PLAGIARISM FREE "A" WORK

7

Sin Nature and European Americans

The sins of both majority and minority group members contribute to

our society’s racial conflicts, but that does not mean both groups have

identical roles in the solution. The mutual responsibility model recog-

nizes that the temptations of sin for majority group members are natu-

rally different from the temptations of sin for racial minorities.

This may be the chapter I am least equipped to write. It is tricky for

me as a person of color to write about the sins of European Americans.

I am mindful of Jesus’ admonition to make sure I take the plank out of

my own eye before I look for the speck in someone else’s eye (Matthew

7:5). But regardless of my qualifications, this chapter must be written.

Too often in history the responsibility for racial harmony has been

placed solely on the shoulders of people of color. We will not have racial

harmony until both majority and minority group members accept and

carry out their unique responsibilities.

HISTORICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

People of color and majority group members understand racism in con-

trasting ways. As I pointed out in the first chapter, European Americans

tend to understand racism as something that an individual does to an-

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other person. People of color have a more structuralist view of racism.1

Because of their individualist view of racism, majority group members

tend to dismiss the structuralist view, which leads them to conclude that

racial issues are overblown. To overcome the barrier of ignorance, we

must look at how historical and institutional racism continues to affect

the lives of people of color.

It is not my purpose to look at all the ways in which racism has man-

ifested itself in American history. I will assume that the reader has a gen-

eral understanding of United States history and is aware of the ways in

which people of color have been oppressed in our past, such as slavery,

genocide, internment centers, reservations and economic exploitation.

Instead of going into a recitation of the historic sins of racism, I want to

concentrate on how those sins impact our society today.

Often I hear whites say that they should not be blamed for the injus-

tices of the past. They personally never owned slaves, killed Indians,

stole land from Hispanics or put Asians in internment centers.2 They are

quite right, but their assertions miss the bigger picture. While these ma-

jority group members did not directly participate in past racial sins, they

have benefited from those sins. They enjoy their present economic

standing partly because their ancestors were spared from racial discrim-

ination. That fact raises a moral question for majority group Christians.

Should Christians accept wealth that was stolen, even if they did not do

the stealing?

STEALING INDIAN LAND

To illustrate how the racial oppression of previous generations has ben-

efited European Americans, we can look at the fate of Native Americans.

When Europeans arrived in North America, Indians owned all the land.3

After the colonies were established, a process began which transferred

ownership of the land from the native peoples to those in the dominant

culture. The process was far from equitable. It included war, murder,

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90 B E Y O N D R A C I A L G R I D L O C K

threats, lies and other horrendous sins.4 Because of these sins, this land

became available to non-Indians at a relatively cheap price. It was cheap

because the price was not negotiated fairly. The land was usually taken

at the point of a gun. Down through our history the land was passed

from one person to another until it became available to today’s home-

owners. Anyone who owns a home in the United States today and is not

an Indian has benefited from the oppression of Native Americans.5 I do

not make that statement to induce guilt, but it is a reality that we have

to face.

To a lesser degree we can also argue that majority group members

have benefited from the historic enslavement of African Americans, the

underpaid labor of Hispanic Americans and the economic oppression of

Asian Americans. The continuing benefits do not depend on overt rac-

ism or whether European Americans have personal racial animosity. Our

country’s racist past continues to poison our culture and our economy.

People of color are generally aware of this poison. They are legitimately

upset when majority group members argue that they are innocent of any

historic wrongdoing, without acknowledging that they benefit from past

wrongdoings.

THE EFFECTS OF WHITE FLIGHT

If racism in history was all we had to deal with, it would be enough to

create enormous barriers between majority group members and racial

minorities. However, racism is not limited to overt personal bias or the

effects of historic events. Racism is also manifested in the way we shape

our current institutions.

The ways that social structures and institutions systematically work

against the interest of people of color is called institutional racism. Insti-

tutional racism and historic racism are not unrelated concepts. Historic

racism is the primary way institutional racism forms, especially in a so-

ciety that rejects overt racism. Institutional racism based on historically

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S i n N a t u re a n d E u ro p e a n A m e r i c a n s 91

racist social structures is allowed to persist because it does not appear to

directly discriminate against people of color. However, social structures

have great power to shape the lives of minorities.

For example, in 1937 the United States government set up the Federal

Housing Administration Loan Program. It was designed to help working-

class people buy their own homes. The government would guarantee the

loan and lower the interest rate. The program made home ownership

possible for people who had no other means of buying a home.

