Eliminating Racism

February 2, 2018

A letter from our bishop landed on my desk today. Since I am retired and no longer under appointment, letters from the bishop don’t produce the anxiety they once did, so I wasn’t worried that I was going to be sent to Lower Slobovia (If you’ve never heard of that place, you belong to a generation that never had the privilege of reading Lil’ Abner in the funnies). Needless to say, Lower Slobovia is not where anyone wants to hang their “Home, Sweet Home.” 

This letter had nothing to do with where I am going to be, unless you think that a invitation to attend a day long seminar on racism mandated for those pastors under appointment has anything to do with where I’ll spend a few hours on that particular day. I’m not under appointment, so I’m not sure how that will all shake out. But it was the invitation itself that intrigues me.

I’ve spent most of my life in a monocultural world. I was raised in the suburbs of Rochester, NY, where I can’t remember a single person of another race in high school, went to a college that was predominantly white, and landed in a rural, almost entirely white community. I’ve had friends of other ethnicities, but for the most part, that hasn’t been my world. Nonetheless, I’ve never understood how people can hate other people simply for the color of their skin.

It’s taken awhile, but I’ve learned some of the differences in how I perceive things and how someone of another race might perceive things because of the differences in our experiences. On the other hand, I hear an almost constant stream of talk from some circles about the racism that still permeates our society. I have no doubt that this may be so, but still, we are no longer living in the ‘50s. Surely we’ve made some progress. 

If not, I would invite the bishop and anyone else concerned with the issue of racism to come and sit with some of the families I’ve gotten to know in Dunkirk. Today I officiated at the funeral of a city resident who had some pretty tenuous connections to the church. His extended family included ethnic White, Black, Hispanic, with the possibility of a few other ethnicities thrown in for good measure. Little kids were running around having a good time, while young mothers, fair-skinned, and dark, were chasing them indiscriminately. There was no pecking order, no consideration that they were of different races because they were one family who merely loved one another, even through hard times.

They were mostly what would be labeled “working poor,” but they were rich in their love for one another. If anyone wants to know how interracial relationships can work, I can tell them. It works when people genuinely get to know one another and choose to love one another. I hope I ministered to this family today. I know they ministered to me, for which I am grateful tonight.