In 1971, we moved to Concord, California, to a neighborhood called "Pepper Tree." Back then, the BART trains didn't go through and the area was mostly walnut orchards and horse country. It was a suburb of San Francisco with some fairly new housing developments. My dad worked in Walnut Creek, the neighboring town. When we moved there, our neighborhood was all White. We had a couple of families with teenage boys who were troublemakers: especially the Duffy and Schmidt boys. I remember my dad having to deal with their petty vandalism, filing complaints with the police, and nothing much got done. My school was majority White with some minority students. Our minority students were largely the same demographic as San Diego but with some kids from India too. I really hadn't had a close encounter with a Black family until the mid-1970's when the Longs moved in next door.
Bob and Evelyn Long were the first Black couple I ever really got to know. Bob was the Postmaster at the Martinez Post Office. Now, for those of you not familiar with California, Martinez was a huge operation in the USPS, a major distribution center for the mail. This was not some backwater job, it was a significant position. Evelyn was a school principal - I can't remember at what level. They had two college aged kids, so I didn't get to know them very well.
My parents went over to welcome them to the neighborhood and, over the next few years, we got to know each other as well as a Black and White family could given the baggage of our country's history. It seemed normal to me to welcome new neighbors, but I didn't know anything different. I remember my father coming home one day fuming. Apparently, Mr. Schmidt (the father of one of our neighborhood troublemakers) said to my dad, "I heard your new neighbors are N***ers! I'm selling my house and getting out of this place." My dad told him, "Good! What can I do to help you get you and your delinquent kid out?!" That was the first time I saw overt racism directed at a Black person. I saw my father's anger at it too.
I was still a kid and unaware of a lot of things. I remember we would go over to the Long's house for dinner and they would come to ours too. I don't remember details, I just remember these were just like all the other dinners when we had guests over. Mom always knew how to throw a great dinner party and make people feel welcome. One day my mom shared with me a conversation she had with Evelyn. It was a brief encounter and I think it happened in the grocery store. Mom was dressed in very casual clothes and Evelyn, as always, was dressed impeccably and professionally. My mom said something about how amazing she looked (she always did) and how my mom felt under dressed. In a moment of incredible trust and candor, Evelyn told my mom, "I can't go out in anything less to shop, otherwise I'll be followed by store security." That was my first encounter with what I would later be able to name as White privilege.
It's not that I didn't grow up steeped in White supremacy and racism. Of course I did. I'm a White American. But in my context, I encountered it towards Mexicans, Asians, and even my great-grandmother's disparaging of Native Americans (her family were White settlers in Nebraska and South Dakota). I just hadn't been directly exposed to how this impacts Black Americans until then. The fact these memories are still with me almost 50 years later says something.
The events of these past two weeks have once again ripped open the unhealed wound caused by our nation's original sin: White supremacy. This sin was exported from England and every other colonizing power that walked lock step with the Catholic Church's Doctrine of Discovery. In an unholy alliance of Church and State, Northern European traits (Whiteness) became normative and preferred and the subjugation of those who were different was politically, legally, and religiously sanctioned. It is so baked into the character and social order of colonizing countries (the United States included) that we don't even see it if we are White - that is until riots start in the Black community and other communities of color. This is why Black Lives Matter marches have broken out in former colonizing countries: England, Spain, France, Germany. Young people have learned more about this history, but I did not. Anti-racism educator, Jane Elliott, rightly said our social studies classes were actually "anti-social studies" classes because they only highlighted the stories of White men - as if that's they are the only ones who did anything in this country. Check out her video:
I have an obligation to work to dismantle White supremacy if I am to faithfully follow Jesus Christ. Not the White Jesus America portrays in images, but the brown-skinned Jesus who was also lynched by an Empire for disrupting the peace of Rome and shaking the status quo. Liberation in Christ is the message of the Gospel and means equality for all of God's beloved. Don't believe me? Try on some Scripture:
- "Jesus said, 'The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.'" (John 10:10)
- "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians 3:28)
- "Jesus said, Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away;" (John 6:37)
Anti-racism work is hard. It will take the rest of my life. It will take having the courage to engage, to try, to screw up, and to keep trying. It takes willingness to be vulnerable and not get defensive when a Black or Brown person speaks their truth and it clashes with my experience or beliefs or when they call me out for getting it wrong. It takes a lot of listening and understanding that White supremacy isn't my personal fault, not a personal attack, and not a condemnation that I am a bad person because of White supremacy. It's not about us, fellow White people. It's about being the Beloved Community and that can't happen unless Black Lives Matter as much as White ones do.
Here are some curated resources I've found helpful:
- The Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing
- CompassPoint.org
- Showing Up for Racial Justice
- PBS - How to Talk to Your Kids about Race
Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber (ELCA) wrote a very extensive pastoral letter with an awesome list of resources which you can read here.
