Kumbaya

AN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH is that racism is still a significant skein of threads running through the fabric of American culture... a skein, not a single thread. Racism is not a white or a black condition.  It isn’t Republican or Democrat, male or female.  It’s easy to recognize in a guy at a political rally wearing a “PUT WHITE BACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE” T-Shirt.  It’s not so easy when the N-word is replaced by foreign, which has become it’s proxy in genteel conversations. When your Aunt Susan says at dinner that she is worried about the growing number of foreigners on the street where she lives, the others at the table probably don’t react the way they would if she said she wonders why there are more blacks or more Latinos on her street. 

The Washington Post reported that according to an Associated Press poll “Racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since the United States elected its first black president.”  In a survey conducted with researchers from Stanford University, the University of Michigan and NORC at the University of Chicago, polls show that 51% of Americans express anti-black attitudes.  When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56%.  According to the survey, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express racial prejudice in the questions measuring explicit racism (79% among Republicans compared with 32% among Democrats), the implicit test found little difference between the two parties. The test showed a majority of both Democrats and Republicans held anti-black feelings (55% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans), as did about half of political independents.

So... where do we turn in our culture to find a way out of this uncomfortable condition. Like many citizens of San Diego I live in a large condominium community. The 334 units are home to just about every demographic group in the city. The buildings and grounds are maintained, with only the occasional exception, by Latinos. Maybe that’s not significant, but economic realities probably should be kept in mind when one is seeking reasons for racial and ethnic inequalities in a community. 

I should like to be able to say with some confidence that we might turn first to the various religious institutions for answers, but the complexions of most individual congregations within any denomination are either colored or white, rarely evenly mixed.  A church’s ministry to a special group, usually ethnic rather than purely racial, often takes the form of separate language services and programs, not segregation by dictum but by the habits of the larger culture.  The church which I attend is “open” and affirming, yet only a few blacks and Latinos attend services on a regular basis and a growing filipino population sits mostly together in a cluster both in worship services and in the social hall for coffee and visiting before and after services. The church clearly aims for diversity.  Five full-time pastors, three male and two female, serve the First United Methodist Church of San Diego.  One of the pastors is a Korean whose first language is English.  

The most disturbing thoughts occurring to me as I write this journal piece is that folks are to some extent hard-wired with racial resentment, not genetically but by early cultural experience. Is it possible that the majority of parishioners filling the pews on Sunday morning in the church I attend, mostly older white people, would be reluctant to participate in programs designed specifically to promote racial and ethnic diversity and harmony.  Negative racial attitudes can manifest in practice, even when the stated policy affirms equality. I wonder what the result would be if the five pastors in the church I attend were to set a goal of diversity within the congregation that mirrors the diversity of our city.  What would happen if they were determined to make it happen because “all God’s children” really means all God’s children?  What would happen if they believed they could change the way the folks in their church are mostly hard-wired to believe what they believe and react to others the way they react.  

Actually, it sounds a lot like something Jesus would do.