Excavating Race: An Individual's Journey with Repentance

How much the world has changed in a week!  Since the last time I wrote, it seems as if the nation has exploded and now its hard to escape from people talking about race.  While I appreciate that race is now acknowledged openly as an area of brokenness, I struggle with some of the logic and rhetoric behind arguments and how very oversimplified a very complicated topic can be made when it hits memes and social media posts. 

In response to my last post, I’ve received questions on “how.”  “How do I do uncover implicit bias in my own life?  How do I get better at this?”  I love those questions.  They make my heart happy.  However, I have to be honest in my answer.  I have no idea.  Sure, sure, I can throw a million resources at you (which, by the way, I have updated my resource page on this blog to give you more info sources than you can ever hope to read, written by people much more knowledgeable than myself).  However, the more I learn, the more I don’t know.  There isn’t a “ten easy steps to fixing racism.” It’s a complicated, deeply layered, interconnected problem and oversimplification can sometimes further entrench false ideologies instead of healing them.  That being said, learning is great! 

While I can’t tell you what your process needs to be or how you need to shift in your heart and thought processes, I can share my journey.  It’s not perfect.  It’s not done.  I’ve got a long way to go still. However, maybe reading some of the ways I have struggled to grow in this might give you a place to start and lean into in your own life. 

First off, I am fully convinced that the first step in ethnic/racial reconciliation is repentance under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  While education and government programs have a place, the more I see, the more I am convinced that true, lasting healing has to start from a spiritual level and if that's not dealt with, then nothing can permanently change.  I have to start by discovering where I am blind or believing lies in my own heart.  
I will talk about five areas where I’ve had lean deeper into repentance: on an individual/personal level, in my family line, in my people/nation, in my land/neighborhood, and in my church. 



1.)  Personal/Individual:  Where are the ways I’ve screwed up? 

First off, through my own ignorance and pride, I’ve made mistakes in the ways I’ve treated and thought about other people(s).  I’ve had to repent for the ways I, as a person and individual, have knowingly or unknowingly believed lies about my culture, my race, and my ethnicity. 

Here’s a couple of examples:

One day, I spent a long afternoon with a bi-cultural family friend debating all the cities in the U.S. we wouldn’t want to subject our brown children to.  We discussed the merits of different states and cities and which are the most open to our unique families.  Afterwards, I was convicted by the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit: 

What if I called you there?  Is it your job to protect your children or decide where I want them to live?  Should that decision be made out of fear or obedience?  Will you trust me with your children?  Will you trust my protection instead of trusting your own wisdom and your geographic location? 

Yeah.  I repented. 

As our family has journeyed with cultural adaptation and what it means to be a multicultural and biracial family in the U.S., I was shocked to find how hard it has been, how much rejection we’ve faced, and the implicit and explicit bias dished out by people of many races and backgrounds.  Digging into my emotional response of shock, I realized not only my own ignorance to the lived experiences of other peoples in the U.S., but my own deeply rooted pride.  The Holy Spirit came to whisper to me again:

You thought your skin, your background, your identity would be enough to protect your husband and your children from racism and rejection. You believed your knowledge, your strength, your position in society, and your cultural dominance would be enough to “cover” your family and make them accepted.  In what do you place your faith?  Where does your hope lie? Where is your worth found?   

I repented-again and again.  I realized I dishonored my husband’s identity and background through my ethnocentric attitude.  I also failed to fully surrender myself to the spiritual covering he gives as my husband and other half.  I needed to recognize and support the unique journeys, challenges, and identities that my husband and children are facing and give them space for different roads than those I have walked. 



Another example of my own garbage I’ve had to dig through came out of experiences with the Ethnic Reconciliation Task force I’ve been apart of with a missions organization for nearly three years now.  We’ve put together resources, workshops, articles, and tools to try to raise awareness and bring healing in what we see as a long-neglected spiritual discipline. It’s been a journey, a challenge, and a privilege for me to be a part of this mighty team. 

