I’m going to be straight up with you and say I often feel the exact same hopelessness Ta-Nehisi has expressed throughout this book, and which so many of you have raised concerns about. There are moments that I want to throw my hands in the air and say, “I surrender.”
Today, my husband and I were talking about a situation in our community. There are many, many layers that make this particular situation complicated and frustrating, but the primary source of the frustration is rooted in differences in race, language, and culture.
Fixing Racism
The fact that race, language, and culture complicate so many encounters between individuals and among and within different groups of people, is an American phenomenon. Because racism is this country’s original sin, racism will always be a stumbling block for Americans. We work at being politically correct because we are trying to stem the tide of a deadly virus with a band aid of words that sound right but have no healing power.
The only way to begin to fix our racism problem is for the country to find her way to individual and corporate confession and apology, public lament, the dismantling of systems of injustice and inequity, the implementation of a truly just and fair system of government which includes the consideration of reparations, and forgiveness. Here it is in list form:
- Individual and corporate confession and apology
- Public lament
- The dismantling of systems of injustice and inequity
- The implementation of a truly just and fair system of government which includes the consideration of reparations
- Forgiveness
That’s just for starters. Now, outside of a true and bona fide miracle, I do not see any of that happening. On the days I let my mind go down that road, I always wind up at a dead end. Always. And I am a person of faith.
I completely understand how Mrs. Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates see what they see when they look down the road. If I try to take in the entirety of the sin of racism and how it has twisted us — all of us — inside out, I am tempted to lose my mind. If I’m being honest with you, my one and only hope is wrapped in a very fragile and extremely tenuous faith in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. That, my friends, is all I’ve got and sometimes it is not nearly enough. But it is the Truth on which I have staked my life. My whole, entire life. And, what I know is this: for those of us who say we’re all in with Jesus, the Truth we profess is incumbent upon suffering, sacrifice, and death preceding the resurrection.
So, I’m going to step out here on this limb all by myself and say that people of color and poor people have been cast in the suffering, sacrifice, and death role for far too long, with the goal of keeping this country strong, safe, and secure. The bodies of people of color and the bodies of the poor have served as human shields, with the goal of preserving the Dream.
I am guilty. Simply having brown skin does not make me exempt. Racism has twisted us all inside out. Somehow, people of faith have got to find a way to separate our faith from our love of our country and its wealth, power, and comfort. We cannot serve God and money, any more than we can serve God and country. We will hate the one, and love the other, and we’ll justify our actions when they contradict what it is we say we believe.
What We Say We Believe
And here’s the thing: What we say we believe is the only true way to fix this mess we’ve gotten ourselves in. As we live out our faith among those who don’t believe what we say we believe, our real goal is not keeping America safe or strong or making America great. The real goal is to live out our faith in such a way that people who can’t quite get with Jesus will reconsider their position about that. And, for people who have been broken by racism in a place that calls herself “One Nation, Under God,” one way to make them reconsider might just be for people of faith to find their way to individual and corporate confession and apology, public lament, the dismantling of systems of injustice and inequity, the implementation of a truly just and fair system of government which includes the consideration of reparations, and forgiveness.
The only way to get there is to begin on our knees. For all of the questions that begin and end with, “What can I do?” the answer is to begin on our knees, with some version of this prayer in our hearts and on our lips: “Search me, God. Look me over, inside and out. Please uncover anything in me that blinds me to injustice or makes me confuse my love of where I live with my love of you. Cleanse me of anything that contributes to racist systems or attitudes. Keep me from unjustly using other people to feed my comfort or to protect my way of living, because doing that is just one more form of trafficking in humans. Amen.”
Today, when my husband and I were discussing that situation in our community, I said to him, “It’s impossible, isn’t it? It will never happen. Racism will never end.” I was hopeless. I was honestly ready to throw in the towel in complete and utter frustration. But, my husband looked me in the eye and said, “It’s only hopeless without Jesus.” To that I say: Truer words have never been spoken.
Thanks so much for reading this book with me. Thank you for participating in the conversation in the comments and on Periscope. If I haven’t freaked you out too badly today, I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments section of this post. I also hope to see you Monday, when we partner with The Red Couch book club for a live chat on Facebook. Click here to RSVP.
Next week, please come back to fill out a quick survey about this experience of Forward and to read a summary of our Facebook conversation. I’m truly grateful for the grace you’ve given me and one another. This was such a great book and I am thrilled that we shared it together. Today, in the comments, let us know your takeaways from the book. How are you different today, as a result of having read this book?
I read “Yada, Yada” with you without comment and then I read “Just Mercy” while I waited on my library copy of “Between the World and Me”. And I just finished “When I Was the Greatest” last night. It feels like I jumped into a foreign language immersion school. But I believe I’m awake now. And I’ve registered for volunteer training to mentor adult learners at our local literacy program. One thing I’ve found true in my life about hope: Without faith, hope is exhausting.
Yes, hope without Jesus, without faith is exhausting and gets us nowhere.
So true.
I hope that every time we read a little more, listen a little closer, we are changed. This week I’ve been reading Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and just watched Shaka Senghor on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday. The weight of America’s “original sin” of racism is getting heavier and heavier. Yes, Jesus—please, Jesus—He’s our only hope for redemption.
These words from Ta-Nehisi Coates also weigh heavy, reminding me that we have to prefer to “live free” more than to “live white” and lastly, that it will take struggle, or we all go down together. Lord, have mercy! Thanks for your honesty, Deidra.
“They have forgotten, because to remember would tumble them out of the beautiful Dream and force them to live down here with us, down here in the world. I am convinced that the Dreamers, at least the Dreamers of today, would rather live white than live free.” p 143
“…and the terrible truth is that we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own. Perhaps that was, is, the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world.” p 146
“I do not believe that we can stop them, Samori, because they must ultimately stop themselves. And still I urge you to struggle. Struggle for the memory of your ancestors. Struggle for wisdom. Struggle for the warmth of The Mecca. Struggle for your grandmother and grandfather, for your name. But do not struggle for the Dreamers. Hope for them. Pray for them, if you are so moved. But do not pin your struggle on their conversion. The Dreamers will have to learn to struggle themselves, to understand that the field for their Dream, the stage where they have painted themselves white, is the deathbed of us all.” p 151
“I hope that every time we read a little more, listen a little closer, we are changed.” That is my prayer, too. Those words of Ta-Nehisi weigh heavy on me, too. Like you, I pray, “May God have mercy.”
Those are the words from Coates that really, really got me too, Lisa.
I underlined all of those same sections, Lisa. This part of the book spoke loudest to me. It impacted me in a significant way, putting words to so much of what I sense in my heart and soul. Thank you for sharing these sections, here, and for being part of the conversation. Peace to you.
Repentance, forgiveness,transformation, renewed mindsets, all are impossible to try to reason or convince into happening, unfortunately. Asking the Holy Spirit to convict us of the sin in our own hearts is an essential place to start, as you wrote. Asking Him to work in the heart of our nation is crucial.
I’m not sure that racism is our original sin, isn’t it the symptom of something deeper? Selfishness, self idolatry, hatred? I’m just wondering here, but if we were filled with God’s love and really ruled by His ways, racism couldn’t live in us, right?
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, Elizabeth. I’m always grateful for your wisdom and insight.
At the root of all sin, we find ourselves, don’t we? The other day I was talking with some friends about our bent toward self-preservation and how that leads us toward evil. So, maybe selfishness and self-idolatry are made manifest in sins like hatred and racism? When the country was founded and the Constitution written to include the 3/5 clause, the sin of racism became part of how we defined ourselves and what we value. The thirteenth amendment did away with slavery, but that clause which had solidified the system had already done it’s work.
I honestly believe the struggle in this country is less about racists and much more about racist systems and attitudes that were never challenged, reversed, or dismantled. So, while I think there are still racist people in our country, I’m more concerned with the systems that keep these people asleep and unaware. Of course, I can only be responsible for me. So, constantly inviting God to remove my sinfulness is the order of the day. One step at a time, one encounter at a time, one word at a time. I’m far from getting it right, that’s for sure.
Thank you for giving me some more insights that I needed in your reply. Much love to you, friend, and prayers for your new book. YaY!
I’m glad you went there, Deidra. This is so powerful.
Oh, Deidra, I wish I could reach through the virtual airways and give you a big hug. Thank you so much for sharing your heart and making this space a place where we can dialog about these issues. My eyes have really been opened more, first with the Yada Yada Prayer Group series and then with this book. More than ever I think prayer is so important. Only God can change people’s hearts and we need to pray to that end. I have copied your prayer so that I can use it as a model to pray. My heart aches for those who have been oppressed and I’m praying that God would show me/us what we can do. What your husband said is very true, “It’s only hopeless without Jesus.” We have a long way to go, but I am seeing God work in hearts already in this area. Bless you, Deidra, for being willing to say the hard things and being an example to all of us. Love you!
Thank you for sharing your heart and being blunt. That is what I’ve loved about this book, and many of the words I’ve read and listened to from speakers lately such as at the Urbana Missions Conference (I livestreamed). I’ve learned so much from this book, and from these conversations. Thank you for going through with this book in particular. I don’t think I would have understood as much if I had read on my own.
i agree, with what can we do now? We pray. We forget how powerful prayer is sometimes when we pray the same things for long periods of time. But as an old friend said “if you are praying about it, you are thinking about it, and you are going to remember to ask about it and act on it” So let’s pray until our (individual) moment comes that we would have the confidence and heart to act, with the right intentions, and unselfishly. This is a part of my prayer.
Praying with you, sister. Thanks so much for being part of the conversation here.
I wrote this awhile ago and forgive me for inserting a link but it was too long to write over. I’ve been thinking about this a lot in terms of last weeks conversation about lament and rage and how it comes from the broken and painful. And then Coates talks so much about the body and I can feel that despair because like you said, I feel it too sometimes in how we often refuse to see we are sick from within. This might explain that better but I have been stuck on this thought of what does it look like for the church to care for it’s parts? What does it look like to risk enough that the body of Christ might be something that offers hope for people like Coates and the rest of the world instead of an indictment that what we say has no earthly value because we do not love well. http://www.incourage.me/2015/06/when-we-need-to-lament.html
Alia_Joy….. your insight regarding lament is so very timely and encouraging! We have been called to bear one another’s burdens, because truly what has not yet passed us has not yet caught us. Thank you for including the link to your writing and no need for forgiveness for providing the link!
“What does it look like to risk enough that the body of Christ might be
something that offers hope for people like Coates and the rest of the
world instead of an indictment that what we say has no earthly value
because we do not love well”
Alia, you have said so much in your response and the link…I have been meditating on it all yesterday! This weekend being a time of lament in our church, I sat thru Good Friday service wanting to make the connections, listening for answers. It seems there are levels of response.
The long haul political/legal one to get laws/ the System changed may be the easiest in some ways, though certainly full of risk for criticism and arrests, etc…
The one on one level–“Church caring for its parts”– with actual people challenges us to stay awake in the garden with those sweating blood and weeping and praying. It requires knowing each other, and how do we cross those lines that are drawn (Black Church/ White church,/ Asian church/Spanish speaking church/) ??? I have been and am part of a (mostly Caucasian) church now that asks forgiveness for racism, prays always for the pain in our world caused by it, but remains mostly white…I have been reflecting on how to create within our church a safe space for All God’s children, but maybe have been looking at it the wrong way? My husband and I talked last night about whether we should be going to a church where we are the minority and not wait/ask that those who have long been the minority come over to our church where they would continue to be in the minority?! I know that we long to worship and do life with a Community that is whole with all God’s beautifully colorful people. maybe my part in racism is waiting for people of color to come where I am worshipping? We lament, but the suffering people don’t even know we are “with them” I do see hope in my 20 something kids’ generation because my daughter’s Christian university is richly diverse as are her friendships; it seems so natural to them.
Wow.Excellent.
Reading the encounter with Mrs. Jones was challenging for me. So many things in this book resonated with me: I spent my first semester of college at Howard University; my brother attended another HBCU in Florida and often spoke of encounters he and his friends had when venturing off campus; I have a son in college and I do not know how I would react if something horrible happened to him. Thank you Dee for your transparency and willingness to share your heart. Thank you Harry for reminding us of the reason for our existence and encouraging us to keep the main thing the main thing. My difference after reading Coates is making sure that I operate with greater intentional purpose. Increase my diligence to hit my knees to pray for protection and spread the hope we have in Jesus. Be willing to add my voice to speak on those things that can create an atmosphere of positive push for greatness. Listen to my adult children as they share their experiences and perceptions of their place in this world. Thank you all Forward Book Club members for trusting this space as safe to add to the conversation. May we all be blessed as we celebrate our risen Savior this weekend!
Amen, Lisa. “…keep the main thing the main thing…operate with greater intentional purpose…increase my diligence to hit my knees to pray…be willing to add my voice…create an atmosphere of positive push…” Yes.
Dear dear dear Deidra….you have not freaked me out. Wonderful post, and marvelous prayer. Amen and amen.
The toughest part each week has been narrowing down my many thoughts to a manageable size.
BIGGEST TAKEAWAY (just one of many): Coates’ assertion about the black body, that the Dream has always depended upon denying blacks the right to secure and govern their own bodies. In the beginning, it sounded strange to me, a little extreme. I didn’t think it incorrect. I’d just never heard it put quite that way before. But by the end of the book, I no longer found it extreme. It keeps coming back to me, over and over every day. Last night – Easter Sunday evening – I saw a fine-looking young black man waiting for the bus and I thought about this country being built on his back. And now here he is, standing out there on the curb, where just anyone driving down Taylorsville Road could take a shot at him. And what would people say if they did? I’m thinking about this all the time now with every non-white person I encounter. (Also, the white people who are decked out in Muslim garb, btw.)
The MOST SOBERING LINES of the book (as has been cited already)…..”we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own.” That struck me as so sad, but so necessary to say. And these words were wise, “.. do not struggle for the Dreamers. Hope for them. Pray for them, if you are so moved. But do not pin your struggle on their conversion.” There was just something in this whole section that was so powerful.
MY HANDICAP: Another huge takeaway for me has been a handicap I’ve become even more aware of. It is not an excuse to throw in the towel and walk away, but it’s something I need to acknowledge because in the truth of it, there is freedom. As many of you know, I work with refugees. The longer I do it, the more I identify with them, the more sympathetic I am to the obstacles they face, the more I see how my efforts are sometimes a help and sometimes not, etc. But for as enlightened and forward-thinking and well-intended as I like to think I am, the truth is I step in and out of their world at will and at my convenience. I leave class on Thursday afternoon, get in my car, adjust my seat and speed off into my own world again. This is the difference between the refugees and me. I have THE OPTION of STEPPING IN and OUT. This is not a call for survivor’s guilt (and turning the focus to me). It’s that I need to understand this truth and never be so taken with how enlightened I am that I begin to think I understand what it’s like to be a refugee. THIS SAME HANDICAP applies to race. As long as I have the ability to step in and out of thinking about my skin color every single moment, I must never begin to persuade myself I know what it’s like for someone who cannot do that. It doesn’t mean I can’t effectively be part of the solution, by any means. But I must accept this fact about myself, that I have a handicap.
Marilyn
Well said, Marilyn. Thank you.
Amen. Awesome.
No, I didn’t freak out at what you wrote, Deidra. I am grateful you are hosting the conversation because I think if I’d just read the book on my own, I would not have gotten as much out of it. And there are other things in the ether at the moment that are commenting on the commentary, so to speak. And it’s forced me to face my own hopelessness in other areas, which, while not pleasant, has at least been convicting.
Wow. My initial reaction to this book was a visceral pain , grief and loss. My revelation of just how sacred our bodies are. I’ve always been deeply grieved by the Transatlantic slave trade (The Middle Passage), & this read brought this feeling up again. I was speechless. I didn’t have words for weeks. And as I read I saw that the grief continues. Not in the same way; yet it continues several years later. The lamenting passages and comments here, are so appropriate. Thank you. I don’t know that I have prayed about this type of pain. It’s always been so… distant .
Thank you sisters for bringing this to light.
I am different today by reading this book because with my continual mourning for my people, there is a sacred insistence that I help Jesus advocate for “the body”. There is a wonderful yet consistently beautiful reason why God used Jesus’ body to make a statement . Jesus died for this type of pain. Yet the holiness of it all… Of the body.. Is so detrimental.
If we treat everyone with humanity ; realizing the sacredness of the body in every reaction and interaction, we would have a better world. Indeed.
Thanks Deidra, this discussion has left a sacred impression upon me. Bless you and your call to the world.
Selah.
This was beautiful, Jennifer, especially your words about a resilient people, bringing some type of “resurrection’ and redemption to the sacredness. Thank you for it.
Thank you Marilyn, indeed. I think I had a little help from above. 😉
You’re welcome Marilyn.????
I have put off adding my thoughts about this book. I wanted, in the extra time, for God to soften my agitation, to clarify my multitudinous and conflicting thoughts, to give me accurately expressive words. Since none of that has happened, I guess I will just go ahead…. This book left me with an agitation that I think will probably lead to constructive action at some point, but now remains as agitation. It is based on this–and oh, how I hesitate, even now to write this out, but I am going to: I hear a lot of description of what I wholeheartedly consent is a real, serious and ongoing issue in our country, but no acknowledgment that there are any efforts at all to change or that not every “white” person needs to be labeled a Dreamer. I have tried to analyze why this is so frustrating to me. Is it based on something I am trying to deny in myself? Is it based on something I am not understanding about myself and the situation? Yet, I keep coming back around to the fact that, even though, like Marilyn said, I personally have the option of stepping in and out, my children do not. I am forever the mom of children with dark skin and this all matters very much to me. I have not only the Christ-follower Motivation, but that Mom Motivation to do whatever I can to change what is unjust, yet I feel like I am ignored as I am jumping up and down, raising my hand, asking, “What do you think will help the most? What can I do?” This is so agitating that it brings me to tears. For now, I am hoping for some hope and am going to go read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Reformed-Sovereignty-African-American-Experience/dp/1629952303.
I have several friends in your situation – mother can step in and out, children cannot – and, as I read your comment, I heard your words as though they were speaking them to me over coffee or on the phone. Your heart really came through and rang true. Tears are not a disproportionate response to the agitation you are feeling.
I DO believe that God will light the path for each of us, and what we need to bring to it is courage and a willingness to step where He points. Also, the courage to refrain from stepping where He has not pointed.
For me, the question “What can I do?” often needs to be turned around to “What do I need to be?” I don’t know if that holds true for everyone, but I have found it helpful.
I’m glad you shared. What you wrote contributes to my thinking on this.
Thank you, Marilyn. Perhaps the *waiting* for God’s lighting of the path for me, if He actually does have something additional for me to do or be, contributes to my agitation. Considering these questions is helpful!
Reading…Thank you, Deidra. I’m reading Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s Strength to Love now…lots to process…