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 Let's Talk About Race... |
HARTFORD (04/24/2008) -- Connecticut Conference Minister the Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree has sent a pastoral letter to authorized ministers, local church moderators, and association moderators of the Conference, stressing the importance of "seizing this moment and beginning the sacred conversations about race to which we believe God is calling us." She invited local church pastors and members to speak the truth with one another, with room for grace and forgiveness, and asked them not to let the challenge pass by.
The letter follows:
April 23, 2008
Dear Friends in Christ:
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who leads us always into new possibilities of faithfulness!
We in the United Church of Christ have found ourselves in the spotlight in significant ways in recent months. First, the IRS decided to investigate our inviting Senator Obama to speak at General Synod. Then the media, fed by certain websites, latched onto tiny excerpts from the sermons of Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Trinity UCC in Chicago where Senator Obama is a member. Taking those sound bites out of context and broadcasting them for days, certain media outlets (I’m trying not to generalize and attribute this to all media) distorted Dr. Wright’s preaching and his highly esteemed ministry beyond all recognition.
In response, our national leaders developed two full page advertisements, one for the New York Times focused on our identity as the United Church of Christ. The second was in USA Today and called the nation to join us in sacred conversations about race. Over $235,000 was raised in a very short time to make it possible for us to tell our story through these ads. Here in Connecticut, both ads have resulted in newcomers to our churches, people who had no idea there was a church like us, people who have come eagerly.
Sacred Conversations on Race
In this letter, I wish to speak to you about the importance of our seizing this moment and beginning the sacred conversations about race to which we believe God is calling us. As our General Minister and President, Rev. John Thomas, has named for us, the national “dialogue” about race in recent weeks has been anything but sacred. Indeed, I have found it profane. The exploitation of Trinity United Church of Christ and their retired pastor, Jeremiah Wright, for partisan political ends would not have happened to a white congregation or a white preacher in this way.
We have experienced a moment in which the racism that undermines our nation was revealed. It is a moment from which we all wish to turn away. Instead, I believe, with our national collegium of officers, that our calling as Christians is to turn toward it. Only by seizing this moment and redeeming it by honest and sacred conversation can we begin to move our nation toward justice and reconciliation.
We do not know yet where these conversations will lead. We step out in faith, believing that justice and reconciliation demand it. As a Conference staff, we also stand ready to work carefully to identify initiatives we can take together that will make a real difference in the transformation of the alienation, injustice and suffering that are the result of racial division and racism.
Years ago, when my husband and I bought our home in Pasadena, CA where I served as Conference Minister for five years, the backyard had a lovely stand of bamboo. Or at least I thought it was lovely – until I decided to uproot some of it to make room for a lawn. What I discovered was that one cannot uproot just some of the bamboo. It has runners that travel just beneath the surface of the soil, forming a web that interlocks and is constantly producing new shoots outward and upward. As a matter of fact, the bamboo I thought was lovely might have represented 10% of the plant system; the rest was just beneath the surface.
Racism is like that bamboo. Unless we uproot all of it, it simply recurs, generation after generation. Unless we address it directly, it takes over the whole backyard – and then the front yard. It lifts the concrete pavers and the asphalt driveway; it smothers other plants. My conclusion in Pasadena was that I had to remove the soil that surrounded those roots as well because one little broken off piece would fairly quickly become a new stand. So it is with racism.
I know that is daunting news. But nothing will do but the truth. What we have before us is challenging work: the elimination of racism wherever it exists. We confess that this work has been before us for a long time and we have managed to convince ourselves, those of us who are white, that if we wait long enough, we won’t have to engage it. Our neglect of this work cannot continue. In the context of Christ’s Church, we begin with prayer and with theological reflection. As people of faith, we do this with courage and with the knowledge that every single one of us will discover racism resident within us. So we will trip up. We will be embarrassed. We will express things in ways we wish we hadn’t. We will fail to listen as deeply as we must. In order to do this work well, let us focus on the impact of racism rather than on intent and motivation. As Christ’s people, we are people of grace and forgiveness, people who yearn for reconciliation and are willing to do the hard work it takes to get there.
