Post #55: Dear Christians

Dear Christians,

I'm hoping to keep my snarkiness in this post to a minimum, for a few reasons. First of all, I know that it tends to turn people off. Secondly, I really do love you. And lastly, because I am a Christian and I know that I need to reflect Christ.

But I'm also going to admit that it is going to be difficult to do this. Because in the last few weeks many of you have broken my heart. I don't think you mean to, but the things you have been sharing and commenting on social media is enough to repeatedly drive me to tears and breakdowns as I cry out, "Why, God? Why can't they see?"

So please, take this as it is. Which is me sharing my heart with you.

Before anything else, I want to delve into a little history. Regarding slavery, did you know that a huge number of Christians went to church every Sunday, read their Bibles, reached out to the poor in their community, but also wholeheartedly supported slavery? Many even had slaves. Many who claimed to be Christians were members of the KKK, attended and took part in lynchings, and believed that Black people were inferior to themselves. That is not Scriptural. But these Christians still took part in it. Did you know that residential schools in Canada were run by churches? That the people claiming to love Christ were the same people who tried to beat the culture and language of the Indigenous peoples out of them? When Canada and the US were founded, when constitutions were created, they were not created with people of colour in mind. They were created with white people (and specifically white men) in mind.

Please don't tune me out now because I referred to white men. Some of you may be tempted to because you are tired of being told you have white privilege. Please don't. I am begging you, as a fellow Christian, to please keep reading. To please listen.

In my last post I shared what Ijeoma Oluo says about white privilege. How it doesn't mean that you, as a white person, has never had to experience hardship. It just means that the colour of your skin is not one of the things working against you.

I understand you when you say you're tired of hearing that you're racist and privileged. Because you don't see it. You see your personal struggles. You see your experiences. You see how hard your life has been. And you feel like people are trying to tell you that those things don't matter. What you don't see, is that every time you say that, you are also discounting the fact that POC face hardship because of the colour of their skin. You probably don't mean to do that. But you become so defensive, that ultimately it becomes about you. And right now it really doesn't need to be about us. I tried to break this down for someone this week. I explained that privilege does exist and it exists in a variety of ways. Jordan and I had this discussion earlier this week. I'm a woman. Because I'm a woman, it is dangerous for me to go running when it is dark out. Jordan doesn't have to live with that fear. If he wanted to go for a run early in the morning or after work, he could. I have gone for runs in broad daylight and still had men leer at me and yell, "Hey! Wanna come suck my big, fat, white cock?" Jordan doesn't have to live with that fear. He hasn't had to cut a run short to get home because he was scared by what was being yelled at him or how he was treated.  Now that is just a difference between men and women. But it is an example of privilege. A few years ago I had the pleasure of teaching two young women of colour in one of my classes. The most humbling moment of my teaching career to date was when one of these women explained to me that since she was eight, she had had it drilled into what to do if she was pulled over by the police when driving. Since she was eight. My parents never had a talk like that with me. They didn't need to. Another woman explained that every time they traveled somewhere, her dad and brother were always pulled out into another room and questioned. Not just the random, "Hey, you've been chosen for me to do a scan of you" kind of the things. But they were pulled aside, separated from their families, and detained.

My dear Christians, you need to stop being offended and threatened when people explain that you have privilege. I get it is hard to hear. But it is also the truth. You don't need to live in shame of it. What you need to do is acknowledge it, understand that your personal experience is different, and then be open to listening to the experiences of POC. They have spent their whole lives listening to your experiences and being inundated with the assumptions that their experiences are the same as yours. Culture and media are catered to us as white people. I'm not saying this as a way to cast blame, but in the hopes that your eyes will be open to it.

You are right, All lives do matter, The lives of police officers matter. But right now, at this moment, the lives of POC are the ones that need defending. They are the ones being treated differently. They are the ones the most impacted by systemic racism.

A few weeks ago, the house across the street from us caught fire. The fire spread to the house beside it. There was a lot of damage done. Everyone survived, but none of the pets did. But do you know what our neighborhood did? They surrounded the family who lost their home. They provided warmth, food, and comfort. They didn't sit their trying to convince them that their homes also mattered. They didn't sit there wanting to speculate about the cause of the fire to determine whether or not the family needed help. They helped. 