Proverbs 19:2 says, “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.”  Unfortunately, I am very good at overzealousness and haste.  Part of this journey has involved me repenting of my desire to “fix things” and “change the world.”  Not that those are bad in and of themselves, but where I erred was placing the emphasis on myself and my own zeal.  It was by my strength, my gifts, my knowledge, my work that the world would be fixed. 

Yeah.  That’s ugly pride again.  It’s only the Holy Spirit who can bring genuine healing and if I am privileged to be a conduit, amazing!  If not, I need to get out of the way, lean deeper into the Spirit and let the Spirit work.

 A few months ago a friend listened to me ranting about my zealous desire to “fix” things and made this comment: “The work you are doing might not be for you.  It might be for your children and they will be the voice of change.”  There was a bite of much needed truth in that. I needed to lean into my own hiddenness, growth process, and behind-the-scenes role in some areas so that the work could go on unhindered by my clumsy, flawed attempts at fixing everything. 



Finally, I’ve had to learn to give more space to listen.  People have a variety of life experiences and perspectives and if I assume I know what people are like because of my outward perception of their identity, then I am missing the opportunity to gain knowledge of the nuances and layers and varieties of human experiences.  Everyone can teach me something and I need to listen and give space to be surprised. 

I also need to give more space and grace to people I do not agree with.  I was at a workshop a few years back and we were praying around stereotypes we needed to let go of and someone said, “When I see a white guy who flies a Confederate flag, I judge them immediately as being racist and I was convicted I need to let that go and ask forgiveness for my own attitude.” 

This comment showed me I needed to do the same.  Can the Confederate flag symbolize a dirty, bloody history?  Yes.  Do I agree with flying it?  No.  However, if I define someone entirely by one aspect of their identity, I am also guilty of unfounded prejudice.  I don’t need to agree.  I can think they are downright wrong, but I still need to listen and try to understand what their logic is and the way their worldview has developed.  Why do they think the way they do?  How does the Spirit call me to live with and interact with them?  How do I learn to love them?  What can they teach me?

It’s been harder for me this week.  I get angry when people mess with my family and those I love and there’s been a whole lot of that this week.  While sympathizing with the desire for justice and a greater acknowledgement of injustices, I do not agree with group membership being the defining characteristic for innocence or guilt.   If someone’s innocence or guilt or worthiness to live or die is determined only by their race, their occupation, their ethnicity, their class, their religion, or any other single characteristic, instead of their actual actions, then something is wrong.  If people, regardless of their racial background, determine that my husband deserves verbal abuse and threats of violence because of his ethnicity, his occupation, or his skin color, I get angry. 

After sharing with me what he’s experienced this week, my husband said, “I have to learn to live in a state of perpetual forgiveness so I don’t let my heart get hardened.” 

Yeah, that fully humbled me.  I’ve had to repent again and forgive all the people (of all sides of this current crisis) of the terrible insults directed towards my husband.  Yes, I have a right to be angry, but in my anger, I cannot sin and I cannot let the sun go down on it (Eph 4:26).  If I do, I give space for the Enemy within my heart and I don’t want that.  I have to forgive or I will grow in bitterness and anger and that will influence my heart condition and the ways I interact with others. 

Once again, I have to trust in God’s protection and not in any manmade weapon, argument, or positionality for salvation and protection.  And that is a very vulnerable and unnatural place to be in and I am still struggling with it.



2.)  Family Line:  What are the ways my blood line has screwed up? 

Next, I’ve done a lot of work over the past year or so on my own genealogy and family history.  Sometimes it’s through listening to family stories from the wonderful elders in my family, or through digging through closets and old photo albums.  Sometimes it’s through online records and archival documentation.  I find it fascinating to trace family movements in context with greater historical trends and learn more our collective identity, the story of “us” and how we have developed to become who we are. 

However, as I have worked on this, I’ve unearthed things which I was led to repent of again and again.  As a representative of my family line, I have the spiritual authority to lament and repent on behalf of my family line and the actions and attitudes of my ancestors (1 Peter 2:5, Daniel 9).  This can bring healing to generational sins that can bring spiritual bondage.  I’ll only give a few examples of this. 

