Kate Motaung is one of those friends I’ve never actually seen in real life. We share a lot of the same passions and convictions about things in this world of ours, and I love cheering her on. She asked if she could share her Going There story and, naturally, I agreed. This is a repost of an important post that first appeared over at Kate’s blog, and I’m quite pleased to share her words here with you today.
“I married a black man.”
As his aunts would say, I have caramel kids. I don’t have to go further than my kitchen table to experience diversity, and yet I still have racial biases. Just because I have a multicultural family doesn’t mean I get a pass from the diversity conversation. Sometimes skin color is not the first thing I notice.
During my ten years in South Africa, I could sit for over forty minutes in a room full of people before suddenly realizing I was the only pale face there. I often don’t realize the color of my own kids’ skin until we’re at the beach and I’m nearly blinded by the paleness of other children running around in their diapers, and I think, “Wow, those kids are really white.”
Other times, I see it right away.
Like now, when we’re living in a predominantly white suburb of Michigan, and a black person rides past on a bicycle, and I think, “Oh look!” because it’s such a rarity here. When I’m in the grocery store with my kids, I wonder if the people looking at us assume that my kids are adopted.
Because don’t I presume the same, when I see a white woman with children of darker shades? And maybe they are adopted, and maybe they’re not, and does it even matter? Because aren’t we all made in the image of our Creator, all just lost souls that desperately need to be adopted into the only family that really matters, the body of Christ? My kids often get invited to play dates with adopted children, so the mocha kids in otherwise all-pale families will see faces that look more like their own. And I wonder about that sometimes, like, “Does it really matter?” But maybe it does. Maybe it matters a whole lot more than I will ever know. Because while skin color really doesn’t matter to me, it does matter to many, and they matter to me. And most importantly, they matter to Him.
But also, maybe if we all just checked the tags in our shirts, we’d realize we were all made in the same Place. Different shades of the same fabric, a rainbow of material woven by the same Person. Why don’t our books and our churches reflect that? Why don’t the faces gathered around our tables, both online and in real life, look more like the table we’re anticipating at the wedding feast of the Lamb?
There were times when I’d sit with a group of friends in Cape Town who happen to be black, and the guys would joke with each other about how they would walk past cars stopped at traffic lights, and they’d hear the “click” of the doors being locked. I’d let out a half-laugh of understanding while my face would flush with shame, because haven’t I done the same?
But wouldn’t I scoff or maybe just chuckle at the white woman who locks her doors when my black husband walks past, because doesn’t she know he’s a pastor? Of course she doesn’t, and maybe that’s the point. If she knew him, she wouldn’t be afraid. Maybe our fear stems from the unknown, because we don’t know enough people who look different from us, like, really know them. Not just follow them on Twitter, or ask them to speak at our conferences, or smile at them once a month as we serve ladles into bowls at the soup kitchen and think we’ve paid our dues.
So this is my challenge to you, to get uncomfortable with yourself and your monochromatic table. Heaven, my friends, is going to be one glorious concoction of every tribe, tongue, and nation, every shade of skin … How can we do a better job of reflecting that now, in joyful anticipation of things to come?
This morning my wife visited my daughter’s kindergarten classroom. My wife and I are Caucasian and we have three adopted kids, two of whom are from Ethiopia (including my daughter). So, my white wife is sitting with our black daughter and one of her kindergarten classmates, an African American girl, looks at my wife and then at my daughter and says, “you don’t match.” My daughter responds, “Well, my mommy and daddy match, but I don’t match.”
And, what do you say?
In asking what do you say, I don’t mean “you” as in Deidre or Kate.
Your stories are beautiful.
I mean, in general, how do white parents convince their black daughter she absolutely does “match?” It’s a rhetorical question we will have spent three years trying to answer and we’ll continue at it for the next 20-40 years, I guess.
Kate,
I’m a big fan of Deidre’s and Going There, and the more I get to know you the more I appreciate all that Nasreen shared about it. I loved this story-I love it when people are brave enough to poke at themselves. I try to do it regularly, and it’s often uncomfortable, but that is how we grow.
Thank you for blessing us with your story.
Peace and good, sweet girl,
Chelle
I loved this post! I think we assume people mean to be racist or hateful when, you’re right, for many it’s just not knowing. All of us need to make the effort to get out of our comfort zones and get to know the wonderful variety of people and cultures that God has made.
I’m married to a Black-Nigerian – white ones are rare – and when we lived in Indiana I got that question a few times: are your kids adopted? It was funny at first and kind of cool because then I could explain that my husband was an African… and wasn’t that cool and exotic? But then, it kind of got annoying and I began to answer people with, “Nope. I adopted my husband.” I got a kick out of that, but I don’t think others appreciated it much.
And now we live in the very diverse metropolitan Atlanta area and we’re pretty “normal” so I don’t get that question anymore. But, I’ve gotten so used to the diversity around here, that now when we travel up north to Indiana, I forget that we probably look very strange to folks when we stop some place. And when I remember that, and then look around at people – I mean really look – I notice their curious glances at us.
Really, it’s just very difficult when you’ve lived your whole life in a white community or a black community and you’ve not seen many people of other races in your community. And that’s where all this racial tension has stemmed from, isn’t it? Isn’t is just ignorance, and secondhand, overgeneralized misinformation?