Yes, slavery happened in the past. Yes, residential schools happened in the past (although not that far in the past). Yes, you personally didn't do these things to POC. But guess what? Our Indigenous people are still dealing with the fallout of reserves and residential schools. Alcoholism is used as a coping mechanism to deal with the trauma of this abuse. It leads to many cases of FASD. And the cycle continues. Because of policies towards Black people in the past, there are often cases of them being in poorer neighborhoods. Maybe we didn't cause these issues, but our neighbors are still dealing with the very real consequences of those issues. So please stop telling them to "Get over it because it is in the past." Please stop feeling like a victim because you didn't do anything. Please step past yourself, and realize that your neighbors are hurting. That their pain is very real. And please stop feeling like you need to protect yourself, more than you need to fight for them.

Yes, looting is bad. It is awful that people are taking advantage of protests to loot. But please know that every time you take the conversation to looting, you are saying that businesses are more important than the lives of those who have been murdered. You probably don't mean that, but it is what is coming across.

When you call for an end to protests (which are not illegal, by the way), you are telling Black people that they don't have a right to ask to be treated like equals. They have already been told that the silent, peaceful ways they have protested in the past is not acceptable, so what is?

This next point is probably going to make people angry with me, but please hear me out. What does it mean when you say you are "pro-life"? It means that you are for life. It is often associated with being anti-abortion, but it technically means that you care for life in all its forms. I'm having a really hard time understanding how people who fight for the rights of an unborn child who has no voice (and people who will protest for those children), are also against Black people protesting for their rights when their voices have been taken from them. You cannot say you care about life if you only actually care about life from conception until birth. That makes you anti-abortion, but not pro-life.

Dealing with all of this is heavy. I get it. For the last few weeks I feel like I have a constant weight on me. I want to cry all the time. I almost asked God to take this away, and then I realized that the sadness and hurt I'm feeling is only a portion of what our Black and Indigenous neighbors have always dealt with. If I truly want God to develop His empathy within me, it means that I need to learn to live with being uncomfortable.

I'm going to end off by saying that I don't think you are trying to be mean or hateful to POC. But in all of this you are making yourselves the victims and are trying to minimize the experiences (and these experiences are real. That is a fact) of POC. You are telling them that they just need to get over it. That their experiences must be the exact same as yours. And that is not Scriptural. And that is not loving.

So please, when you start to feel defensive, pray. Ask God to raise up compassion and empathy in you. Ask Him to help you acknowledge the areas where you have been privileged, and ask Him to help show you how you can use your privilege to help others. Ask Him to open your eyes to see the hurt and the pain being done to your Black and Indigenous brothers and sisters, and ask Him to also give you a willingness to see what is going on. We aren't the victims here, guys. And we need to stop acting like we are.

Love,
Jess

Post #54: Checking Privilege and Loving Others

How does one begin to even address everything that has happened in the last week and a bit? How does one address all the hurt caused by systemic racism? How do I, as a white women, help without making this all about me? Without drowning out the voices of people of colour, who are the ones who need to be heard and listened to?

This morning was a bit of a breaking point for me. I found myself in tears, crying out to God, asking Him what I can do and how I can help. I can't be silent when I see racism and prejudice being supported. But I also don't want to make this about me.

I borrowed a book from a co-worker called So you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo. I'm only a third of the way through it, but I already feel like I am learning so much. She has a chapter called "Why am I always being told to 'check my privilege.'"

As a teacher, I have delved into issues of racism and prejudice in several of my classes. We've talked about privilege. And I have had students blow off what I am saying, thinking that calling me a "liberal" or "too sensitive" is justification to not listen to me (interestingly enough, none of them actually knew what political leaning I was. They just assumed that because I said that we should care about people, I must be a liberal... insert shrug). I had classes that would be dismissed while other students, students of colour, would stay behind to talk to me about what had just happened. Would share their experiences. Would share that their experiences were often invalidated in other classes by these students too. And I had many classes where the door would close and I would put my head on my desk and cry. Cry because I didn't understand why Christian kids in a Christian school couldn't understand that we need to care for others. Couldn't understand that their experience wasn't the same experience of every other person in the world.

