I’m Willing to Learn About Racism…

I’m willing to learn about racism, and…

are you willing to have a calm, self-controlled, respectful conversation with me?

I’ll be the first to admit, I have a lot to learn.

In any situation, in person on online, I’m more open to learning if you won’t make assumptions about me, point fingers in my direction, or speak with rage and disrespect. (By the way, I’ve experienced this far more from fellow whites than ever from people of color.)

If I promise to listen to you with my full attention, withhold judgment from you, empathize with you, and show you respect, will you do the same for me?

Because until now, I’ve been quiet in person and online for fear of getting judged or worse.

However, in light of this growing problem in American culture, I need to learn from you. I hope you’ll be willing to learn from me too.

Let’s start this conversation.

My Personality

On the Enneagram, I’m a 1 (perfectionist) with a 9 wing (peacemaker). Most days, I feel half Martha (1), half Mary (9). My Mary side is peace-loving and empathetic to a fault. But I’m grateful for it, because this side of me is most willing to listen to others and learn how I can help.

Because of how I’m wired, I despise conflict. For most of my life, I’ve avoided it because I’ve endured decades of emotional abuse. Yet with God’s help and years of counseling, I’ve learned to be more assertive.

A popular parenting book by Rosalind Wiseman describes several social categories for middle school girls. The category that best describes me is the Target. I’m often the “too nice” person in the group. Even my 11-year-old daughter recently pointed this out to me. If it’s obvious to her, it must be obvious to others. Since I’ve learned this fact, I know I need to stand up for myself even though it’s difficult.

My normal response to someone’s raging, out-of-control behavior is to shut down and withdraw. I find myself doing this now while watching the news or seeing the feed on rage-filled, trending Twitter hashtags.

With years of practice in setting boundaries as a response to in-person rages, now I say this:

“I will leave this room until you can speak to me in a calm, respectful tone.”

Then I physically remove myself until we can join in civil conversation.

If you’re willing to have a civil conversation about racism, I’m willing and able to listen. 

My Background

I am a white, 40-something, Midwestern woman. I live in the same square mile where four previous generations have lived, ever since they immigrated from Germany to flee religious oppression. My family’s faith heritage is German Lutheran, like many others in my community. They were farmers, housewives, veterans, postal workers, cafeteria cooks, secretaries, linemen, truck mechanics and retail cashiers – all salt-of-the-earth people who worked very hard for everything they ever had in their lower- to middle-class lives. I regularly thank God for the hard-working, honest, faith-filled examples my family members showed me.

In my high school class of 285 students, less than half a dozen of them were black or any other minority. So I grew up with hardly any exposure to other races, other than watching television shows like Sesame Street or 90’s sitcoms.

I once read an account from a 30-year veteran newspaper reporter who had traveled to every state in the U.S. The reporter said that no matter where he went, people were fiercely proud of their heritage. That’s how I feel about mine, and I assume that’s how you feel about yours. I would love to hear your story.

My Experience with Racism

In sixth grade, if you had asked me who my hero was, I would have told you Harriet Tubman. I was fascinated by her story and enthralled with her bravery in the face of such danger. I didn’t see myself as racist growing up, but as you have seen, I grew up in an insulated environment.

In my freshman year of college, I dealt with racism for the first time. I was taking French classes for my minor. One day I ran into one of my classmates at the library. He was black. We had a great conversation, all in French!

At the end, he switched back to English to ask me out. I stumbled on my reply, wondering how I could possibly be honest with him. He said, “What, do you have a boyfriend or something?” I was honest about that – I said no. Then I saw him physically back away from me. He said, “Oh, I know why. You don’t have to explain.”

I knew he assumed my no was because he was black and I was white.

But my real reason for hesitation is that I had observed a pattern of arrogant, condescending comments he made toward our professor, a white man. I sensed that if he was disrespectful to an authority figure, he would be disrespectful to me. How do you tell someone that in a nice way, no matter what race they are? You don’t. We never talked again.

In my work at Baskin Robbins in college, sometimes I was accused of being racist when I didn’t deliver the service people expected. “Don’t shove that at me just because I’m black,” one woman said when I didn’t physically hand her an ice cream sundae, but nudged it toward her on the counter like I did with everyone else. Few black customers displayed this attitude. But a noticeable number of them seemed to have a chip on their shoulder before an interaction between us ever occurred.

From 1997-1999, I was a student at Covenant College, where we had daily chapel sessions. Everyone got excited when best-selling author and international speaker Zig Ziglar was scheduled to present a chapel. He gave an amazing speech, and I vividly remember one takeaway. He said the number one problem facing America was racial injustice. I was bewildered by this statement. It was not the problem I would have picked at the time. But his prophetic words ring true today, more than 20 years later.

A Classroom Lesson

In the 2007-2008 school year, my husband (also white) was an industrial arts teacher in our neighboring school district, which has a much larger black population than the one where we reside. Most of his students were black teenage boys. He was well-liked and well-respected by those boys.

