In a few days, we in the United States will mark a national holiday commemorating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. As we approach this commemoration, many people will participate in volunteer events to improve their communities through activities ranging from cleaning up neighborhoods, repairing homes for senior neighbors, or organizing food drives to collect items for the homeless and hungry. These are important ways to remember the King legacy. Yet, as the holiday approaches, I have a heavy heart and deep sadness.
I remember the marches led by Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Along with the peace movement and anti-nuclear demonstrations, the Civil Rights Movement was part of the foundation of my moral consciousness. In my youth, I truly believed that one day the United States would move beyond racism to equality. As an adult, I had hoped that the Obama presidency would be another turning point in the nation’s movement toward equality. Yet, the social sins of racism and white supremacy have come out of the shadows with a renewed vengeance.
We have a President who has stated that neo-Nazis are good people. Didn’t this country fight in a horrible war in the 20th Century to defeat Nazism? We have a member of Congress who asks why white supremacy is wrong. Don’t we hold these truths to be self-evident — that all are created equal? We have government officials in several states who openly work to subvert the electoral process. Isn’t the foundation of representative democracy that each person has the right to vote? In sum, we live in a time in which respect for human dignity, the value of the human person, and the welfare of the common good are under attack in both direct and sinister ways.
Make no mistake about it: our racism keeps people living in poverty, prevents children from obtaining proper education, has built a system that imprisons and warehouses large segments of society, and, yes, kills people directly and indirectly through shortened life spans. Our racism is nothing less than death-dealing.
While I do not consider myself a racist person, I know that I have benefited in society by simply being born white. Doors were open to me that are often closed to others. I see most every day how I am treated differently from my Asian partner and friends of other races. It’s from this awareness that I state clearly that racism is our problem — both yours and mine. As a white person in a racist society, I share the guilt and the responsibility for all that has occurred historically to support the evil of white supremacy.
In my life, I am enriched by friends and loved ones whose race and ethnicity is varied and different: Chinese, Thai, Filipino, Ugandan, Ghanaian] , African-American, Mexican, Argentinean, Native American, British, German, Uzbek, people of mixed heritage…and so many more. As this great diversity enriches my life, I know it can also enrich our world. But for that to happen, as a Christian, I recognize that we, as a society, need to repent of all the ways we have allowed sins of racism and social intolerance to permeate our lives and the structures of society. Repentance is not about a cardboard sign a street preacher holds while shouting out religious platitudes. Instead, repentance is the hard work of undergoing a deep change of heart and mind to see the world and others in a new way. No one likes change, but deep change is needed for our own good. Without this kind of change, we will continue to perpetuate injustice against individuals and classes of people. To change, we need a vision that we can embody.
And so, in the face of what I experience as overwhelming social sin and evil marked by racism, nationalism, and intolerance,] as a person of faith, I affirm and share Dr. King’s Dream as a vision for our repentance:
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
May it be so today for the life and well-being of all people. Amen and Amen!
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