However, policy makers had a major concern. African Americans

would also be able to purchase homes at a lower rate. Cheaper home

loans created the possibility of integrated residential areas, since working-

class blacks could purchase homes in the same area as working-class

whites. The thought of racially integrated neighborhoods was trouble-

some in a society which still feared interracial friendships and mar-

riages.6 Segregated neighborhoods were seen as necessary to insure that

interracial friendships and romantic involvements did not develop. To

prevent the FHA program from being used to create multiracial neigh-

borhoods, loans were not given to blacks if they were going to use those

loans to integrate a neighborhood. As a result, white working-class fam-

ilies were able to leave the decaying inner cities and purchase homes in

the more prosperous suburbs. Since whites heavily populated the sub-

urbs, blacks were not able to use the program to escape the economic

devastation of their inner-city communities. The program helped facili-

tate the process sociologists call white flight from poor inner city neigh-

borhoods. If you can identify white, black, Latino or Asian neighbor-

hoods in your city, you can see the results of white flight.

White flight is important not just because it reduces the possibility of

interracial interaction between whites and blacks. It is also important be-

cause many of the majority group’s resources fled with them when they

left the communities of color. Trips into the predominantly black under-

class sections of our larger cities will testify to this fact. Most of these

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areas have very little industry and few major stores. There are few jobs

for those who live in these areas, unless they have the money to own a

car to drive into the predominantly white areas. Of course the difficulty

of a young black lower-class male getting a job in a predominantly white

suburb is another problem altogether. Poor whites who live in the sub-

urbs have more access to resources than racial minorities living in poor

ghettos and barrios. In this way we can see that poverty is at least par-

tially affected by racial segregation.

Today any black who qualifies for the FHA program can purchase a

house in any neighborhood that he or she can afford. But the effect of

earlier racism still shows in the housing patterns we see today. Further-

more, the historic effects create contemporary expectations which main-

tain residential segregation. The perception of blacks living in crime-

filled neighborhoods with poor schools still exists to discourage whites

from living among blacks.

I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. More people of color than

whites live in the city of Dallas and in the city of Fort Worth. But they

are more likely to live in poorer inner-city areas while whites live in the

more affluent suburbs. Dallas and Fort Worth are not anomalies. In ev-

ery large city where I have lived, minority areas of town contrast with

more affluent suburbs.7 Even if enough affluent blacks move into a pre-

dominantly white neighborhood, we know that whites will move away

and perpetuate residential segregation.8 It is not just whites’ historic rac-

ism that disadvantages people of color, it is their contemporary reluc-

tance to have neighbors of color. Racial residential segregation is as

American as apple pie.

If residential segregation is only about people living with their own

kind, why should Christians care about it? The problem is that the eco-

nomic gap between whites and blacks can partly be attributed to resi-

dential segregation. Residential segregation has been called the “linch-

pin of American race relations.”9 It is the means by which the

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disadvantages of racial minorities remain embedded in society.

Allow me to demonstrate one way in which residential segregation

works against the interests of people of color. Education is one of the

most important ways in which Americans prepare themselves for eco-

nomic success. The quality of schools is very important, and the degree

to which schools are financed is also important. The more funds a school

receives, the more resources administrators and teachers will enjoy.

Residential segregation influences school financing because most

school districts rely heavily on property taxes. If the homes in a school

district have a high economic value, then the schools in that district are

likely to receive the money they need. If the homes are not worth a great

deal of money, then the schools will struggle to find adequate resources.

Because of white flight, money has fled the minority communities. In-

dustry and social services are less likely to be located in the inner city

than in the more prosperous white suburbs. Homes in inner-city neigh-

borhoods are less likely to hold their value. In order for property taxes

to adequately fund the schools, poorer homes must be assessed at a

higher tax rate.10 The higher tax rate is laid on the very people who can

least afford it. The result is that schools in poorer neighborhoods fail to

get the funding they need to do an adequate job of educating children.11

Notice that the educational funding system, not individuals them-

selves, discriminates against people of color. To my knowledge there is no

group of whites sitting in some smoke-filled room trying to figure out how

to keep people of color from going to better schools. Fifty years ago we

would have seen that type of racism. Today’s racial discrimination is more

institutional and less individual, but the effects are equally devastating.

Are we to believe that none of the gap in academic scores between

whites and nonwhites is due to the educational segregation of our chil-

dren, when whites are able to send their children to better-funded

schools? Is it not clear that at least part of the reason why people of color

do not reach the economic level of whites is that they receive an inferior

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education? Institutional discrimination can be just as debilitating as

personal racism and just as protective of the social status of majority

group members.

