Truth Telling

About two years ago, I was living in South Alabama working for an Episcopal Camp and Conference Center. One of my very best friends came to visit me while I was living there and was excited about doing some fishing in the estuary, Weeks Bay that the camp rests upon. My friend that I speak of is a Korean man, who grew up in Tennessee, but his parents grew up in North and South Korea. He is familiar with the social climate in our country and the south in particular. My friend and his family grew up experiencing the effects of racism in Memphis, Tennessee. While he was visiting, he made plans with one of my coworkers at the camp to meet one morning before sunrise to do a little trout fishing. He lives in a big city and works a high stress job so for him the idea of watching the sunrise on the end of a pier in south Alabama in the crisp fall air sounded like a dream. So, on the way from my house to the camp, he stopped at a gas station to grab some breakfast. As he perused the selection of high calorie options waiting under the heat lamp, he politely asked the gas station employee a question about the menu. The employee responded, “You and your people need to leave our country.” My friend responded with a choice of words that are not appropriate for sharing in this context.

When he shared with me what happened, I was overcome with emotion. Initially I was enraged, I wanted to take action, to hop into my car and drive to the gas station. My friend begged me not to go, he was concerned about my safety if I were to walk in and confront the employee in the state of mind that I was in. From that point on I have never supported that business again. I happened to run into the oil representative for that particular gas station and mentioned something to her about it. I may have also shared the interaction with some of my closest friends who then also did not support that business. All of my efforts to bring down this gas station were futile and more importantly the man that made the hateful racial comment to my friend probably still goes to bed at night with the same disdain for persons of the Asian race. After being overcome with anger to the man that degraded my friend in this way, I then felt deeply sad that he was made to feel this way. Just thinking about the pain that experiences similar to this one cause him made my insides turn and I soon felt angry again. I blamed myself for not going with him, for not being there to protect him. Why did I think that the presence of my whiteness would negotiate the hatred in the atmosphere? I felt responsible for bringing him into that social atmosphere. I know that he will never forget the words that were said to him that day, the words that have already been spoken and not yet spoken; that hatred may be what he feels when someone asks him about the time that he spent with me in south Alabama. In “Notes of a Native Son,” James Baldwin wrote, “The man does not remember the hand that struck him, the darkness that frightened him, as a child; nevertheless, the hand and the darkness remain with him, indivisible from himself forever, part of the passion that drives him whenever he thinks to take flight.” (30)

 This personal story and reflection on relationship and experience in my life is important because it is the closest to racism and oppression that I have ever been. My friend that I speak about is not African American but he lived and lives through similar experiences of oppression and hatred that surround him every day. He is the first of my closest friends, which I watched struggle because of his race and because of the way people did and did not treat him in the world around him. Suffering becomes more real when you love and walk next to the person that is despaired and clinging to any glimpse of hope. My friend used to always say that what he loved about me and part of what brought us to be so close was the fact that when I meet a person of any race and gender that I usually assume there is going to be a goodness about the person and I have a hope that I will be able to see God’s presence within each person. He shared with me that he meets a new person and he assumes that that person is going to let him down or disappoint him in some way and until proven otherwise he would rather not be bothered by making polite conversation with a stranger that will just prove to him that his minimal efforts have been a waste of his time. He assumes that he cannot trust most and that everyone at some point will let him down. Very much so similar to the story that James Baldwin tells of his experience in the restaurant when the waitress would not serve him, my friend at some point realized that his real life, was in danger, and not from anything other people might do but from the hatred in his own heart. (99)

After spending time in our African American Social Ethics course work, listening to the dialogue in our class and reading the weekly text assignments; I am in the beginning stages of identifying that my friend is who he is because of the circumstances that he has been born into. “The conundrum of color is the inheritance of every American be he/she legally or actually Black or White.”(xx) I catch myself being much more aware of the color line. In a guest lecture series, I attended here at Vanderbilt the Theologian projected the image of a white Christ on the big screen in Benton Chapel and it made me aware of the African Americans, Latinos and Asians that were sitting in the pews as guests and I felt the tension but this time I was participating in it. I was aware of the presence of the black mechanics quietly laboring for their low-income wages underneath the cars at my mechanic’s garage when I dropped my car off this week, they seemed surprised when I greeted them. I noticed that there was only one African American woman on my church retreat over the weekend. At the after school program that I work at, the community of children are all African American and it is very seldom that within a whole library of books I find a book with black characters. Growing up, my best friend’s white family, attended a black church for worship on Sundays and on many occasions I got to go with them; I have recently found myself wondering what the people in that congregation really thought of their white family making themselves welcome in their congregation. I worked for a church here in Nashville a few years ago and became good friends with two of my African American coworkers. I only recall seeing them once at a parishioner’s home for a gathering outside of the church but each year when it came time for the youth group to have its open mic fundraiser, my black coworkers were always begged to sing and dance at the event. They were honored for the work they did for the church and as a resource.

The author, James Baldwin, in “Notes of a Native Son,” writes, “Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanization.”(26) The reality is that raw truth will never survive in a society or a relationship in which an entire race of people are struggling for identity. The oppressors that have determined this struggle themselves and in their role will never be whole either. I do believe that there is hope. I’m not saying that the gradual change in my perspective, presence and new awareness are making me a better person or that I will never contribute to being a part of the problem as the white race or that my efforts will end racism but I do think that through my experience there is hope. A hope that I will share with others, that could change the way that I see and interact with African American persons for the rest of my life. There has to be some kind of hope in changing the way that people think. But once we begin to make an effort to control our thoughts, then God’s love rushes in.

 

I would like to spend time learning about how to daily live into reconciliation? How do I make sure not to treat African Americans people as a resource? How do I respond to something that I have contributed to? Through this text, there is an acknowledgment that it would be pretty much impossible to change our society’s social climate. I can start by changing the way that I think about and see people. I can share with friends and family my new perspective of thinking and learning about African American people. It’s hard not to want to say, “Just tell me what I need to do.” Maybe this is my white guilt speaking? If I have been part of a community of life that does not acknowledge racism as a problem, then I need to take the steps to identify this, claim the injustices that I have been a part of or silently condoned.  I know that I will need help in identifying experiences in the past that have been a part of this unjust social atmosphere. I acknowledge that I cannot do it on my own because my perspective of the world and life is seen through the context of a white lens and beating heart that is housed in a body protected by a white exterior.

 
Bibliography:

Baldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son. Boston: Beacon Press, 2012.