First, one day I was digging through a box in my grandmother’s garage and came across of piece of sheet music.  It was a children’s song entitled “the Ten Little N***** Boys.”  As I read through the lyrics, each verse graphically outlined a gruesome death for each little boy and my jaw fell open. 

We all have things hidden in our garages and boxes and we gotta dig them out and throw them away or they are still there.  I repented on behalf of the prejudice my family line displayed towards African Americans, Mexicans, Portuguese, and Okies (and others).  Family stories are full of what past generations thought about “those people” and I am glad I learned about it cause then I can dig it out and throw it away and say, “I’m so sorry.”    

Next, I can trace family pioneering and homesteading efforts across the nation and through history.  I was sobered to then compare this to the histories of the peoples who previously inhabited those spaces and the convenient government actions to clear those people just in time for my ancestors to buy cheap land.  For all those peoples who were removed and lost their homes and lands so that my ancestors could homestead, mine gold, and farm across the U.S., I had to repent.      

As I brought my family line to God in prayer, He told me I not only needed to ask for forgiveness on their behalf, but I also needed to forgive them.  I needed to forgive the lies we handed down from generation to generation, the pride, the materialism, and expressions of Christianity that simultaneously encouraged legalism while leaving prejudice unredeemed.  In that process, the Spirit encouraged me:  Remember and learn from both the good and the bad, the strengths and weaknesses of your people.  They are not defined by their mistakes any more than they are innocent of all wrongdoing. 

The truth is that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23) and all are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).  If I don’t remember that, I am liable to fall into one of two errors: the first is seeing my own group as all good and other groups as all bad.  The other error is to see my own group as all bad and another group (or groups) as all good.  Both are just as flawed and based on lies that need to be uprooted. 

The truth is that I need to look at the very worst actions of humanity and recognize my own innate capacity to become that or else I don’t truly know myself.  I also need to look at the very best actions of humanity and recognize my potential for that as well.  This is equally as valid for other peoples.  I need to recognize that, for other groups, even ones vastly different from my own, they are just as capable for good and evil, truth and captivity, the power of God or bondage to the Enemy, as myself and my own people.  It is by grace we are saved, by the work of Christ and not by belonging to a particular people or nation or living life according to culturally prescribed rules of “civilization” (Eph. 2:8-9).

3.) People/Nation:  What are the ways my nation and people group have screwed up?

This category is pretty similar to family line, only expanded to include my ethnic group/nationality with a shared history and cultural identity.   As I watch historical documentaries or read current events or historical accounts, I sometimes have to stop and repent on behalf of my people group, my nation, and the socio-political context that has birthed and grown me.  As I learn more and more examples of past and current brokenness and injustices, I can repent of those evils on behalf of the people I am apart of and a representative for. 

4.) Land: What are sins and evils that have been committed in certain locations around me? 

“Water has memory,” Frozen II tells us in all its infamous wisdom.  I liked that analogy in the movie because I think it applies to the land around us.  In the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 2:10-12) tells us how “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”  Places of trauma, sin, and unforgiveness in our lives give space for the Enemy to gain a foothold.  This same principle is true for geographic spaces.  Where are spaces in my city and in my neighborhood which have witnessed blood and evil and have yet to be cleansed of the “blood” that cries from them? 

I met a guy at the park one time.  Both our biracial children were playing and we started talking.  He came from “the other side of the tracks” (literally-we have train tracks that pretty well separate economic sides of the city).  The son of a Mexican immigrant, he told me all about his experiences in and out of jail, his struggles growing up, and the “race wars” of previous decades.  “That side over there belonged to the African American gang and this side over here belonged to the Mexicans,” he said and described the violence and tension between groups.  I found it fascinating.  He painted a historical picture of the city I had never seen before and wouldn’t have known by looking at.  However, those tensions doubtlessly have an impact on the city, even if I don’t know they are there.  He helped me “read” my city in a new way.    

