Sometime around May 15 -in the aftermath of the Ahmaud Arbery case, but before George Floyd was killed - I listened to a podcast with the author of this book, Drew G.I. Hart. (The hour-long podcast is a pretty good summary of the book). I went and bought the Kindle version on Amazon. When George Floyd was killed, I was already a couple of weeks into this and it has been a companion piece for this difficult time, and at times, a challenging book to read because it raises uncomfortable issues and resistance in my heart as I wrestle with those issues.
Drew Hart is an assistant professor of Theology at Messiah at Messiah University, and someone who engages the Church in anti-racism.
Drew opens the book with the story of getting a call that his brother back home had been arrested by police because he “fit the description” of someone they were looking for. His brother was released without incident, but he realized how easily it could have gone differently. “Blackness is a visible marker that justifies suspicion, brutality, and confinement by white society. In America, being black has always been defined and understood by the majority group in negative ways: criminal, lazy, obnoxious, ugly, and depraved.” (p. 12)
One disturbing thing I learned in this book and in listening to stories during this time period is that all black parents in the US have a conversation with their children in which they train them how to behave so as not to be killed when the police pull them over. And many of our black brothers and sisters have stories of frightening encounters with the police.
Often, we in the wider society and the Church, “ignore the ongoing suffering and the deep racial division that is pervasive and has never gone away. But right below the surface, for four hundred years, deep disagreements about race in America have been boiling.” (p. 16)
Drew details the stories of names we are familiar with: Rodney King, Amadou Diallo, Trayvon Martin, Tami Rice. “Hundreds of people have lost their lives, either through intentional malice or because their lives were not deemed valuable enough to ensure their protection within our white-controlled society. . . . People’s perceptions of what happened are as shaped by their socialization as by the event itself. The majority of white people believe that racism is a national problem rather than a problem in their own communities.” (p. 19)
Dominant Culture
One idea that comes through in this book is the pervasiveness of what Drew calls “dominant culture”, that is to say, white American culture. It is so pervasive that people don’t realize it exists. It’s the default. In the podcast, Drew told about hearing a speaker at his Christian university talking about another culture. Some of his white friends said, “I wish that we had a culture”. They did, of course, but they were unaware of it because it is ubiquitous. Minority cultures, however, find their cuisine on a special “ethnic” aisle at the grocery, go to a special store for their beauty products, etc. (Oddly enough, I have experienced this in reverse living overseas. Taco shells, peanut butter, and marshmallows, are in the ethnic section of the german grocery store; English books are all grouped together on one shelf at the bookstore).
I have found that it is these external features of culture are what people comment on first: what we eat and drink, what we wear, how our houses look. And these more visible things really are not all that important. What is more important is differences in how we think and perceive the world. These are more subtle and make a huge difference in how we live our lives.
Drew notes that
“Whether white, black, Native American, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, or Asian, we all get caught up in the currents of our white-dominated society and internalize its messages. Each of us must turn to the good news for a more hope-filled present and future. Given the racial history of the church in America, which has unfortunately often been at the center of the problem, few have considered the subversive life of Jesus as the way out of our racialized and hierarchical society.” (p. 20)
Sadly, the Church has not done a good job in looking at racism. “This epistemological divide concerning racism—that is, the different ways of knowing and understanding life—is an even greater gap within the church than it is among the rest of society.” (p. 20).
“Are Christians in dominant culture prepared to listen to groups of people who have seen trouble, so much trouble? Is the church a place where we can talk about the trouble we’ve seen? Is the church a place not only where we’ll be truly heard and understood but also where we will become a transformed community? Will the church take on the form of Christ in our racialized society?” (p. 20)
Colorblind rhetoric
Christians in the dominant culture frequently talk about being “colorblind - not even seeing color”. It makes it seem as we have transcended the issues. When Ahmaud Arbery was killed, people asked why the article had to mention that he was black. Was it not enough to say that a man had been shot?
