Racism. Silence.

Ignorance, not hate, is the underlying cause of racism.  I was homeschooled through high school. My exposure to other races was mostly at Bible camp—a couple weeks a year. Although I attended primarily white colleges, I made casual friends with a couple black students, Judge and Ty, at Bethel.  Ty was randomly assigned as my roommate when I came back to campus for spring semester, after being abroad. He was nice. We got along fine and talked on occasion. He was pretty private, and he was gone a lot. He introduced me to Judge. I really liked Judge. He was charismatic, chill, funny—a very likeable guy.  I really thought we would become good friends. We ate lunches together, spent some time hanging out in the dorm. Talking was natural, but it slowed down because we didn’t really enjoy the same activities, music or movies. One conversation still stands out to me, though, and I wonder if our friendship would have progressed if I had responded differently.  I used to do a beatbox pretty well, even though I didn’t prefer rap music. It was a random tallent I picked up from a friend at camp. Judge and I were beatboxing together, and he asked about some rapper I’d never heard of, and I explained that I didn’t really know any rap music very well. He was surprised, “how did you get all the way to college without knowing at least some good rap music?” he asked. It was an obvious question to him. I wasn’t allowed to listen to rap or rock music as a kid. By the time I was in college I listened to mostly pop-christian music, and there wasn’t much rap available in that category. It just never pulled me in. I responded, “I guess rap wasn’t a big part of my culture; It’s a bigger deal in your culture.” He repeated, “my culture?” He looked troubled. I didn’t know what to say. I was very new to this. I didn’t feel the freedom to ask anything else or to distinguish between my culture and his—even though our background was clearly different. The easiest thing to do was to stay quiet. So I did. I had a lot of questions. But who could I ask? We still hung out.  I had decided to avoid any topic that would deal with our differences. I wanted him to like me, and I really wasn’t sure where the boundaries were. Discussions on race were mysterious. I was ignorant.

Ignorance is a common, boring sort of infection—effectively treated by the act of humble and hopeful inquisition. But many of us do not bother with it; it can be uncomfortable to try and find a starting point. Untreated, this infection can start to mature into an extremely contagious phase which is simply fear. Fear is the most contagious phase for it is often overlooked as a sin. Fear is a natural response to our drive for self preservation, but love and fear are mutually exclusive. Fear bypasses our rational mind to the point of action, and our powers of rationality are used afterwards to justify the actions that were motivated from fear. Though they were not premeditated, our actions change us, and the contrast between who we are and what we did unsettles us. We will either address the wrong outward actions and make provision to avoid them in the future or we will change on the inside so that who we are and what we do is harmonious. When moving this direction it is easier to change on the inside since the wrong action has already begun the work. Racism can flourish in this phase, and this is the most common type. In some, fear will find an environment that allows it to grow into hate, but this phase only flourishes in specific environments. It is easier to recognise hate as a sin, and many people will avoid people in this phase in order to maintain their appearance. That is why racism often flourishes more fully in the fear phase.

The best way to decrease racism is to increase effective communication between races. We need patience and grace in our communication. We need to foster discussion between races that allows people the freedom and room to grow, room to be wrong, room to make mistakes without being made into an example. We all need the freedom to grapple with the issues in the way that we know how. Instead we indulge a media who’s perpetual aim is to cause discord between races—making examples out of well meaning people. They allow no grace, no patience, no room to fail. The public humiliation of other people engaging in racial discussions silences thousands of people. It stops imperfect but productive communication before it can mature into shared meaning. Have you been quiet? Maybe your voice is missing. Perhaps more patient, humble, grace filled voices can flood the discussion and silence the destructive, arrogant, impatient, and polarizing practices of the media. It’s  a decision. Failure is a fact of moving forward. We must all fail before we succeed. I have decided to grapple with this issue the way that I know how. I will fail. I will move forward.

Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turns away wrath,

but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Galations 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

1John 4:20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.