There are entire books that address institutional racism in areas such

as residential segregation,12 wealth13 and crime.14 I have only scratched

the surface of how institutional discrimination impacts the lives of peo-

ple of color.

CORPORATE REPENTANCE

We can see from all the evidence that institutional racism is sin. Although

it is not a sin that we link to a particular person, its detrimental effects are

still sinful. In racism we see the central problem that Christ came down

to earth to confront. That is the problem of sin. Sin corrupted our rela-

tionship with God, and something had to be done to restore the relation-

ship. There was a price to be paid, and Christ paid it for us.

Whether sin is due to our own individual actions or whether it is due

to social structures, we must treat sin seriously. Secular philosophies

downplay the importance of sin. They have lost the opportunity to pro-

vide a complete solution to racism. If our Christian faith is going to offer

us a unique answer to the problem of racism, then we have to look to

that faith.

Our Christian faith says that salvation comes from a process of repen-

tance of sin and receiving forgiveness from Christ.15 The same pattern of

repentance and forgiveness that restores us to a right relationship with

God also offers ways to heal our fallen race relations. In an effort to pro-

mote such healing, some Christians have developed the controversial

call of corporate repentance by majority group members.16

Worldly philosophy would say that rather than repenting and dwell-

ing on the past, we should look to make ourselves better in the future.

But such a philosophy underestimates sin’s power to continue to poison

our society. We must take proactive steps to deal with sin. One of the

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most important proactive steps that Christians can take is to repent of

their sins.

Here is the controversy of corporate repentance. White Christians

logically ask, “What am I to repent of?” They will point out that they do

not share the racism of their ancestors. They will insist that race is not

an issue when they seek a friend or colleague. They will argue that they

should not be held accountable for slavery, murder and oppression of

minority peoples. Their responses are reasonable for those who see sin

as only individualistic; but sin is not limited to individualistic actions.

The Bible tells us that the Lord confronted the actions of Israelite society

(Ezra 9; Amos 2:6-16; Malachi 1:6—3:15). Both Nehemiah (Nehemiah

1:6-7) and Daniel (Daniel 9:5-6) confessed not only their own personal

sins but the sins of their ancestors. Their confessions show us that sin is

not only individualistic but corporate as well.

Corporate repentance is not about whites repenting for their own per-

sonal failings, although some may need to do that. It is about sorrow for

the historic and contemporary mistreatment of people of color. Its goal is

that European Americans will be grieved to realize that they benefit from

racism even though they are not racist themselves, and they will seek to

understand more of the plight of people of color because they want to end

the pain of racism. They will begin to understand how their racial atti-

tudes are not so benign as they thought and may contribute to the main-

tenance of the racial status quo. From such new awareness, whites will

act on behalf of racial minorities.17 Bringing reconciliation will become

more important than protecting their own racial and social position.

European Americans may see the call to corporate repentance as a mi-

nority attempt to get whites to grovel before people of color. In fact racial

minorities do commit sins which justify this concern, and in the next

chapter I will address some of those sins. However, majority group

members must understand the fears of people of color. We fear that

whites are not really interested in creating a fair society. We fear that

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whites want to talk about lofty concepts to distract us from the fact that

society works so well for their benefit. All the talk of colorblindness and

fairness can serve to mask the fact that these whites are unwilling to do

anything to deal with institutional racism. In fact, concepts of colorblind

racism are becoming popular in academic circles.18 Such concerns are

central to whether we can ever have racial reconciliation.

Miroslav Volf points out that peace is not the mere absence of conflict

but real communion between the former combatants.19 We will never

get such communion if we ignore the rightful concerns of those who

have been abused. Instead we will get the false peace we have today. It

takes only one murder, one trial, one police shooting, one immigrant

caught in a crime to destroy the false peace and bring the poison of racial

conflict back to the surface. People of color are rightfully concerned that

majority group members are satisfied with false peace.

This is why the Christian concept of corporate repentance is so im-

portant. Christians recognize that sin must be acknowledged and con-

fronted before we can experience true racial reconciliation. White Chris-

tians who engage in corporate repentance acknowledge and confront the

lingering effects of racial sin. They may not agree with Christians of color

on political issues such as affirmative action and the role of government,

but they are not likely to dismiss our concerns with a platitude such as

“I never owned any slaves.” Instead they will have a repentant attitude

which compels them to listen to our concerns. They will act on those

concerns even if the action is costly. Because they recognize the corpo-

rate nature of racism, they will be eager to work with us to end institu-

tional racism. Majority group corporate repentance is an important part

of the mutual responsibility model.