I substitute taught at a middle school last year that is located in a very African-American community. One of the girls in the class was admiring my hair and I was shocked to think that perhaps this little girl had never before touched a white person’s hair. But then again it didn’t surprise me too much because I used to be just like that in my little white world. So, I asked her if she wanted to touch my hair. “Go ahead.” I said as I flung my long pony-tail to the side. As I attended to other students she felt my hair and I could see her awe and smile out of the corner of my eye.
But isn’t this what we need to do for each other? This is what others have done for me, and that is why I can do it for others. Don’t we need to let “others” close enough to us so that they can touch our hair? Don’t we need to let our hair down before each other so that they can really see who we are? Don’t we need to just shamelessly – like a child – surrender to our curiosity and just ask, “Can I feel your hair?” and other such embarrassing and vulnerable questions, so that this tension can be broken.
Thanks Deidre and Kate… for going there and helping us to open up and talk about this.
So, so appreciated your perspective, Sarah! I think you’re spot on .. We need to let others close enough so they can touch our hair. Awkward? Sometimes. Probably. But the more we do it, and the closer we get, the more awkward it will be. Thank you for chiming in .. 🙂
Kate – I love your perspective of the Father’s creation of a beautiful tapestry woven of different colors. We have friends whose families are mixed either by inter-racial parenting or who have adopted children of a different race or color. We also have friends who have come from different countries and are the same color as us. They have a different cultural upbringing. There are differences, yet in the body of Christ, we are all family through and through. The differences are something that we embrace and appreciate.
The thing that bothers me about this race talk is that when we assume that because we are different, our treatment is based on our differences, we are by default judging others. Now it becomes a matter of reverse-discrimination. And we can spend our whole life living under that label, or we can pick up the banner of Christ and start loving people as individuals wherever God has us or calls us.
For instance, in your story about your husband, you are assuming that a woman is locking her car because she noticed the color of your husband’s skin and was afraid of him. That means that you have made an assumption about that woman and her motives. This is where I part ways with people when they talk about racism, etc. Not to say that fear was not her motivation, but maybe, just maybe, it has nothing to do with color. Maybe it has something to do with her own unique life experience. Maybe it is just as valuable as your husband’s unique life experience. Maybe you just don’t know her. Maybe if assumptions were not made, we could begin to see the common suffering of man, and stop labeling others.
I drive with my car doors locked. For safety reasons. I often forget to lock my car door as I get in my car and only realize it as I am stopped at a traffic light and someone begins crossing or coming near my car. I quickly lock it because I am reminded to do so. Evil exists. We are wise to be cautious. I’m not judging the person walking across the street, I am being aware of the evil that exists in this world. It is not a personal attack on the pedestrian, it is my attempt to remain safe out there in this crazy world.
I guess the thing that bothers me about all this race talk is that it puts people in groups and labels them, further dividing them instead of bringing them together. Maybe color is not so much the issue at all. Maybe we can stop rehearsing that tired old line, feeding it fuel that divides, and begin to look at one another as fellow sojourners, embracing our differences as the gifts that they are, being content with the lot we have been given in life, and agree that we all suffer in this world, because we do. We don’t know what another soul has suffered through and it is self righteous to assume that we do and judge them accordingly.
As for me, it is not that I am looking past color, it is more that I am aiming for the heart. I pray more would do the same.
Hi Kelly .. Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. For the record, I drive with my doors locked when I’m in South Africa. 🙂
I think what is disturbing to me and what I perhaps did not articulate very well in my article, is that my black male friends in Cape Town could *all* testify to hearing the doors click into locked mode at some point or another, while white males of the same age range had never had that experience. So, for South Africans, I think there is a differentiation in levels of fear based on skin color, and I’m ashamed to say that at times, I have had the same gut reaction, which I’ve had to repent of and realign.
But I hear what you’re saying, and I appreciate all of your labor in this arena and your contribution to this ongoing and lifelong conversation.
Blessings to you in your ministry of reconciliation.
My four younger brothers are bi-racial, and growing up I always knew we were different as a family, but there was never the term “half-brother” or “step-dad” used in our home. I did always feel the need to explain why were we were the way we were, but here’s the deal….should we need to explain? When will we get to the place where families are just families, and we don’t demand an explanation as to why? Don’t get me started.
Dear Kate (I’ve always so loved that name!)
I love your ‘Heavenly Perspective’. Yes, all Christ’s followers will be there together, all shapes, sizes, AND colours! I want to thank you for what will become my zippy comeback when my dear husband, whom I love, is ranting about the latest ‘minority’ who has offended him in one way or another. Sounds like I’m making light of this, but I often wonder, “If we cannot find common ground and common respect, maybe even, gasp, LOVE for one another here on earth, HOW will we possibly get along when we gather THERE?!? We must expand our vision, expand our circle of acquaintances, expand our ‘knowing’ of others who ‘differ’ from us. We ARE more alike than we are different, yes? We all want the same things, starting with Love.
I think it dose bother her why would she write about it and isn’t the image of the Lord Jewish I bet she even acts black around the 40 black friends
Is biracial the new word for mullato