Through my husband’s teaching experience, I learned there was a culture I didn’t even know existed, literally 10 miles away. Most of his boys were the head of their households. Frequently they would not see an adult for three or more days, because their moms were working two or three jobs just to pay the bills. These teen boys were responsible for the care of their younger siblings and the household tasks in addition to homework and sports. They were at high risk for dropping out, entering the drug culture, and having babies out of wedlock.

The class day the boys enjoyed most was when my husband set up an arm-wrestling contest. My husband has huge forearms and won wrestling championships in high school. Each boy took him on, but he reigned as king.

Something came to life in the boys that day. Every single one had a father wound. The contest touched on their desperate need for male attention. Unfortunately, the recession of 2008 forced my husband to take a different career route. But I’m thankful for what he could do for those boys at the time, and the lesson on compassion I vicariously learned through his experience.

A Vitriolic Lesson

In this same time period, I was pregnant with my third child. One of my college friends flew to visit me when I was in my third trimester. St. Louis is the closest major airport. She rented a one-way car down to my area, then I drove her back up in my minivan. I dropped her off at an errand in the city and drove around for a snack.

I was in an unfamiliar area, a split highway with a White Castle restaurant nestled in the median. Driving in the rightmost lane, I made a split-second decision to turn left into the restaurant because I was lost. Foregoing the need to look over my shoulder to check my blind spot, I nicked the front passenger side bumper of the car there.

We pulled into the parking lot of the White Castle. I scooted my little watermelon belly out from behind the wheel. The young black woman came out of her car in the worst fit of rage I’ve ever witnessed. She was screaming not at me, but into her cell phone. Obscenities about how this *** white woman had just put a *** dent in her grandmother’s *** vehicle.

It was a spectacle, and I was in freeze mode.

Dozens of people started coming out of the restaurant to see what the problem was. Almost all of them were black. If this is a taste of what it feels to be racially ostracized, it’s the only time I’ve felt it mixed with a fear of imminent danger.

I had no choice but to interrupt her. Like trying to cut the last wire before the bomb explodes. “Ma’am, ma’am, please hear me. This is ALL my fault. None of it was yours. My insurance will pay for it. You won’t be responsible for a thing. NONE of this was your fault. None of it.”

She finally calmed down when she looked up and saw the crowd, which must have helped her feel supported. It’s like a switch went off – Jekyll to Hyde. All sweetness when I said I’d pay for all the damages, which amounted to maybe $300 for a new bumper. Thank God neither of us were hurt. I was stunned, but I wasn’t angry. It was clear that she was a loaded cannon, and I just happened to set her off with an honest driving mistake.

I don’t know what made her so reactive. But I know she was a woman, a person with feelings, a flawed human being, like me. Even though I felt I had every reason to lash out, I summoned all my courage, prayed an arrow prayer, and tried to stay calm while I spoke. I would have done the same thing if this woman were any other race, including white. But I’ve learned to never, ever, ever react that way from her example. Even if the offense is their fault, because:

A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.

Proverbs 15:18 NIV

Hot tempers, out-of-control anger, rage, and a lack of self-control are HUMAN problems, not inherently or only racial problems. That’s why I’d love to have conversations without these roadblocks, where we can both hear each other clearly.

A Courtroom Lesson on Racism

In the fall of 2016, I was called for jury duty selection. The case involved a black man accused of sexually abusing two children. The courtroom was full of probably over 100 potential jurors. Maybe 10 of them were black or of another race, and the rest were white.

The prosecuting attorney had several questions to ask us as a group. He asked this question: “Do you believe the police used excessive force against Michael Brown?” He didn’t have to add more details. Ferguson, Missouri is about 100 miles north of us. We were all very familiar with the August 2014 case and the national attention our state received after nearly two weeks of rioting.

Not a single person raised their hand. Not even the black people. The prosecuting attorney was flabbergasted. He asked the question again, stating that maybe we hadn’t understood it the first time. But the second time, no one raised their hand either. An awkward silence ensued. The attorney moved on to a different line of questioning, shaking his head in disbelief.

If I could have been honest, my answer would have been “I don’t know.”

Teachers tell you there is no dumb question, no dumb answer. But I knew this would have been a socially unacceptable move.

Peer pressure doesn’t exist only in junior high. It was alive and active in that courtroom. I saw people I knew from church and my children’s school. People that knew I worked at the local high school. People who knew my grandparents, my mom, my husband’s small business.

Did I really want to make a scene? Offer an answer that could make me look like a stupid, racist white woman rather than someone who simply didn’t know what to think after reviewing all the information? What did I have to gain? Nothing. What did I have to lose? A lot. So I kept quiet. I wasn’t selected for jury duty, and I was relieved more as a mother than for any other reason.

Racism Lessons from Church

In October 2019, my family began attending our current church. Each fall, they do a sermon series featuring movies because the church began in a movie theater. The opening sermon was based on the movie Green Book, a story of racism and friendship in 1950’s America. One of the homes in our area was listed in the original Green Book, and the pastor introduced the current owner, a black woman, to our congregation. She received a standing ovation.