This is a never-ending process that involves both asking questions from others and doing archival research and observation.  I’ve read about place names and the tragic history of the indigenous peoples in the region as well as the first slaves brought here and the fears of alliances with the Confederacy during the Civil War.  I have found locations the KKK used to meet, which spaces were for the “black church” and where the Chinese used to be (before they were kicked out.  As I learn, I can pray over those parts of my city when I walk past them and repent on its behalf. 

I can also use this knowledge to help track current issues.  Where are places of violence or problems currently?  Are these tied in any way to past, unhealed wounds?  Similarly, I can map out current ways space is used.  Are there ethnic enclaves?  Conflicts between groups?  Where do certain groups gather?  Are there symbols or graffiti revealing territories or communicating messages?  When I find particularly abhorrent messages, I can pray more deeply over a space.  However, being aware of the dividing lines, underlying tensions, and unhealed wounds both within groups and between groups is necessary to understand where the Gospel needs to do its work in my city (and areas that are potential powder kegs for future violence).    



5.) Church:  How has the Church failed, by commission or omission, to bring the Gospel into the interstice between people groups? 

Finally, I’ve had to stop and reflect on ways my faith community has messed this all up and repent on their behalf too.  No Body of Christ is perfect and no expression of Christianity is without flaws.  However, whenever there are blatant blindspots that not only perpetuate throughout generations but are rationalized and supported by the Church, then there are serious areas of idolatry within that faith community. 

I have spent time reflecting on how the various churches, missions agencies, and faith communities I’ve been apart of have handled ethnic conflict (or ignored it) and sometimes had to take time to grieve how its been handled and repent of it.  I’ve repented of decisions and attitudes of really lousy missionaries and of the ways I’ve been a really lousy missionary. Finally, I have to look into where I have blindspots in my theology and where are ways I have allowed ethnocentrism to drown out the transformative voice of the Holy Spirit. 



Is this an all-encompassing list?  No.  I've barely scratched the surface.  Is this a checklist?  No.  Is this the “end” of the process?  Absolutely not.  It’s barely a beginning.  Is this process the same for everyone?  No.  Our areas of sin and wounding are different.  Maybe some people need to spend more time on forgiveness and maybe some people need to spend more time just asking the Spirit what God loves about their identity and learning to be loved for all aspects of their identity, even their race or ethnicity.  (Side note, I’d encourage you to check this out for ways the process of identity development looks different for different people). 

The point I want to make is that this in an intentional process and an important spiritual discipline that helps us grow in our love of God and others.  Bringing Christ into all areas of our life and identities brings freedom, healing, and new life, even if it’s a hard, painful journey.  Right now, this is a hot topic.  Dig into what makes you uncomfortable and why.  Learn, grow in knowledge and grace, and seek to bring healing and peace into all the spaces you inhabit.  Blessings on you as you seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance into growing deeper in line with God’s desired picture for you as an individual, family line, people, land, and church.   

(If you would like to read the thoughts and processes of another's journey in this, my lovely and amazing team leader has her own blog here entitled Black in America, White in South Africa.)  

Why Race Isn't A Problem

A man pulled out his beach chair and umbrella and sat down to enjoy the view in front of him.  A turquoise blue ocean, framed by palm trees, lay before him as far as his eyes could see.  He pulled his sunglasses onto his face and took a sip out of a straw stuck into a coconut and smacked his lips in satisfaction at the taste of the milk. He gave a contented sigh of happiness at his lot in life. 

He was disturbed from his reverie by the arrival of another man.  

“Why are you still here?” the visitor said.  “I told you, this is no place for you to live.  This place is deadly.”  

The man rolled his eyes at his visitor and grumbled.  “Don’t start rambling on and on about the past.  The past is gone and done.  I’m not responsible for the decisions of people who lived before me.  Now we are in the present and, right now, this place is beautiful and has everything I want in a home.  I’m not going to change anything.”

The visitor hung his head and left the man to enjoy his idyllic beach.  The man happily stayed in his place on the Bikini Atoll, the testing site for the detonation of 23 atomic blasts that left the water and soil and animals poisoned for generations.    The man took another sip of his cesium-contaminated coconut and closed his eyes to take a nap.  