Drew’ s response is that he “can only assume that it is not color that they are not seeing; rather, it is racism that is being missed. . . . Colorblind ideology is the twenty-first-century continuation of white Christian silence to racism.” (p. 21) That same silence has been there through 4 centuries of mistreatment in our country - slavery, lynchings, a war on drugs that targets people of color more than whites, mass incarceration, etc.
“The church urgently needs to understand the realities of racism better than it has previously. Christians must do a better job of thinking, analyzing, discussing, and ultimately transforming our racialized lives into antiracist and anti hierarchical ways of life that conform to the way of Jesus. We must learn to see and understand the racism all around us so that we can faithfully resist being complicit in its patterns. Once we are able to see it, we must engage in initiatives of deep metanoia, or repentance—initiatives that change us from racialized accommodation to resistance.” p. 23
Two sides of the cup
In the book (and the podcast), Drew tells the story of sitting down with a white pastor acquaintance who wanted to talk about race. They were at McDonald’s drinking iced tea. His white friend pushed the paper cup out between them. “I need you to tell me what is written on your side of the cup. And you need me to tell you what is on my side.” That is to say, “ All we need is dialogue to understand each other.”
However, Drew countered that he didn’t need his white friend to tell him about the white side of the cup, because he had gone to gone to public school with white teachers using a Eurocentric curriculum, gone to a mostly white christian college, been surrounded by white dominated media. To be successful in any field, he needed to adopt the dominant language, culture, and way of thinking.
But his white friend “most likely could go through his entire life without needing to know black literature, black intellectual thought, black wisdom, black art and music, or black history. That is, he could choose to never engage with or be changed by the range and beauty of the black community. Nor would he be penalized for it.” p. 25.
Sadly we in the white church are equally ignorant of the gifts that the Black church has to give us in terms of theology, spiritual disciplines, faith traditions. (And likewise, we are ignorant of the gifts of the worldwide church).
Drew says that the problem of race is not a horizontal divide between two people on equal footing. Rather, racism is a “vertical structured hierarchy.”
“White people since the sixteenth century have been increasingly categorized and perceived to be more valuable, innocent, truthful, and worthy of love and relationship than nonwhite people. Through a paternalistic imagination, racism has taught white people to unconsciously assume that they are the best people to dominate and control society. This racially hierarchical vision, which classifies whiteness as the most prized human characteristic, perceives other people to be at the bottom of the human ladder.”
“The loss of black life is rarely worth grieving. Black bodies are presumed guilty. Black experience and testimony are assumed to be lies. And experiencing and learning from the range of people and perspectives within the black community is not desirable or needed. Loving black people has never been normative in America.” p. 26
Individual Sin vs Larger Systemic Issues
One thing crystalized for me through this book and in conversations online with people about George Floyd’s killing. People tend to fall into two camps. Some see killings like this as incidents of individual sin. Others see wider systemic and societal issues that underlie the individual sinful actions. Depending on which view you take, you will either see the problem as “a few bad apples” in the police, or else something that is more systemic in how police are trained, the weapons they are given, how they are held accountable, etc.
“Many white people assume racism is only about individual racial prejudice and hatred, and therefore they are always on the lookout for the “bad racists” to scapegoat. . . . Many refuse to think about the larger racialized patterns of society that shape individuals’ ideologies and habits.” p. 28
If you reject the second possibility, please take a moment to listen to our brothers and sisters of color who are telling us that something is definitely wrong. Out of deference from them, at least entertain the idea.
Drew Hart says that we can not trust our intuitions shaped by the dominant culture.
“Instead, we must come alongside the crucified of the world in solidarity, as Jesus himself did, so that we can have our minds renewed. Dominant cultural intuitions run contrary to Christ’s way of knowing. . . . The person committed to Jesus follows him to the margins and cracks of society, entering into what I call “counterintuitive solidarity” with the oppressed. Revelation, inspiration, and understanding come in the context of following the crucified Christ in the world. The book seeks to replace our foundation in the sinking sand of taken-for-granted racialized perspectives found in dominant culture. Instead, it seeks to place our feet on the solid ground and firm footing of the way of Jesus, our Rock.” p. 29
Chapter 2
Drew recounts growing up in a mixed race area of town and then moving to a mostly white neighborhood. He didn’t encounter much racism during this time, but was surprised by the hard time he had at a mostly white Christian college he attended. He felt isolated. He had white friends, who seemed to see him as the exception to the rule when it came to their stereotypes. He said the “ongoing racial prejudice on campus was more persistent and life-draining than anything I had seen in my life” (p.41), even more than his white, suburban secular high school.
