On this day in 1930 in Marion, Indiana, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, two black men who had robbed and it seems shot a white man and who were also accused (it is almost certain falsely) of raping a white woman, were taken from their jail cell, beaten, and then lynched. It is the last confirmed incident of a racial lynching in the country. (Although by no means the last racially inspired murder…)
A few months ago Jan & I sat around our dinner table with a handful of black clergy and their spouses, discussing race in America and in particular here in Rhode Island.
What was clear within that conversation was the continuous assault in small and large ways upon people of color in our country. Often they feel like it is a war on them. And, if I were in their shoes, I’m pretty sure I’d feel just about the same. And we discussed what it does to people. It makes people crazy.
These assaults manifests in different ways for different communities of color, but the persistence of insult, indifference and active hostility is a continuous shame upon us. Wounding everyone. Everyone.
I think the part that is most difficult for me, and more properly my concern, is how we within the communities of European descent are for the most part simply unaware of this. Or, if we’re aware of it, how we downplay or diminish what it means.
Within the white community the people that most scare me are those who say we’re long past racism, or, who suggest the reality of near universal prejudice against any other, and specifically recall instances when they were victims of insult or how they see people of color getting some sort of leg up as taking away from them, or, read about some of the more fringe analysis of this situation, means the real prejudice, if it exists at all, is now against white people.
They have no idea.
Lord forgive them, us, we know not…
Here’s an experiment for the heart. If you’re white sit down with some people of color, more than one, be honest, ask and listen. Hear the pain. It’s there.
And look at what this means for and about you. You don’t have to discover you’re a racist. In fact, while we’re all prejudiced in various ways about various things, I suspect the larger majority of us do not bear that ill will toward others in our hearts that deserves the term racist.
But you do need to see what people of color actually experience. And not defend yourself in the process…
And, maybe one other thing. It could really help to notice is how you personally in indirect and perhaps even in direct ways benefit from the way things are. Notice this. And think about it.
And think a little more.
Unfortunately, instead, what we’re mostly doing within the white community today is throwing the seeds of hatred into the loam of our lives. We do this by ignoring, minimizing, not caring. Or, even, in that wonderment of our human ability to shift blame, blaming the communities of color for the problems.
These seeds of hostility poison the soul and the very soil we walk upon.
And the fruit that grows in that soil is strange, indeed…
This tree grows in our hearts and wraps its roots around our souls.
It needs to be seen.
It needs to be understood.
And it needs to be uprooted.
And burned root and branch…
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In