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The Color of My Skin
Alida M. DeCoster
August 11,1996
My husband-to-be, Perry, is proving himself to be a good resource
when it comes to sermon material. This is no surprise. All rich life experience
deserves reflection. Perry told me about an African American man, Daryl
Davis, who has spoken at The Washington Ethical Society. While driving
recently, we listened to a tape of one of Mr. Davis' talks, given in 1994.
He first tells about his growing up abroad. His parents were in
the foreign service. His friends in international schools were from all
different races and cultures. Apparently that provides a kind of rarified
atmosphere in which everyone accepts everyone. Davis describes the rude
awakening of coming home to live in the United States as a teenager and
being snubbed and mistreated by whites. He tells of being the only black
Boy Scout marching in a parade in Massachusetts. He was at the front of
the marchers, carrying a flag. Someone started throwing rocks at him. He
couldn't figure out what was going on. He thought people were against the
Boy Scouts. Then he realized the rocks were just aimed at him. His Scout
masters rushed to surround him as he marched. This was a shocking and eye-opening
experience.
As an adult, now a professional musician and occasional journalist,
Davis has undertaken a remarkable project. He has calmly, persistently
sought to have conversations with top leaders of the Ku Klux Klan. He,
like many blacks, can make his voice "sound white." He has arranged
interviews with leaders from different Klan factions who show up not expecting
a black journalist. His descriptions of these encounters are both frightening
and funny. With his great skill at diplomacy and his unflappable directness,
he has actually been able to talk with a number of these people more than
once. He has truly communicated a willingness to try to understand the
world from their point of view. Some have actually left the Klan. Something
happened. A conversation was begun. A person risked crossing a great divide
to listen.
There was a small news story a couple of months ago that really
struck me. I do not remember the exact details, but the gist of it was
that there was a demonstration of skinheads, or some other group with a
racially hostile agenda. A much larger group of counter demonstrators attacked
the skinheads. It was a young African American woman who threw herself
into the fray to protect the skinhead who was being attacked by the angry
anti-skinhead protestors. An African American woman protected her racial
enemy's safety. This is the kind of heroic stretching that race relations
can require of us.
Race is a difficult subject to preach about. Even those of us with
white skin who do not deal with humiliation and fear of racial attack,
get to a point of being exhausted by the topic. It is difficult to watch
what we thought was great progress in the sixties' civil rights movement
(and it was progress!), being reversed now, or superseded by escalating
tension. Yes, there has been progress, economic progress. In Living
With Racism: The Black Middle Class Experience, authors Joe Feagin
and Melvin Sikes evaluate statistical data about economic gains. In 1940,
9% of employed blacks and just under half of whites were in white collar
or skilled blue collar jobs. By 1988 50% of blacks were in white collar
or skilled blue collar jobs, compared with 70% of whites (p.27), though
this does not differentiate between white and blue collar jobs. Since the
1970s, however, blacks have made only small gains relative to whites.
Often we are tempted to think that minority poverty is the only
remaining racial issue. But racism of a deeper kind is proving to be very
persistent. Feagin and Sikes interviewed 209 middle class African Americans
from all over the country. One author is white, the other black. They report
in quote after quote the continuing reality of discrimination and danger.
In public places, restaurants, hotels, in home buying, at the job, at universities
and colleges, in all parts of the nation, middle class blacks, and I am
sure this extends to members of other racial groups, continue to encounter
rudeness, stares, refusal to be served and other blatant forms of discrimination.
These are the words of a black professional in the north (p. 47).
I have faced harassment in stores, being followed around, being
questioned about what are you going to purchase here...I was in an elite
department store just this past Saturday and felt that I was being observed
while I was window shopping. I in fact actually ended up purchasing something,
but felt the entire time I was there -- I was in blue jeans and sneakers,
that's how I dress on a Saturday -- I felt I was being watched in the store
as I was walking through...what business did I have there, what was I going
to purchase, that kind of thing. There are a few of those white people
who won't put change in your hand, won't touch your skin. That doesn't
need to go on....I find my best weapon of defense is to educate them, whether
it's in the store, in a line, at the bank, any situation, I teach them.
