My name is Pastor Bill Negron. I pastor two churches in Brunswick County, one for ten years the other for 3 months. For both churches I am their first pastor of color. My wife and I are both from New York. My wife is Irish and Scottish and lived in Queens. I am of Latin Descent and lived in Brooklyn. We both moved to North Carolina and were married in September of 2000.
Because of our background in diversity, both of us growing up in the multi-cultural neighborhoods, race was not nearly the taboo discussion that it is here in the south. Not that I didn’t experience racism in New York. However, people never shied away from this topic! We would talk, argue, fight: rinse and repeat.
The history of racism in the South makes it especially hard to be candid, perhaps even more so in the church! In the beginning, even before I moved to the South, I too didn’t like talking about race with other Christians. I had convinced myself that pointing out racism was outside the church mission, that instead, we needed to preach love and forgiveness. We even turn a blind eye to some “bad behavior,” after all, nobody is perfect; we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is a common position amongst well intentioned believers, but it is also a morally flawed one. As I looked back at church history and saw how many in the church, who stood idly by at the inhumane bondage of people, people who looked like me, there were clergy who used scripture, to try and justify inhumane atrocities. I soon saw the danger of being mute, especially in the wake of current oppression. When I finally did talk about race, I experienced the not so veiled micro-aggressions emanating toward me from other “Christians” and have been told by some that my discussion was counter-intuitive to the Gospel.
Such micro-aggression, did not only come from white people, but also from other people of color. People who didn’t see the issue of racism as broadly problematic; instead they saw the matter as merely a personal character flaw, manageable within the confines of the individual, and not something far reaching or systemic.
There are those in the black community, who want to believe (as I once did) that we live in a post-racial world, and that racism is a thing of the past. They would question the validity of bringing up the matter at all. “Racism is a thingt?” they’d say. “Where is the value in stirring up an issue that might make people upset, uncomfortable, or create a tension amongst believers?” But in reality, the true tension comes from not talking about it.
Those in the post-racial camp, will point out the low bearing fruit of legastlative consolation. “Haven’t we come a long way as a society? Didn’t we have a black president? Don’t we have a current black vice president? People of color can vote, marry whomever they want. Sure, there have been some repeat offenses, but systemic? Really?” And yes, there are certainly historical milestones that we celebrate as a country, and as the body of Christ, instances where “Mercy and truth are met together” and “where righteousness and peace have kissed.” However, those same milestones are mired in different realities, that points to harder conversations centered around racial equity, inclusion, and of those who still suffer the reverberating effects, and current manifestations of racism. But people still resist the conversation. Why?
The main problem when talking about race is the scope of the problem. Often when Jesus wanted to talk about the broader meaning of the Gospel, he would shrink it down to sizeable life stories. Perhaps if we scale down the problem to something more manageable, we can see it’s broader implications and applications.
Here’s a parable for modern ears.
To try to gauge the emotional and sociological impact of racism, we need a microcosmic tale.
“The parable of the abusive husband.”
There is a wife who suffers from a history of abuse from her husband, day after day, year after year, to the point where someone finally decided enough is enough, and calls the police to stop it. When the police finally arrive to establish equity and safety in the home, the husband then tells the wife, “Ok now that the law has said I can’t hit you anymore, let’s not ever talk about me hitting you ever again, or why I hit you in the first place? Let’s pretend like it never happened, and live life as normal as we can.”
Question, is this true peace, or reconciliation? Remember, the victim of the abuse still has to deal with the psychological scars, the trauma, of the abuse, and without the support of the abuser. The abuser has not apologized for the abuse, nor acknowledged it, and has created a lopsided truce in his favor.
And they’re not the only ones who are affected by this trauma. There’s everyone else who lives in that house, children who have to internalize the abuse and maybe carry it with them for the rest of their lives, perhaps to their own children. Then there is the extended family, in-laws who wish to advocate for the wife and hold the husband accountable; the husband’s family, who blame the abuse on the wife. Clearly, she must have done something to have warranted the abuse, after all, the husband is a good man, who provided a roof and food. The neighbors who called the cops, who worries that he may have overacted. The police, who had to be called in to settle such disputes in other homes, and have now marked this home, with the stigma of trouble.
So many variables and yet no one has gotten to the root of the problem: why did the abuse happen in the first plac? Many may argue, that as long as there are laws in place, what’s the issue? This is equity under the law, but shouldn’t we as the body of Christ require something better? Love, accountability, mercy and Justice.
If we broaden this analogy a bit, should we not feel an obligation, to challenge society about the way, people are treated, if that treatment is clearly abusive, especially to a certain segment of society? Remember “dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord.” As those who have been the subject of domestic abuse can attest, sometimes, the police don’t stop the abuse, sometimes the system breaks down and emboldens the abuser. When that happens, people get hurt or even die.
Now this is just one house where an abuse has taken place. Imagine, abuse on a grander scale, affecting generations of people. Now imagine historical and systematic racism as the abuse left unchecked. Yes, we acknowledge that abuse has happened, yes, we recognize that there are laws in the books that prevent future abuses. But can we at least acknowledge that the idea of not talking about why racism existed is a lopsided truce that benefits one segment of society over another?. And not talking about it – is it a solution?
Those of us who talk about racism in these necessarily broad terms are met with some of the same types of variables, as the above parable. Not only does not talking about abuse of any scale, make the problem go away, it does not produce any lasting guarantee that the system, without equity, will fail to break down, which allows abuse to reintegrate through the cracks of societal dysfunction. Such deniability only produces a false sense of peace, a false sense of equity, and an active schism in the body of Christ, because no one wants to delve into its muddied origins.
This is just one talking point, one parable, but it is the kind of storytelling that can ultimately connect people to deeper truths of what it means to be good stewards of the kingdom. At the very least, it is a good conversation starter. Perhaps, that is the first, necessary step, to talking about uncomfortable subjects of race.
Rev. Bill Negron
