I live in a predominantly black neighborhood, and it is a great community with amazing people. It is also a community of scars and gaping wounds. How can healing truly take place here? The problems manifest today in my community are a short step away from the history of segregation and racism in our country.
It is true that we are responsible for our actions, good or evil, and I don't wish to make excuses for perpetrators of crime, but perhaps it would be easier to understand the prevalence of problems in this neighborhood if a few things were brought to light.
I've attached this link because I think it can be helpful in beginning to think critically about race in our country. It's long, but worth watching. It's called "A Classroom Divided" and was one teacher's way, by segregating her kids by eye color, to show the mess racism causes.
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6189991712636113875
After watching this Frontline, a few instances really stuck out to me.
1) That the group of students in the "lower" position scored worse on tests. After only a day?! What if this racism went on for generations? What would it do to an entire population?
2) It was amazingly easy for the kids is the "higher" group to start bullying the "lower" group, even if they were best friends before the experiment.
3) When it was used on adults, one person said, "Well, not all of us are like that", a complete buy-in to the lies that having a certain eye color meant that you were stupid, untrustworthy, lazy. Instead of pushing back on the fallacy, he wanted to be the exception to the rules being propounded by the teacher.
If one day's exercise had this potent an effect, what would a century of this behavior create? What about two centuries?
I know that a person is culpable for his or her own actions, but behind the actions are beliefs, and behind beliefs are truths or lies. Insidious lies abound here. Lies of superiority and inferiority. Lies about worth and virtue and intrinsic beauty. Lies that we have bought into with alacrity.
The father of lies has been hard at work in this country.
I am praying for real reconciliation. I am praying for hearts that are healed and transformed. I am praying that the kingdom of God comes here, because I know that His kingdom will destroy the lies and break these patterns.
I'm praying that as one of his ambassadors I can tell the truth and tell it in love.
Jesus once said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” John 6:29
It is hard work to believe in Jesus, only possible with God. It is hard work to believe the truth, only possible with God. And if Jesus is the truth, than everything he said about love, forgiveness,worth, beauty and need is also true. We need God in this community and country. We need him to rewrite the internal dialogue of destruction propagated for centuries.
So Jesus said to the Jews (and to us) who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32
May the truth set us free. I see no other way.
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