And you take them by surprise because you teach them and show them how
they should be living because racism is from fear. The racism is from lack
of education.
The two readings I chose point to what I want to discuss as a way
to work with racial problems. I agree so much with William Dean's statement
that the problem is not diversity, but conversation. Like Daryl Davis,
like the woman in the last quote, we need to be willing to talk one on
one, honestly. All of us.
The second reading, "Transcending Boundaries" by Yvonne
Seon-Wood, points to the importance of soul-searching. We need to acknowledge
the problem of racial prejudice in ourselves. Perhaps a few rare ones feel
they have licked that. What those of us with light skin must acknowledge
and accept is that we are the beneficiaries of power and privilege that
go with our skin color. At the very least, we rarely have to think about
our skin color, whereas people of color generally have to think of it most
of the time, especially when they are outside the relative safety of their
own communities.
This is new learning for me. I attended a powerful workshop this
summer at the Unitarian Universalist Association's General Assembly in
Indianapolis. It was an all-day training for UU ministers. I learned a
lot that day, June 19. I learned how much my own UU minister colleagues
of African American and other minority backgrounds have struggled and suffered
from racism. I have some better understanding of why people of color do
not feel comfortable at Cedar Lane, perhaps simply because it is such an
emotional effort to be so outnumbered. It is also because perhaps, we just
don't get it. Having middle class jobs should put us all on a level playing
field, but if we do not recognize the power and privilege we have, if we
do not acknowledge the advantage of having white skin, we are less sensitive.
And the environment is less welcoming.
These may sound like harsh words. The goal of integrating our UU
churches eludes most of us. Some churches in our movement, mostly urban
and mostly with ministers of color, who make a conscious effort, do succeed
in attracting more diversity. Suburban churches have a long way to go,
and maybe integrating our churches, as some have suggested, is not the
most important goal. Rather we should work to root out racism in other
ways through programs and through self reflective work, as I am attempting
to do this morning. As Dan Aldrich, African American minister of All Souls
Unitarian Church in the District asked at a recent ministers' meeting,
"What are you so worried about getting black people in UU churches
for? We don't have enough white people in our churches!" He also said
that approaches to anti-racism work should avoid laying guilt trips. There's
no point in making well-intentioned people feel guilty, and that is certainly
not what I intend to do this morning.
I hope to promote the ideas of conversation and self-reflection
when it comes to race. Let's be willing to talk with each other and with
ourselves about our true feelings, fears, confusions and hopes. And let
us simply learn to admit the power that goes with having white skin, even
though we may not feel powerful. That power is usually reflected in our
institutions. Once we acknowledge that power, we can become more willing
to let it go.
Let me tell you about the film we ministers saw at General Assembly.
I would like to arrange to show it here at Cedar Lane. It was a moving,
intense experience, as was the conversation which followed. Lee Mun Wah,
the producer of this film, titled "The Color of Fear," is a community
therapist, poet and film maker. The film (quoting from the publicity) "is
about the pain and anguish that racism has caused in the lives of eight
North American men of Asian, European, Latino and African descent. One
by one, the men reveal racism's pain and scars, the defense mechanisms
they use to survive their fears of each other, and their hopes for a multi
cultural society. Out of those confrontations and struggles emerges a dialogue
most of us fear, but hope will happen in our lifetime..."
Lee Mun Wah, a Chinese American man, came to this work through tragedy.
His life was changed on the day his mother was murdered by an African American
man. That experience somehow brought him to this work of anti-racism. He
desperately needed to understand it better.
The film is a documentary of an encounter-group-type session. The
eight subjects were chosen for their interpersonal skills and willingness
to learn and grow. The degree of the pain that is revealed is remarkable.
