Playing the Race Card and Overreacting

I recently came across an old Frontline documentary called A Class Divided, in which 3rd Grade teacher Jane Elliott decided to put the phrase "actions speak louder than words"... into action. The day after Martin Luther King Jr was shot and killed, one of Ms Elliott's students came to her saying "They shot a king last night Mrs Elliot. Why'd they shoot that king?" "I knew," Elliott explains, "that it was time to deal with this in a concrete way, not just talk about it, because we had talked about racism since the first day of school."

Jane Elliot went into her all-white, rural, Iowan classroom that day and divided her students according to eye color: "the blue eyes" and "the brown eyes." The first day, the light-eyed children get to be "on top" while dark-eyed students suffer various limitations on their freedoms and a running narrative about the "nature" of brown-eyed versus blue-eyed people---the next day, roles reverse. With remarkable insight and unmitigated moxie, Ms Elliott gave her students the incredible gift of living in an other's skin. Once again, we see empathy inextricably connected to creativity.

The film documents these children and a separate group of adults working through Ms Elliott's exercise. When discriminated against, both children and adults feel and act out, or withdraw, in hopelessness, isolation, anger, and aggression. They express feeling trapped, like the whole world is out to get them, like they can't win and they don't matter. They feel all this after one day of discrimination. One day.

People who have never experienced categorical discrimination often casually, and sometimes defensively, dismiss the reality of entire communities by suggesting they are "overreacting" or "playing the race/gender card." This kind of response is a clear indication that these folks have yet to learn how to listen. This is not to say that oppressed and weary individuals and communities are never overly sensitive, or that someone with an outside perspective can't gently point that out; but you'd better darn well know that person personally and have earned his or her trust by having a long history with that person of real listening.

Before dismissing the reality of millions of people by accusing them of overreacting or being "too sensitive," think about this eye-color experiment. Take that reality, that one day of discrimination, and compound that experience and the toll on the human spirit by an inheritance of discrimination that stretches over 200 years.

Essayist and Christian thinker Dorothy Sayers attempts a similar experiment in her short, pithy essay "The Human Not-Quite-Human." After rhetorically imposing upon men the gendered narrative/social commentary women experience in order to help men (and women) understand gender discrimination, Sayers puts it this way:

If, after a few centuries of this kind of treatment, the male was a little self-conscious, a little on the defensive, and a little bewildered about what was required of him, I should not blame him. If he traded a little upon his sex, I could forgive him. If he presented the world with a major social problem, I should scarcely be surprised. It would be more surprising if he retained any rag of sanity and self respect.

Take an hour out of your evening tonight to watch this video, or watch it over a couple of lunch breaks this week; you will come away with profound food for thought and an enriched perspective. I did.

The SBC's First Black President ... And Why it Matters

Fred Luter, an African-American pastor from New Orleans, was recently elected as the first black president of the Southern Baptist Convention.  You can read more about it here.

Regardless of how many of our readers may or may not be Southern Baptists, here are some reasons you might be interested in this.

*The Southern Baptist Convention was formed in 1845 years ago in explicit support of slavery.  The Presbyterians and Methodist also split into northern and southern contingents around this time ... and of course, the nation itself would do so soon afterwords.  Believe it or not, the SBC did not issue a formal apology for supporting slavery until 1995 -- 150 years after its founding.  Electing an African-American president is an important historical moment for the Convention.

Pictured: NOT 1845

(PS: That's Luter on the left)

*The SBC is the largest Protestant religious group in the United States, and is by far and away the largest conservative evangelical group in the nation.  Anything that happens in the SBC has the potential for tremendous impact in the religious life of the nation.  If you're interested in thinking about religious life in America, you should keep an eye on what's happening in the Convention.


*Segregation is still a de facto reality in most Christian denominations.  This is not to say that black and white Christians won't welcome each other into their churches (though some won't), but rather that most racial and ethnic groups in American tend to worship with their own kind.  Sometimes there are pragmatic reasons for this (e.g. shared language, shared cultural expressions that drive worship), but it's still a sad state of affairs.  Having a multicultural leadership structure in place in a large Christian denomination is significant.

Having these men in your congregation does NOT make you multicultural.   

Also, my wife is wrong for hating this song; that's important to mention.

*Luter opposes Barack Obama on many issues, in particular gay marriage.  What happens when the head of a large conservative group -- and the largest evangelical constituent -- opposes Obama ... but he's black, too? What happens when none of the media or internet pundits can play the race card? I would expect Luter to be in the headlines quite a bit during this election season (whether he wants to be, or not).  How will Luter, and other African-American conservatives, change the conversations we have about race and politics in this country? Should be interesting!


What do you think? Does Luter's election matter to you? Why or why not?