The pastor told us that racism dissolves when people have meaningful, face-to-face relationships with one another. Change is possible when we listen, really listen, to one another’s perspectives, as the movie demonstrates. He shared this important verse with us and encouraged us to put it into practice:

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15 ESV

As I drove away from the church with my three children, a growing anger unexpectedly bubbled up inside me. A little over a year earlier, we had listened to a guest speaker at our former church, a white pastor who ministers to a predominantly black congregation in the South. In a tag team style, the head pastor (also white) and guest pastor slung words of accusation at us, using phrases like “white privilege” and “smug in your [denominational] heritage.” This was a twisted ploy to guilt us into giving funds to the guest pastor’s congregation! I had not processed my repressed anger over this incident, but it sprang to the surface that day.

Honestly, that was probably the first time I heard the phrase “white privilege.” (Now you really see how sheltered I am!) That phrase was delivered in such an offensive way, in a place that should have felt safe and welcoming after 20 years of my attendance there, it’s very difficult for me to hear it now without getting my hackles raised.

I am learning more about this phrase and how it’s intended, which is opposite from the intent to shame I heard that Sunday in 2018.

Both messages at church invited listeners to a new level of understanding, but they differed widely. One held out the invitation with compassion and kindness. The other used shame and scorn. Guess which one closed my mind? Guess which one actually changed my mind?

No one will change for the better when shame is the delivery system. Especially when it’s delivered through angry accusers within the church.

What I’ve Recently Learned About Racism

In the past two years, I’ve learned more about racism than any other time in my life. It started with my reading of 13 Days in Ferguson, an excellent memoir by Capt. Ronald Johnson. This book served as a paradigm shift for me. You can read my review here, and I highly recommend you get your own copy. For the first time, I saw there were things I had never needed to teach my sons, though black mothers teach their sons these things as survival skills.

I have met some wonderful black sisters of faith through blogging and by attending She Speaks. They are opening up about their struggles online, and I’m deeply grateful for their viewpoints. I have so much to learn from them. Several of them have inspired me with their ability to practice self-control while still passionately conveying their point of view. When I experience that type of delivery, I’m on the edge of my seat, tissue in hand, my heart an absorbent sponge.

The progress is slower here locally.

When I attended the local IF:Gathering in the spring of 2019, I sat across from a quiet black woman. We made friendly conversation, then her black friend joined her. When the first woman introduced me to her friend, I complimented the friend on her beautiful, curly hair. In a mean girl voice, she said to me, “I’ll bet your curly hair happens all on its own, doesn’t it?” She then stared at me, unsmiling. The first woman glanced at me as if to say Sorry, then looked down in embarrassment.

I got the message – Back off, white girl. That was the end of our conversation for the night, though we were literally sitting across from one another. At a faith-based event.

I’m not going to let that negative incident keep me from listening to you. And I am certainly not asking you to feel sorry for me, for this incident or anything else I’ve written in this post. I just want to point out that racism has two sides. Capt. Ron Johnson says the same thing in his book. I’ve learned more about this from watching All-American on Netflix, and from reading The Anatomy of Peace. Can we just be honest about this point? Maybe it will clear the air for both of us.

I have a lot to learn. And I’m willing to learn from you if you can respect where I’m coming from. I want to stand in this fight against racism with you, no matter what race you are.

Overcoming Racism

Dr. John Townsend writes in his excellent book, Hiding From Love:

“We can’t ‘do’ something with what we don’t have.”

He’s referring to emotional and spiritual healing and growth, but I think this also applies to overcoming racism. He continues,

“A thirty-year-old dependent personality won’t grow up overnight. He will have to move his injured autonomous functions into grace and truth. He’ll have to take risks, learn about consequences, and then practice, practice, practice. In time, with the right support and enough sincere motivation, the autonomous parts will ‘catch up’ with the rest of the functioning adult. That’s what maturity is: all the parts working together.”

I can’t “undo” racism with limited knowledge and experience in my insulated, imperfect corner of the United States, which I love with all my heart.

But I can do this better with you. All of us working together as the body of Christ.

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

Romans 12:4-5

I need your stories, your understanding, your compassion, your grace.

I’m seeking your permission to sometimes ask dumb questions and your forgiveness in advance for occasionally blurting out uninformed opinions.

I appreciate your patience as I practice growing out of a limited mindset into a mature one.

Are you willing to teach me?

Your Turn

I hope we can grow to spiritual and emotional maturity as we listen, really listen to one another with respect, speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). I pray we can conquer racism as a team.

Will you take your turn in the comments below? If you’d rather keep it private, you can reach out to me on my Contact page.

Let’s be kind and show mutual respect. Let’s be willing to learn from each other. I reserve the right to remove judgmental and condemning comments.

Thanks for letting me go first today. Now it’s your turn.

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