave a talk about the current state of bioethics. As I recall, the two most pressing issues for him were the state of the human unborn and end of life care, specifically abortion and euthanasia. He received a rousing ovation from his audience. But I wondered: what kind of ovation might the African American waiters and waitresses have given him if they had been listening, and were offered an opportunity to respond? In reflecting on his talk with others later, including an African American friend, they felt that his concerns were far too narrow.[1]

While I agree that the two issues highlighted are pressing ones, the speaker’s chosen emphases also reflect long-standing White Evangelical convictions. It was as if I were set back in time to the 1970’s with Roe vs. Wade. Certainly, in our increasingly commodifying society, human dignity is increasingly up for grabs: those who don’t benefit the market and consumer happiness (including certain unborn and elderly) are easily discarded. But going back to the 1770’s, Black people’s dignity was always up for grabs to the highest bidder on the slave block. We still have not accounted well for many pressing ethical issues that affect them, including the ethical disparities in health care, as well as education, employment, and income disparities, among other things. Take for example the Pew Research Center’s recent study on race relations in the U.S. The wealth gap between Whites and Blacks increased since the Great Recession. Wealth disparities, which are often connected to long-standing structural inequities, affect health care for African Americans, as do other factors.

Black History Month is almost over (also known as African American History Month), but the historic divisions and disparities are not. As we return to White History Year, White people like me need to be intentionally White. In other words, we need to be attentive to how White we are culturally so that we can become more sensitive to our ethnic and racial blindness.

Here are three simple ways we can grow as White people in our awareness of how White we are, perhaps even intentionally White we are. First, intentionally cultivate friendships with people of African American descent, as my friend from Oregon noted at the outset of the post has done. Second, ask our friends of African American descent open questions, such as why they view matters the way they do rather than challenge them at every turn to defend their positions. While there is not a one-size fits all view among African Americans, we who are White may find that what African Americans prize as important may differ at key points because of life experiences, and which can reflect our own cultural blindness to White privilege. Sometimes we simply need to sit with their answers rather than defend ourselves for our own positions. Third, we also need to read broadly, including authors of African American descent, on such subjects of sociology (Christena Cleveland, Disunity in Christ, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith, Divided by Faith), law (Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow), applied ethics (Mae Elise Cannon, Lisa Sharon Harper, Troy Jackson, Soong-Chan Rah, Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith, John M. Perkins, Let Justice Roll Down), history (Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley C. Harrold, African Americans: A Concise History 5th ed.), literature (Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man), and theology (James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, J. Kameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account). This cannot end with Black History Month.

________________________

[1] See for example: http://practicalbioethics.org/files/members/documents/Calloway_11_2.pdf;

http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/african-american-bioethics;

http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2tt5n2;

http://academic.udayton.edu/health/05bioethics/slavery05.htm;

http://www.bioethics.com/archives/31798;

http://youtu.be/ZHU6sjhIzxQ.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

February 25, 2016

What Keeps You Going? Reflections on “Eddie the Eagle”—A Film for Life

Next Post

February 28, 2016 Malala's Inspiring Story: Bold as a Lion in Her Pursuit of Knowledge

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month June 2025 April 2025 March 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz