Racism

I grew up racist. I still haven’t overcome it.

In my childhood years in rural Central Texas racism was as pervasive and unquestioned as the air I breathed. There were certain a priori, never questioned assumptions. Blacks and whites don’t attend the same church or school. They drink from separate water fountains, eat in different restaurants, ride in different sections of public transportation. Blacks are less intelligent. They suffer from the curse of Ham. Their cute children are called pickannies. They are tenants, never real estate owners.

I have no memory of my assumptions ever being challenged. In eight years of parochial schooling and daily religious instruction, I don’t recall ever being presented with an alternative perspective. Of course, we all shared our fallen humanity. Christ is the Savior of the world. We are to love everyone, but love for blacks was a love expressed within a segregated contest with more than a hint of condescension.

In the all male, all white dormitory prep school which I attended for my high school years, most of my prejudices and presumptions about race were reinforced, with a few assaults upon my blindness.
It was during World War II. A black army officer came to worship in the church we attended. He was quickly escorted out of the church by the thoroughly prepared white ushers.

Some twinge of conscience within me was stirred. This was not right.

One day in class the teacher made a reference to a black lawyer. I was silently incredulous. How could a black person be a lawyer? The teacher must have noticed a similar look on the face of a classmate. He berated my classmate for his unwarranted racist assumptions. I had avoided the face to face chastisement of my teacher, but my consciousness was raised.

World War II was raging. I was exempt from the military draft with a 4D classification because I was studying to become a minister of the church. However, I had a certain amount of uneasiness about this arrangement, especially as I noticed that the young black men of my community all seemed to be classified 1A, were drafted (albeit into a segregated military), sent overseas and too often returned home in body bags. My conscience was awakened.

During succeeding years I slowly, entirely too slowly, saw the error and sinfulness of my attitude and actions. Usually my teachers were black persons. I read their writings: The Autobiography of Malcom X, The Algiers Motel Incident, Black Like Me, Black Rage, etc. etc. I attended lectures and conferences. Slowly I was led out of my ignorance by people like the Rev. William Griffin and Dr. Pete Pero. I was driven to deep reflection after I listened to black activist Fred Hampton speak of how the police would find a reason to kill him. Within weeks, he was shot dead by the white police while on his bed in his Chicago apartment.

Theologians like Paul Schultze, James Cone, and civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. inched me along. Personal contacts with blacks around dinner tables, shared bedrooms, long walks, harsh confrontations, animated conversations with persons like Orlando Gober all helped move me down the stony path my soul desperately needed to tread.

My own children helped. They quickly sensed any racism I evidenced and called me on it. My oh so slowly developing spirituality forced me to face my error

Now in the later years of my life I am grateful for the progress made. Yet I must confess I still have a need for purging pieces of my consciousness. When I hear of certain criminal behaviors my first instinct is still to image a black person. When I hear of a significant literary or research publication my initial, seemingly unconscious belief is that a white person (white male, actually) must be the author.

So my struggle goes on and I say with the Apostle, ”Not as though I were already perfect, but I follow after...” (Phil. 3:12)