He learned that his body was interpreted as a “threatening other”, often seen as “a thug”. “I learned that race always means something in our society.” (p. 43)
The Race Card and the Racialized Deck
Drew is often accused of playing the race card by people who are not willing to enter into dialogue, but rather want to “dismiss my perspective rather than considering whether my views might help them enhance their own.” The race card is used to “stigmatize those who disagree with the myth that America is now a colorblind, post-racial nation.” p. 44
Drew asks us to imagine a divisive event that occurs, such as the killing of Trayvon Martin (or George Floyd). As we discuss it, each of us plays cards based on our interpretation and understanding of the event. African Americans will look at that event through the lens of hundreds of years of oppression as a community and bring up race. “The moment that racism is brought into the conversation, however, many from the white majority label this move as “playing the race card.” By doing so, they suggest that race is being brought up inappropriately. The wrong card is being played, they suggest.”
White America has a long history of not trusting black perspectives and needing to verify them on its own. Drew suggests that in these sorts of interactions, white people are considering a single card - that particular incident in isolation. “The black community is usually considering the entire deck—that is, ongoing history and current widespread social patterns. . . . [They ] aren’t playing the race card; [they] are analyzing the racialized deck.”
Race and Racism (p. 48-51).
Race is not biologically defined. It is a social construct that was developed in the past 500 years or so.
“Although race is a lie white people invented that divides humanity into categories used to oppress nonwhite people, the concept has created tangible people groups. These groups have felt, and continue to feel, how very real all of this has become. Race is a social construct that not only shapes how we perceive particular people groups but also justifies oppressive hierarchy and European domination over nonwhite people.”
“The global practices of European domination, colonization, and conquest in the Americas and Africa in the sixteenth century required ideological justification. Otherwise, such brutal and inhumane practices against indigenous communities would undermine Anglo-Saxon Protestants’ image of themselves as an innocent Christian nation”. . . as the “new Israel”.
[I’ve just begun reading “Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery” by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah which details the Doctrine of Discovery invented by the Church in the 1400 and 1500s which gave theological justification for these practices.]
To understand racism, we have to understand “its development, purpose, and most importantly, how it has structured society and human relations. The dictionary definition of racism is usually insufficient.” We can not limit it to personal prejudice and hatred of someone based on race, as it is difficult to prove intent. This definition of racism is something you can simply deny if accused. And it deflects from the racialized nature of our systems.
Another way to look at racism is sociologically - as a bigger problem than individual prejudice. “What is the meaning of race in a society? How is society organized by race? What are the origins of racism, and how does it operate in and affect our daily lives? In this view, racism is “a racialized systemic and structural system that organizes our society.” [Note: This is the dreaded “Critical Race Theory” denounced by many.]
It is easy for white Americans to deny that systemic racism exists, but if we look at case after case of people of color “being profiled or brutalized in their communities by police”, we begin to see that it is not just about one individual moment of “personal sin”.
Sinful people build sinful systems. When Jesus turned over the tables in the temple, he wasn’t just calling out a few bad apples, he was denouncing the oppressive system the scribes and Pharisees had set up.
To counter this type of systemic racism, we in “the dominant culture” need to “have deep and wide conversations with the black community” not just with a few people who share our ideas but with a wide representation of people. We need to “resist any denial of historical and contemporary systemic oppressions in society” and “ take the time to understand the experiences of communities living on the underside of our society.”
This is already too long, so I am going to stop right here and continue with a part 2 about the rest of the book (which I can hopefully do in good time and more succinctly).
