The danger in discounting racial history when considering Obama

With the election of Barack Obama, there has been a great deal of talk about how a new age has begun with the election of an African American to the presidency. However, we should not be lulled into thinking that everything is all right in the United States with regard to race relations. It would be a mistake to think that the election of a black president has somehow resolved all the problems that whites and blacks have so long experienced in dealing with each other in this nation.

There is still a story to be told and a wound to be healed. We have come a long way, but we are not there yet.

My own story has been very much blessed by the experience of living among and working with African Americans, not as some abstract ideal of interracial harmony that is easily espoused, but as a reality that has been challenging and enlightening. For 27 years I have worked in the South as an Edmundite. During my time in the South, I have daily been impacted with the reality of being white in the midst of a black community. Let us be very clear about the reality of black and white relations in the United States. There is still a white America and a black America. The neighborhoods where I lived were black. The churches in which I ministered were black. The schools in which I worked were black. The children I taught experienced me, for the most part, as one of the first white people they had come to know.

What I have learned over the years is that white America often chooses to remain apart from black America. Equally, black Americans tend to choose to live apart from white Americans. We meet when necessary—for work or for professional reasons—but we each go back to neighborhoods that are essentially white or black. There is still the suspicion that we are not safe with each other, and the belief that we do not share a common purpose or identity.

The dream of Dr. King, whom we commemorate today, is that there would come the day when we would no longer be judged by the color of our skin, but by the quality of our character: That we could abide with each other like the lion and the lamb, having no fear of harm in each other’s presence. We have come a long way in this regard, but we are not there yet.

Dr. King worked tirelessly to bring white and black America to a realization that we could never overcome what divides us unless both whites and blacks embraced the common quality of their humanity, perceiving each other as equally children of God and worthy of respect. For King, there could be no resolution of the race question unless both whites and blacks embraced each other and valued each other.

For white America, this means valuing blackness and seeing in black Americans the image of God, but in a different key. White America likes to think that we are all the same and that we should not notice difference—blackness. And that is difficult: Whiteness does not easily allow difference to shape the world in which we live; does not easily understand that the world is much broader and more beautiful once the blinders of whiteness have been removed.

White America has often perceived the place of African Americans in the nation in terms of what has been called “the magic negro.” White America creates characters such as those played by Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Lilies of the Field who exist to resolve the problems of white folk, while remaining non-dimensional or non-challenging in who they are. White America, in attempting to come to terms with black America, often robs black men of their power and reduces black women to domineering persons in the black community who become nurturers in the white community. The danger is that white Americans discount racial history in our new president and in our relations with each other.

All of which is to say: Race matters. Dr. King’s dream of a world in which all people are free cannot happen until we value each other in light of our differences, coming to an appreciation of the value of our differing experiences of the world. The resolving of the racial divide in this nation can only happen when both histories, white and black, are understood in light of each other.

I have found it interesting, in following the rise of Barack Obama to the presidency, to hear people remark that Obama is not really black—he’s half white. How easily we like to rob African Americans of their blackness in order to make acceptable the reality before us, when all the while blackness is not about skin color or DNA, but rather an experience of the discrimination and marginalization African Americans have undergone in their many years in this nation.

I believe that Dr. King, in dreaming about what we could be as a nation, did not mean that we would come to a day when we discounted blackness and perceived all people in terms of the dominant culture of this nation. More to the point, white people need to move beyond thinking that the liberation of minorities in this nation means that white America has now left the door open so that everybody can come inside their world.

The black people I know want to be taken seriously in who they are and in what they have experienced in this nation. They do not wish for whites to be color blind to their blackness. They do not wish to be like everybody else if that means no longer being black. Rather, the people of color that I know hope that their experience of America would inform those with whom they share this nation of what it means to be black in white America: To let the truth of their black experience challenge the thinking of white America, as has often been the case.

When enslaved, black people said that God made them free and would one day set them free. When reduced to poverty, black people sang that all God’s children got shoes and there would come a day when they would share in the bounty of God’s kingdom. When robbed of dignity, black people raised their heads high and told their children how beautiful they were and that they were special in their eyes and in the eyes of God. When not allowed to participate in white America, black people opened their own businesses when they could and did for themselves as best they could, relying on their own enterprise and ingenuity. When told that it would be good for them to resettle in Africa, black people said this is our land and our roots go deep. When denied their rights, black people stood shoulder to shoulder with each other and said we shall overcome one day. When robbed of religion after the middle passage, black people rejected the Christianity of their masters and believed in Jesus as God intended. When robbed of their languages, black people developed a rich and cadenced black vernacular. When robbed of culture, black people interpreted this land in light of their experience of slavery, segregation, and discrimination. Just as surely as God had led the Hebrew people to freedom, so too would God lead them out of slavery to freedom.

Dr. Hilliard from the University of Georgia says of multiculturalism: It is telling the truth. In light of the years of slavery and the years of segregation and the years of discrimination, African Americans have told white America the truth not only of who they were as black people but also the truth of white America in light of the black experience.

This was the service of Dr. King. This has been the service of all those who preceded Dr. King in their struggle for freedom in America. We are indeed blessed by what Dr. King did; and by what so many black people in this nation did to close the racial divide and make of us one people. It is the service of truth telling. And like the prophets of old who told the people what they did not want to hear, so too the African American people of this nation have often told us what we did not want to hear. As the scriptures say: The truth will set you free. We are indeed blessed by the truth of blackness in our nation.

This address was from the Ecumenical Prayer Service held as part of the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Legacy of Justice and Service on January 21, 2009. Fr. David Theroux, SSE ’70, has served the African-American community through the Edmundite Southern Missions for 27 years.