"It honored me to have Geoff Gentry from NAU speak at Charge
two weeks ago. He and I have shared many
experiences over the years, so it was great to share UNM with him. I especially appreciated that he told a lot
of his story in growing to value God’s multi-ethnic, multi-lingual,
Kingdom. I am on a similar journey in
coming to value multi-ethnicity, so I thought I’d share it with you.
"I spent my childhood in the mostly white context of Midwest
small towns. When I was 13, my family
moved to Arizona and my experience became much more ethnically diverse. This is the first time I remember encountering
issues of race. However, no one really helped
me interpret these encounters, so I didn’t handle them very well and I was left
mostly confused rather than transformed.
"In middle school, I was assigned a debate project where I
had to be anti-affirmative action.
During my closing statement I used a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that
one day people will 'be judged not by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character,' as support for being completely color-blind. My
classmates of color erupted in protest.
And for years I had no idea why they were upset.
"In high school, my best friend was Mexican-American. She prioritized spending time with her family
and respecting her parents above anything else.
Many times she wouldn’t come over to my house, eat my mom’s food, or
stay late because she needed to be at home for a meal or some other task. My parents were offended by this, and though
I was too shy to say so, I was sometimes offended too. But it was just because I didn’t understand
how her family was different from mine.
In college, I was a part of InterVarsity and at the time our
chapter contained mostly white students.
I went back to not having to talk much about race or ethnicity.
"Thankfully, my sophomore year God gave me the opportunity to
attend an InterVarsity Urban Project in St. Louis. I attended an incredible multi-ethnic
church. For the first time, I worshiped
in at least 5 different languages. During
the project, we received teaching on racial reconciliation and social justice
issues in the US. God began to reveal to
me His desire to bring healing, justice, and reconciliation to the places of
pain that many people of color have experienced in the US. It broke my heart and I began to fall in love
with what God loves.
"I started to love trying different types of food and getting
to hear people pray in other languages.
I had further experiences at the Urbana conference, in China, in
multi-ethnic literature classes, and at other urban projects that shaped
me. My senior year I had the gift of a
non-Christian Navajo roommate who took me to visit her home and the Navajo
Nation Fair. I learned SO MUCH from her.
"I had been raised to be “color-blind”: to only see people’s
characters and not emphasize the differences in people’s appearances,
especially in terms of the color of their skin.
It was an unwritten rule in my family that race was a negative topic to
discuss. While I’m grateful that my
parents raised me to not be racist and to not treat anyone negatively because
of the color of their skin, it wasn’t enough for me to stay there.
"I had to continue on the journey. I began to learn that ignoring people’s
ethnic background devalues some of the most important parts of their stories
and identities. My aversion for talking
about race or ethnicity had prevented me from understanding the experiences of
people around me. And my denial that I
had an ethnicity or culture myself as a white American kept me from celebrating
how God has made me and from being a part of racial reconciliation.
If you are white person who has come from a similar story to
mine, I encourage you to engage rather than shy away from the topic of
multi-ethnicity, even if it’s confusing and uncomfortable for you. I’d love to talk about what would be good
next steps for you to take in your journey.
I first recommend reading Being White by Doug Schaupp and Paula
Harris. You can borrow it from me. It’s awesome.
"If you are a person of color, thank you for extending grace
to white brothers and sisters in Christ as they stumble along on this
journey. I would encourage you to
continue to seek racial reconciliation and to let Jesus work through the gift
of your ethnic background. He wants to
use you for something great. How will
you pursue that? I’d love to talk with you about next steps in your journey as
well.
"It has been a painful, awkward, frightening journey for me
these past few years as I’ve sought to grow in my understanding of how God sees
ethnicity and how He wants me to act in response to that. And I still have a LONG way to go. But the journey has already brought such
richness to my life! And I’m committed to continuing by
the grace of God."
No comments:
Post a Comment