………

Do you know what you see if you visit the location where the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg was fought?  A lovely field.  There are trees and flowers and tall grasses.  It doesn’t look like anything special.  Do you know what makes it important?  Cultural memory.  A group of people attach symbolic historical and cultural importance to the location.

  

If a different group of people moved into the area and decided it was a good location for a parking structure, what would stop them?  Without knowledge of the history, the culture, and the symbolism attached, it’s only a field.  


How many times do I walk through a field, a neighborhood, a city park and miss the symbolism attached to that location because I am an outsider to the battles fought and the identities forged there?  It’s only when I start digging that I find out what layers of meaning are buried deep in the soils of history or which locations are etymologically haunted by those who have walked there in the past.   


I’ve been on a long journey of excavating my own worldview and learning about what others see when we look at the same field.  It is not an easy journey, nor is it a complete one.  It’s a messy work-in-progress that I don’t think will ever fully be complete.  

Back in 2012, I accidentally attended a protest in Indianapolis.  Crowds of mourners donned hoodies and carried signs in solemn remembrance of the death of Trayvon Martin.    It was a somber affair and filled with layers of symbols, cultural memory, and shared griefs that I could only hope to scratch the surface on.  From the vantage point on which they stood, their eyes saw a field scattered waist deep with lives lost through unrestricted violence.  They keep a record of names, places-memories of tragedies and loss that are too often forgotten or erased from the cultural memories of those looking upon the same field from a different angle.  

I’ve spent the last few days mulling over the emotions the Ahmaud Arbery tragedy have elicited for me.  What stands out to me the most are the reactions people have on social media and in commentary around articles posted.  “Black people kill black people all the time”….or “white people get killed by shooters too”….or “the shooters thought they were protecting their community.”  What is being said (or hinted at) is still the same:

This wasn’t about race. 

I am not here to debate the details of this particular case or to prove/disprove if it was racially-motivated.  However, I can’t help but pause and wonder what evidence would prove that race played a factor?  How does one prove that an action is racially-motivated?  Especially in light of the reality that our views of race tend to mainly be unconscious (or a history of lynchings that were merely “punishments for social transgressions and not racially-motivated”).  

They weren’t racist.   

This is another thing I read a lot.  The shooters weren’t racist people therefore their actions weren’t racist either.  It’s a common sentiment I’ve read lately.  People proudly post, “I’m not racist” and share their own journeys with racial identity.  I appreciate the sentiment.  I mean, compared with the guys tatted up with swastikas and leading white supremacy groups that my husband sees in the jail, I guess it could be worse. 

But I think the sentiment fails to recognize one important fact:  Everyone in the U.S. is racist. 

Yes.  You heard me.  Everyone.  Black and white.  Brown or blue.  We are all part of the same flawed historical context.  It impacts us in different ways, but it still impacts us all.  

The construction of race in the U.S. precedes the Declaration of Independence by over a century.  Ideals of a racial hierarchy are older than ideals of democracy and freedom.  It’s so ingrained in our history, our laws, our values that we can’t even see it’s there.  It’s more integrally American than the Bill of Rights.  If you were born in or grew up in the U.S., you have been immersed in a cultural context that has a racial hierarchy as one of its cornerstones and defining elements.  Consciously or unconsciously, we know "our place" and the "places of others" within the hierarchy and this impacts how we see ourselves and others, whether we admit to it or not.  This classification by race is not global and is unique to polities with a history of slavery.

Soon-Chan Rah writes in The Next Evangelicalism that “racism is America’s original and most deeply rooted sin.”  From the petri dish of the American colonies, the construction of race grew and evolved until it contagiously spread on a global scale with more evangelical fervor and long-lasting repercussions than even our experiment with democracy. 

The only way to actually bring reconciliation and change is by recognizing both the shared heritage of and the evil of the concept of race.  Pretending it’s not there and maintaining taboos about speaking about it won’t fix it. 

Practically, on an individual level, unless you can list off all the ways race has impacted your worldview, your family line, the history of “your people,” and the ways you have been (intentionally and unintentionally) caught into the ideals of a racial hierarchy, then you are captive to the lies inherent in racial ideology.  Racial and ethnic identity have got to be redeemed by Christ and freed from lies just as much as every other part of our identity and without bringing it before the cross, it hasn’t been brought under Christ’s authority.  