I'm going to share a chunk of what Oluo says in this chapter.

"When someone asks you to 'check your privilege' they are asking you to pause and consider how the advantages you've had in life are contributing to your opinions and actions, and how the lack of disadvantages in certain areas is keeping you from fully understanding the struggles others are facing and may in fact be contributing to those struggles...

You may be right in saying 'but it's not my privilege that is hurting someone, it's their lack of privilege. Don't blame me, blame the people telling them that what they have isn't as good as what I have.' And in a way, that is true, but know this, a privilege has to come with somebody else's disadvantage... As a light-skinned black woman, I'm viewed by many in society as more intelligent and less threatening than darker-skinned black people. This is a privilege, because in order to be viewed as 'more intelligent' others have to be viewed as 'less intelligent'...

Sit down and think about the advantages you've had in life. Have you always had good mental health? Did you grow up middle class? Are you white? Are you male? Are you nondisabled? Are you neuro-typical? Are you a documented citizen of the country you live in? Did you grow up in a stable home environment? Do you have stable housing? Do you have reliable transportation? Are you cisgender? Are you straight? Are you thin, tall, or conventionally attractive?...

You may well want to list your disadvantages as well. This is not the time for that, so please resist the urge. It is natural to feel like focusing on your advantages invalidates your disadvantages and your struggles in life, but that is not what will happen. You can be both privileged in some areas of life, and underprivileged in others. Both can be true at once and can impact your life at the same time...

Once you've written down a nice long list of privilege, start thinking about how this privilege might have influenced not only your status in society, but your experience with and understanding of the world at large. How might your privilege have impacted your ideas on racism, on education, on the environment? Then start seeking out work on these subjects by people who don't have your same privilege, and listen when those people are speaking. Being privileged doesn't mean that you are always wrong and people without privilege are always right--it means that there is a good chance you are missing a few very important pieces of the puzzle" (pages 63-66).

As I prayed and asked God how I could help, He reminded me of this section. And told me to check my privilege. So here is my list.

I:

-have always had good mental health

-grew up middle class

-am white

-am nondisabled

-am neurotypical

-am a documented, Canadian citizen

-grew up in a stable home environment

-have stable housing

-have reliable transportation

-am cisgender

-am straight

-have blond hair and blue eyes

-have two university degrees

-was able to pay off my student loans

-have a stable job doing what I love

-am married

-have two kids

The list could go on, but that is the start of it. I have privilege. I am privileged. And I don't want to sit by and be silent. I can't be silent.

Oluo also mentions in her book that as we try to understand and step out, we will make mistakes. I did that just this morning. I was angry, hurt, and frustrated by what someone had commented, and I replied in a snarky way. An unhelpful way. So I deleted my comment and apologized. But I also knew I couldn't just say nothing. Because I also believe that that is wrong. Saul (who later became Paul in Scripture), may not have actually stoned the Christians, but he did stand by and watch and hold the coats of those doing the stoning.

Matthew 25:34-45 says the following:

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invited you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did for me.'

Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

And so I am going to continue to ask God to show me how I can help those who do not have the same privileges I have. Because my privilege comes at the expense and the disadvantage of other people.  We are also doing what we can to teach our children about these issues. I have spent the last week researching and starting to accumulate books about about race, about empathy, and about speaking up. We have been reading I am Human by Susan Verde, Say Something by Peter Reynolds, and Sulwe by Lupita Nyong'o. I have another children's book on order that deals with residential schools in Canada (I am not a Number by Jenny Kay Dupuis). I will finish reading So you want to talk about race, and once it arrives in the mail will also read I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown. 

I will make lots of mistakes that I will have to apologize for. But I am going to keep learning and I am going to keep fighting. Because God has not called me to be silent and to be a bystander, but has called me feed and clothe and invite in those who need it. I will continue to try to draw attention to those who are perpetuating the systemic racism that is a part of our society. I am going to do everything in my power to teach and show my children what it means to be empathetic and to see with God's eyes and love with God's heart.

Father, make me Your hands and Your feet.