My wife, Sherelyn, is a white woman who has developed an attitude of

corporate repentance. The attitude has served her well as she has devel-

oped interracial friendships and has participated in racial healing. For ex-

ample, we were attending a Native American festival, and she went to the

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food stand to get something to eat. Behind the booth was a Native Amer-

ican man who was a war veteran. After striking up a conversation, she

told him of a time she attended a Nez Perce powwow where she saw a

warrior dance in honor of the United States flag.20 The sight brought tears

to her eyes because she knows enough of Indian history to know how

much damage has been done under the banner of the Stars and Stripes.

Yet the Nez Perce nation and that veteran at the festival had risked their

lives for the country that had mistreated them. They had not even been

thanked for such service. The heart of this American Indian was clearly

touched. He told her, “Well, someone has thanked us now.”

I do not know if that Native American veteran was a Christian. If

Sherelyn had met him in a Christian context, the two of them could

have explored the spiritual dimensions of his healing and her repen-

tance. Their exploration would have made it easier for them to work to-

gether to heal the racial barriers that remain in the body of Christ.

Sherelyn did not have to agree with the man on all racial issues, but her

respect for his history and service opened up a conversation that en-

hanced racial understanding.

Sherelyn does not stop at feeling sorry for people of color. She

seeks to place herself in the company of people of color so that she

can learn from them, and then she can act to meet their needs. Her

concern for their issues has positive consequences. For example,

when a Mexican worker was injured near our property, she did not

just respond as a registered nurse to his physical needs, but she was

also aware of his concerns about his immigration status. She followed

up with a phone call and a visit to make sure his hospital bills would

be paid by his employer, and she was ready to fight against any threat

of deportation. His gratitude was such that after he was released from

the hospital, he came to our home to bring her a dozen roses and to

personally thank her. Her attitude and actions demonstrating corpo-

rate repentance make her a first-rate racial reconciler.21

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Unfortunately Sherelyn tends to be the exception and not the rule. If

more whites lived their lives as she does, then more people of color

would know that their perspectives would be heard and respected by

majority group members. They would be more willing to seek partner-

ship with whites in relationships that can lead to reconciliation. How-

ever, most majority group members show only a passing interest in racial

concerns. There is evidence that white Christians are less likely than

other whites to show interest in the concerns of people of color.22 It is

no wonder that Christians of color have a difficult time trusting white

believers. A critical mass of majority group Christians must begin to ex-

plore how they can develop the attitude of corporate repentance. Then

it will be safe for racial minorities to express their fears. Only then will

we see the large-scale dialogue among believers of different races that

will make a difference for all of us who desire racial harmony.

DO WE HAVE A BRIGHT FUTURE?

In this chapter I have explored our racial history and contemporary in-

stitutional discrimination. But just as it is a mistake to ignore our past,

it is a mistake to focus too much on that past. The mutual responsibility

model balances concerns about past sins with the need for healing in

future relationships. We must think about what sort of racial future we

want in our churches and in our society so that we can move toward

that future.

Many white Christians envision a colorblind future. While color-

blindness is laudable in theory, it is unrealistic at this time in our country.

We must seek a church where no single racial group is dominant, but

where all racial groups work together to provide the church with their

own unique talents and gifts. The Bible talks about the members of the

church as members of the body with different skills to share with each

other (1 Corinthians 12:27-30). In the same way, we must seek out how

to share our unique abilities with each other as we overcome racial alien-

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ation and tension. I contend that this vision, in which we celebrate and

welcome our racially based cultural differences, rather than the color-

blind dream, is closer to what God wants for us.

If white Christians want to be part of the solution to our society’s ra-

cial problems, they must realize that their perceptions about racial issues

are not the only accurate ones. Majority group members must humbly

seek to learn about racial minorities and why we feel the way we do.

They have to be ruthlessly honest about how they have gained and con-

tinue to gain from the racial status quo. They have to deal with the sticky

question of whether and how they may need to give back some of their

unearned racial advantages. Finally, they have to face the concept of cor-

porate repentance.

As I stated earlier, whites and nonwhites do not have identical respon-

sibilities in the mutual responsibility model. Racial minorities have a dif-

ferent but just as important role to play. We have our own tasks, which

are no less challenging than the duties of the majority. Any solution to

racism that does not include the proactive actions of people of color is

incomplete. Such a solution only encourages racial arrogance and pride

on the part of racial minorities, even as it disempowers them from par-

ticipating in solutions to racial problems. In the following chapter I will

try to flesh out the distinct responsibilities of racial minorities.

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