Yesterday I spent the entire day at a workshop on Healing Racism. I am more in touch with my own prejudices today. I have learned prejudice is "an emotional commitment to ignorance." Too true! When I look back on my life, I see this was how I operated. I was ignorant of so much and afraid to question either myself or anyone else. It was the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr that tore away my self imposed blinders. I do not blame my Father for this legacy of racial prejudice anymore than I blame him for my fair skin. His attitude was a product of ignorance and fear too. What I focus on instead is the amazing grace that has freed me. I did nothing to deserve this gift it was freely given.
My unbinding began the day Dr. King died on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis. I was 23 years old, married and pregnant with my second child. Having been raised in a home where a person of color was either a maid or an "uppity nigger", the latter when they tried to claim their seats at the banquet of American Justice.
My parents were not bad people despite their views on racism. My Mother more than once voiced her compassion edged with shame over the living conditions she saw, but for her it never matured into something more as far as I know. Perhaps had she lived longer it would have, but she died in 1967. Time could well have made a difference for her as it did for me. As for my Dad, he definitely changed with the years. For instance, he had a woman named "Peaches" who worked for him. When he found out that she was married (but separated from a recently deceased Railroad worked) and her sister-in-law was taking her benefits in her place. He immediately went to work and procured justice for her which enabled her to retire with a much needed and deserved pension.
It is with an intense feeling of shame that I admit the depths of my prejudice against black people. Like some angry little child who closed her eyes to the truth and then places her fingers in her ears so as to not hear the truth - even humming to drown out the reality around her. I did that - drowning out the children murdered and young men and women set upon by police dogs for peacefully protesting against racial inequality. I chose not to know, not to understand, but there came a day when I could no longer ignore the cries of humanity. There came in that time and place a moment of truth and grace for me. I was standing in a neighbor's living room watching the scenes of chaos and violence on television. Four or five other young white women surrounded me with their children and babies. A voice behind me said, "It was his own fault! If he hadn't been there, it wouldn't have happened."
How can I find words to describe what happened to me in that moment? It was a if lightening had struck me, peeling away all the years of prejudice and self-imposed ignorance. I was naked before my God knowing deep within myself that something was wrong, terribly wrong. I knew that if a man believed so strongly in something as to lay down his life for it, I had to look, really look, at what he was saying in this sacrifice. Just as it was with Jesus Christ. I could no longer accept what I had been taught about the differences between blacks and whites. At that moment, I admitted I didn't know anything anymore. Then I was born again into someone completely different.
I am grateful, forever grateful for the unbinding love Dr. King gave me and others like me. Because of Dr. King, I have been gifted with love and understanding, forgiveness and acceptance from the very people I wronged so deeply. African American men and women have embraced me with a graciousness wither to unknown. I have been befriended and enriched by their love and laughter. I have shared my hopes and dreams, my sorrows and tears with them and they with me. I have seen myself reflected in their eyes. I know Our Heavenly Father loves us one and all.
I would like to end with a poem:
"He drew a circle to shut me out. Heretic, Rebel, a thing to flout, but love and I had wit to win, we drew a circle to draw him in."
I am in Dr. King! I'm in!
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