"BABY STEPS ARE BIG STEPS"

“BABY STEPS ARE BIG STEPS”

            As I write this, I’m preparing to down in a while to “Listen Up” studios in East Atlanta to participate in my first audio book recording.  Our publisher wants our book to be on audio also, so a new adventure for me!

            In response to last week’s blog on 400 years of slavery, several people responded that they wanted to have more specific knowledge on how to engage white people on this issue.  Using the model of treatment of addiction, I have developed a list of seven steps for those of us classified as “white.”  Those steps are recognition, repentance, resistance, resilience, reparations, reconciliation, and recovery.  I discuss those extensively in the forthcoming book that Dr. Catherine Meeks and wrote, entitled “Passionate for Justice:  Ida B. Wells as Prophet For Our Time.”  It will be released on September 17, so be sure to get your copy from Church Publishing Group, from me, from your local bookstore, or from Amazon.  If you want  more information on these seven steps and their ramifications for us, get the book!

            For the short term, I want to list four ways that those of us classified as “white” can work to mitigate the power of race in our lives and in the life of the world.  These are baby steps, but they are big and important steps.  First, those of us classified as ”white” must admit to ourselves and to others that we are immersed in and addicted to the system of race.   I use the awkward phrase “classified as white” as a way of noting that race is a social and political construct – it is not based in biology or genetics or even in culture.  I also use the term “system of race” to indicate that racial classification is indeed a system, a system designed and evolved over the years, whose main purpose is not to classify the diversity of the human family but rather to assert that “white” people are qualitatively different from and superior to all other racial categories.  All of us who are white carry this system in us to one degree or another – there are no exceptions.  Some of us have recognized this captivity and are seeking liberation, but like any addiction, we always carry it with us. 

            Second, recognizing our addiction, we must always be placing ourselves in places and positions where our addiction is recognized and where we are encouraged to seek some liberation from it.   Our former church, Oakhurst Presbyterian, has a RED (Race, Ethnicity and Diversity) Group which regularly has forums and discussions related to issues of race and white supremacy.  Here people of different racial classifications come together to listen and to talk about the power of race in their lives.  Perhaps your church or synagogue or mosque has such a group – if not, get one started!

            Third, make it your business to encounter and engage other white people who have not yet discerned the power of race in their lives.  This is perhaps the hardest step of all of these four, because it requires us to go outside our comfort zone and offer life giving possibilities to others.  The problem, of course, is that often the other folk will see our intervention not as life-giving but rather as life-threatening.  We are in a dangerous time now, though, and our future may depend on our being willing to engage other white people about the power of race.  Since all of us are captured by its power to one degree or another, we will have many opportunities.  For those of us classified as “white,” it seems that it is more important to avoid being cast as racist than it is to actually participate in racism. 

            Fourth,  make it your business to find ten people of any racial category and ascertain if they are registered to vote.  If not, please help them to get registered and ready to vote in the next election, especially the one in 2020.  If Donald Trump is re-elected in 2020, we will be in dire straits as a country, and these steps may be moot.  So, don’t delay – get going on this registration.  If you don’t know how to register folk, check with your county election commission or contact the League of Women Voters.  And, keep your eyes and ears open for the work of folk to suppress the vote – this is a continuing and powerful issue!