Reactions to Confronting Racism in 2016

Soo, reaction to Last night's web cast "Confronting Racism." [It's a bit long.]

Prelude: January 14, 2016:
This was an interesting Day, when these two visual events happened simultaneously…

Republican Party Debate – North Charleston, SC

ELCA - Confronting Racism: A Holy Yearning
Post Webcast: Angie Shannon asks:
Okay Lutheran family: Who saw the Live Webcast "Confronting Racism"? What are your thoughts? Honest. Thoughts.

Reaction:

I was number 17 in 1971 @ age 26. Seventeenth Black Pastor in the LCA. During seminary, I was a part of the trial and editing of a program of the LCA called “Justice and Social Change”. Sherman Hicks and I worked with Dr. Charles King, as he both taught at the seminary and led race relations programs in White Lutheran Churches throughout the state, based upon the publication “Justice and Social Change”. “Over time he felt unable to penetrate the wall of White ignorance among the student, until one day he simply exploded in Black anger in class and discovered that this was the thing that pierced the veneer of racism and led to real understanding. Both his classes and his racial awareness programs became vehicles for cleansing confrontational encounters with racism.” [as reported in The Encyclopedia of African American Religions, by Larry G. Murphy, J. Gordon Melton, Gary L. Ward, 2013.]

I clearly remember saying to Charles, during a break in a workshop, “I don’t know if I can love these folks that much?” It is a fine line to walk between education and anger as it relates to race. This past year as one of my former students lamented her encounter within the church, I confessed that while our conversations had been educational and friendly, I had not shared the depth of the pain of being viewed as Other, even in the midst of being welcomed within. The reality of living in two worlds became an operational style without writing the necessary operational manual for those who followed me down the same path.

I lament an elder clergy of color was not present in the webcast, but many, like me, might resurrect more historical moments of the pain experienced, than can be accommodated in hour of looking for ways forward. It is not that reflecting on sins recognized or unintended from the past is unimportant, but unless you are Henry Louis Gates, it makes for bad television. Actually, I’m pleased to interact with Lenny and others from my position of retirement, but at the same time I’m working to capture the history of those older seventeen and others who preceded me before their stories are totally lost. We can learn from the historical moment, but it seems “to me” to serve best as a reflection upon what we have done and what has worked and what has not achieved the goals desired.

While we each, in our own generations, sometimes feel as if we are trail blazers, the reality is that there have been those who have broken paths that continually need to be cleared and expanded and perhaps paved for the next generation, and even then we may feel as if we have not done, perhaps never done, enough - Enough for the next generation not to encounter a pervasive side of humanity that clouds our ability to see all of humanity as a part of the family of God.

I don’t know how to teach peripheral vision, but there are few parts of the nation that are absent the presence of People of Color. The two video sessions may offer the opportunity for those who were not distracted by the other televised offerings move our heads from side to side to see what else might be within our field of vision and perhaps ministry. POC are legion.

Rich Stewart