Wait-the only way to stop being racist is to admit you are racist?  Ummm, yeah.  You can’t cure cancer until you first diagnose it and then seek the proper treatment.  

"Wounded people wound other people."  Even hidden wounds and hidden unforgiveness can have repercussions for generations.  Both those who have oppressed and those who are oppressors need repentance and to forgive and ask for forgiveness.  The Irish, who experienced such blatant racism as immigrants, then were outspoken in their attempts to disallow Chinese immigration.  African Americans can be blatant in their racism towards Africans.  And “white” people of European descent have been killed in retributive, racially motivated violence for the sin of their skin color as well.   

Innocence does not come from skin color and a history of oppression.  One is not exempt from racist thoughts or attitudes by having experienced racism.  One is not innately free of prejudice.  If you read this and say, “I am not prejudiced,” my answer is, “no, you have let your prejudice influence your actions freely and without you knowing it’s even there.”  

Until we all can sit down and excavate our own backgrounds, talk about what we all see when we look at that green, grassy field, and recognize the ways our history is still poisoning our coconuts, we won’t get anywhere. 

There was a time in my life when I never thought about race.  Now it’s a weekly, if not daily, topic of conversation.  I could go into an extended history lesson on this.  I could give facts, figures, and statistics.  I could speak about research I have personally conducted around race.  I could give personal anecdotes and first-hand experiences I have witnessed.  Do you know what I’ve found?  It’s not enough to prove to some people that racism exists and is still a problem.  There’s always a way around it.  The data is skewed, the population sampling inaccurate, the researcher was biased.  That person didn’t mean it.  They had a bad day.  They were not in their right mind.  It must have been a misinterpretation.  You don't have authority to speak on this.  

These still share the same common theme:  racism isn’t a problem anymore.

It’s really hard to prove something exists that “doesn’t exist.”  “That’s in our past,” they say.  As long as we believe it’s only “in our past,” I guarantee you, it will continue to be in our future too. 

In the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis writes, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

I find this to be equally true in conversations people hold on race in the U.S.  On the one hand, some argue racism is a thing of the past, no longer relevant to modern conversations and they decry all others who use the irrelevant “race card”.  On the other hand, there are those who see racism in every word and deed, every action and mis-action and it holds them captive in fear and bitterness.  Both are just as equally right as they are wrong and both can be as equally as damaging to real healing until redeemed, forgiven, and forced to kneel to Truth.

People like to remind me that things are better now than they used to be.  Thank the Lord, they are.   I will admit, I am overjoyed that not only is my marriage currently legal in all fifty states.  I will neither lose my citizenship, my state of residence, nor my freedom through my marriage.   My children are no longer considered illegal and  classified as “abominable mixture and spurious issue” who will be taken from me and raised by the church, sold as slaves, or  forcefully sterilized. That is definitely improvement and I will not ever take it for granted or cease being thankful for how things have changed. 

However, a partial recession of cancer is different from a full recovery and I want to see my children and their children and their children be able to say:  Look at how things have changed. I’m so glad I live when I do.  I’m thankful for the battles my ancestors fought on my behalf.

The construction of race, like the testing of atomic bombs in the Bikini Atoll, has seeped into our national soil and poisoned our water.  Before we can seek to cleanse our land and heal our brokenness, we first have to honestly face the ways our past impacts our present (even if we can’t see it or recognize it now).  We also have to recognize how two people can look at the field of Gettysburg and see completely different pictures.  One sees a field of grass.  Another sees a field of fallen soldiers. 

It’s both. 

…….

“We can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us”.

—Abraham Lincoln Gettysburg Address

For more on this, check out the articles our mighty ministry team compiled last year: here and here...and a side note I won't go more into here-I think ethnicity is a much healthier, more sound concept to work with than the hopelessly flawed, intrinsically evil concept of race. 

One more article I came across that I found useful is on the concept of microagression here.