The degree of healing and love by the end is more than remarkable. In traditional
language, we learn the possibility of redemption. But there must be courage
to face the pain and go through it before redemption is possible.
A black man tells how even in his business suit he has to do a "90's
shuffle" in a predominantly white law firm. He has to be agreeable,
not make waves, know his place.
A highly gifted Hispanic man experienced so much harassment at Stanford
University in the 1950s, he gave up the possibility of a professional career
to be a craftsman. Today, he counsels Hispanic college students to help
them endure the pressures of harassment and discrimination.
A European American man recognizes the pain inflicted by white society
and grieves. Another white man gradually understands that the feelings
of the men of color are not just the result of paranoia or insecurity.
An Asian man talks of stereotypes and tension between the black
and Asian communities. A difficult discussion ensues about the irony of
racism between minorities.
An eloquent black man lays it on the line about how exhausting it
is to constantly struggle to accommodate the demands and insults of white
institutions. A resident of Oakland, California, he described the fear
he has leaving the relative safety of the urban black community to travel
to a predominantly white area of the country. He is genuinely in danger
traveling through rural areas of the northwest.
To be heard, understood and respected in expressing one's pain and
frustration can be transforming. To see these angry, hurting men work hard
at understanding each other, and finally appreciate and embrace each other
was very moving.
Following the showing of the film, Lee Mun Wah asked different groups
in the large crowd of over 500 to stand. He asked Hispanics to stand. Not
very many. He asked African Americans to stand. Two dozen. More than I
expected, but not very many. He asked people to stand whose family name
was changed at some point without their permission. He asked people to
stand whose names were changed so as to sound more "American."
He asked individuals to take the risk of telling their personal stories
before the large group. And it was in these instances that I learned the
most.
I learned that almost all of my African American colleagues, men
and women, have been stopped repeatedly by the police for insignificant
reasons. Handcuffed for double parking. Searched and delayed for no stated
reason. My African American colleagues do not let their sons drive at night,
because of fear of their being stopped for the so-called "crime of
driving while black."
Unitarian Universalist Rosemary Bray McNatt has written of the fear
she feels when her husband is late coming home. She knows he is in danger
on the streets. She writes: "For most people in New York, the urban
bogeyman is a young black man in sneakers. But we live in Central Harlem,
where every young man is black and wears sneakers, so we learn to look
into the eyes of young males and discern to difference between youthful
bravado and the true dangers of the streets...." She fears white men
in police uniforms, white teenagers driving by, panicky whites on the subway.
She fears they will see another black man in sneakers, not a writer, cyclist,
basketball player, his parents' son, her life's partner. She fears white
panic at her husband's black presence.
All this I learned by listening. I have listened and I have heard.
Now I understand better the cumulative emotional effect of dealing with
these fears. Now I understand better why African American middle class
people will take a long time to trust me. Why an all-white church is not
very appealing to people of color. I have to listen. I have to understand.
Let us reflect, let us learn, let us converse. Let us do more than half
of the reaching out. More than half of the listening. For real change to
happen, it is white America that must change. We are now in a time of backlash,
but finally, there is no going back. The struggle must continue.
We must practice theology. We must look toward the divine ideal
expressed in our responsive reading. What will finally lead to restoration
of all souls with the divine? Three things:
A theology of acknowledgment, in which we admit that white people
have a better deal, hard as life is for everyone. We have a certain innate
privilege and power because of our skin color. We are freer.
A theology of relinquishment, in which we become willing to let
go of that power and let the other in. Welcome the diversity of many lands
and peoples and colors into our world. Challenge ourselves to be not quite
so safe and comfortable and familiar all the time.
A theology of relationship, in which we continually renew our commitment
to meet the other as a "thou," even though we will not always
be treated that way ourselves.
Acknowledgment, relinquishment, relationship. To these are we called.
In this spirit, we build community and move toward restoration. Amen.
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