Racism isn’t just prejudice. If it were, it would be easier to eliminate. But racism is deeply embedded in the institutions and cultural mores of our society. We who are white/European Americans don’t see it because of our privilege. We can see class far more easily than we can see racism. Yet built into the very structures and systems of our life together are assumptions and patterns of life that feed and sustain racism.
Let me give you an example. During those five years in California, David and I belonged to the Church of Christian Fellowship, UCC, in Los Angeles, a predominantly African American church. David became part of the choir with his wonderful tenor voice. That church was filled with teachers, doctors, judges, university professors, lawyers, millionaires, financial analysts…and almost all of them had been stopped by the police within a mile of their own homes for DWB – driving while black. The assistant choir director, a university professor of music, driving to church one Sunday morning was stopped because he was driving a BMW, and was spread-eagled on his car. Over and over again, we heard these stories of incredible racism – incredible to us, all too credible to them. You are going to want to say, well, that was California, we’re not that way in Connecticut. I doubt it, my friends. We may be more subtle, but we are no less racist.
It is truly urgent that we restart this conversation now and that we continue it for years to come. In the 1970’s and early 1980’s, a lot of anti-racism work was undertaken in our churches, schools and workplaces. We thought we had done it. We were wrong. A decade of work is not enough to rid ourselves of the bamboo roots of racism, roots that extend back to the earliest days of slavery in this country. Slavery forms the underpinning of our current prosperity as a nation, and remains at the heart of the unfinished business of our life. That is why the United Church of Christ contributed so generously to the reconstruction of the Amistad. We recognize that its story of the collaboration of Africans, African Americans and white Americans in setting the Amistad captives free is a sign of hope. We affirm that Amistad America, Inc.’s contemporary mission is one we share: to transform the future by working together cross-culturally to eliminate racism. And we believe passionately that telling the story of both slavery and the antislavery movement is crucial to America facing its heritage and contemporary reality of racism.
We know that we will not eliminate racism in a short time. It requires vigilance and sustained work over decades. We can begin not only conversation but also action to make a real difference in our common life in this state and this nation. First, we must pray, and talk with one another.
The United Church of Christ has invited its pastors to preach on race on Sunday, May 18th this year as a way to begin these sacred conversations on race. It will be a watershed moment if we will all engage in this way. Yes, it will be uncomfortable. Yes, some will resist, for a variety of reasons. (I read of one pastor saying that no one was going to tell him what to preach on. Well, no one is telling anyone they have to do anything. We are inviting all of our pastors and churches to join the conversation. This is the UCC, after all!) But I write to encourage all our pastors to undertake this challenge, and all our laity and clergy to pray, read, think, and pry ourselves open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and the love of God for all people.
We who are white need to talk with one another about our racism. Yet we also need to be in relationship with people who are African American, Hispanic, Native American, Asian and Pacific Islander. Without those relationships, we will not be transformed, only informed. Many of our churches have members and leaders who are persons of color. It is important that they be invited into the conversation not as objects, but simply as participants, invited to tell their stories, whatever they may be, and invited to invite others whom they know to join in these conversations.
We are assembling resources that we hope will be helpful. Not all of them will be helpful to everyone; please select those that are right for your church at this time. They can be found at www.ctucc.org/sacredconversation and at www.ucc.org/sacred-conversation/. The Ruth Dudley Resource Center at the Conference office has a number of resources on racism that can be useful as well. As you become aware of others, please let us know of them. Your staff wish to be genuinely helpful to you as you prepare, so please talk with us about what you need.
The Bible is full of passages of prophetic challenge and full, too, of consolation. So must it be with us as we engage in sacred conversation. We are called to speak the truth with one another, and to do so with room for grace and forgiveness. Nevertheless, let us remember that an easy grace is no true grace and an early forgiveness only leaves us to need forgiveness again.
Sincerely in Christ,
Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree
Conference Minister
