“You can lynch a people by more than just hanging them on a tree. How long will this terror last?!” Dr. James Cone, 2013, Vanderbilt University
Dear white Christians,
Every Black life matters. That is not a cliché, hashtag, or a movement moniker. That is a Divinely pronounced, immutable, moral truth. Despite this Truth, three black people – Ahmad Aubrey in Georgia, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, George Floyd in Minnesota – three children of God, three of our human siblings, three of our neighbors, three beloved family members – were lynched in America in as many months. Each of their lives mattered. And God is inviting us to remember the Divine Words in Genesis. “What have you done?! Listen! your brothers’ and sister’s blood cries out to me from the land.” (Gen. 4:10)
To say that the murders of Ahmad Aubrey, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, happened because they were Black is to blame the victims. Mr. Aubrey, Ms. Taylor, and Mr. Floyd were lynched because their killers were racists. The initial non-response to Mr. Aubrey’s murder happened because the prosecutors’ decisions were rooted in racism. Bystanders realized the police were killing Mr. Floyd and begged the officers to stop using lethal force; officers refused because they were racists. When I ask prayerfully, “Would what happened to Ahmad Aubrey, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd have been different if these beloved children of God had been white?” the answer is, “Yes!” But their Blackness was not to blame. Their deaths are the fruit of white privilege left unchallenged, racism gone viral, and white supremacy running rampant and glorified on our airwaves and in our streets. Racist white people are to blame. Racist white people lynched them! “What have you done?! Listen! your brothers’ and sisters’ blood cries out to me from the land.”
The assault against Black bodies on our streets is personal. It was personal for Ahmad Aubrey and his family. It was personal for Breonna Taylor and her family. It was personal for George Floyd and his family. What has happened to them and to their families is personal for everyone in America who is not white. I want to say something to the Church without becoming too personal for me or for you. But that is not possible.
Dismantling racism is personal work. Racism will only be dismantled when each of us personally dismantles our own racism. An honest moral inventory of myself specifically and of white people generally tells me that white people do not interact with Black people the same way they interact with white people. White people feel a different set of feelings when we interact with Black people than we feel when we interact with white people. White culture believes and perpetuates stereotypes and untruths about Black culture in order to sustain our white privilege. That is why just this week a Central Park dog-walker, Amy Cooper, who is white, called the police and reported her life was being threatened when a birdwatcher, Christian Cooper, who is Black, asked her to comply with posted rules and put her dog on a leash. Sometimes we don’t realize what we are doing and that is the crux of the problem. Sometimes we do.
My integrity compels me to admit that I am a racist. I was taught racial biases, not always tacitly. I have willingly learned and practiced these patterns of behavior because that is what white people expect of other white people, and because ‘our systems’ reward racism. My whiteness has become unmanageable in that I am addicted to my privilege. I do not want to be a racist. Yet, I commit racism every time I interact with or feel or believe differently about someone who is not white, or when I act to preserve my privilege. While I am working to be more aware of and to overcome my privilege and my racism, that does not mean I am not racist. That means when I succeed, I am a racist in recovery. Until white people confess and change what is happening inside of ourselves, Black people will continue to bear our sins in their bodies. “What have you done?! Listen! your brothers’ and sisters’ blood cries out to me from the land.”
Let us agree to make no more assumptions that because we are progressive Christians, we are not racists. Let us put as much work into dismantling our own individual racism as we have put into our collective statements of solidarity with communities of color, protests, expressions of outrage, and social media posts. Let us agree as clergy and lay leaders, members together of the Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ, we will intentionally and overtly act to dismantle racism in all of our ministry settings and in the systems in which we live socially, economically, legally, and politically. Let us agree to educate ourselves about Black history, read books by Black authors, quote Black teachers and theologians, and elect Black leaders. Let us agree to call out racism from our pulpits and in our pulpits, from our seats and in our seats at board and committee meetings, our private conversations, our decision making, our interpretation of Scripture, our classes and workshops. Let us agree to give one another permission to hold each other accountable when we miss the opportunity to hold ourselves accountable for racist and privileged behavior.
The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:6-7) What world becomes possible when we, white Christians, live into that kind of covenant with one another? I hope a world without lynchings, where no person dies because of the color of their skin, a world from which “the blood of our neighbors” no longer cries out against us, a just world for all.
Rev. Dr. William M. Lyons, Conference Minister
Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ
So well stated. I, too, am a racist, and it pains me to admit as much. I believe we need to start having honest conversations with ourselves and with each other; do more than donate to food banks and homeless shelters. Since, in our church, we claim to “love, care, share and serve,” we ought to begin really examining what those things look like in our lives. I am making a personal commitment to starting that process.
Thank you, Bill, for speaking truth so powerfully, and poignantly, to challenge us to confront what is deeply embedded in our hearts. Our nation, our world, our church, our very selves, are in a state of moral emergency! If it isn’t already, a deep sense of moral and spiritual crisis should be constant in each one of us. We are afraid of becoming depressed, and we also fear to depress another, but this is not the time to worry about that! Self-confrontation may be painful, but without that step we, and our society, may never have redemption.
Perhaps our Conference, every SWC church, and each of us in our UCC/SWC congregations can dedicate, and fully commit, this year to doing, in every way, the real, hard work of dismantling racism, and simply make that our priority. May God give us the strength to do so.