the grip of white supremacy

To hear Brandi read this week’s essay, click here: https://youtu.be/ZkrUdS534QQ

My six year old asked me if policemen want to hurt her because she is Black. Her crushing question hung in the air while I struggled to decide what to privilege in that moment. Her need to brace herself for the hate that would come her way? Her need to trust the power structures of society? Her need to be a little girl? Her need to survive into adulthood? Her need to understand the world around her?

White supremacy forces the parents of Brown kids to forfeit their innocence in order to keep them alive.

This week, when she asked me that horrible question, I privileged her need for emotional safety. I told her no one wanted to hurt her. That she was safe with me. That policemen were there to help. That she could trust the people around her.

I lied to her. I did it to protect her six year old sense of self. She needs to trust that the world will welcome all she might bring to any environment. I join a centuries-long list of other mamas struggling to bottle the rage I feel about the unjust world she enters as a Black female. How long will we allow kids to wonder if they are seen as creative assets or as destructive drains on society? I wanted to give my daughter an answer that was true and comforting to her at the same time.

White supremacy removes that option.

She asked the question because she is taking in her surroundings. She is watching her world. My daughter and I are beginning a conversation shared by thousands of kids and parents all across our country. I am not the first mom to wonder how much truth her child can handle. The Talk has been popularized across culture recently by artists like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kenya Barris. What might be less understood is that the talk doesn’t begin when your kid gets a later curfew for the first time. The subject of white authority mistreating Black bodies is not first broached when car keys are tossed across the table, caught by young, eager hands. No. The talk begins when a child spends any time outside the home, and every time American history is mentioned. A Black child can’t learn about our founding without learning about 3/5s. A Black child can’t learn about American agriculture and cotton wealth without learning about slavery. A Black child can’t learn about education without learning about what Ruby Bridges endured. A Black child can’t learn about the Civil Rights Movement without learning about Jim Crow. A Black child can’t grow up in America without learning about racism. The talk lasts a lifetime.

White supremacy makes American history terrorizing.

As a white Christian woman who studies the history and literature of the African diaspora, I understand white supremacy. I see how it is enmeshed in Christianity, and I see how it served white Christians then and now. Because we historically set norms of behavior, if American Christians had wholeheartedly rejected racism, white supremacy would never have been a thing in America. Instead of following the Gospel model of privileging the outcast, of welcoming those on the margins, of confronting power that excludes others, many white Christians continue to preserve the status quo, questioning the faith of any person who dares to notice the racialized hierarchy in our churches and communities. Rather than naming the evil that segregates us, extending welcome to those who suffer, much of American Christianity seems content to ignore our role and to blame those who suffer for the suffering they endure.

White supremacy gives easy reasons for Black suffering.  

Christianity is incompatible with White supremacy. Christianity is also incompatible with defensiveness. Christians should lead the way in confronting and rejecting white supremacy. We should be eager to name it, grateful to renounce it, and humbled to confess the power it has on so many of us. Trusting systems might keep us comfortable, but such trust requires us to ignore the experiences of those who remind us injustice is baked in to our status quo.

White supremacy continues when white Christians ignore and protect it.

If Christians would confess the power of white supremacy, repenting of the damage it does to others, then six year olds would not ask their parents if they should prepare to be hurt because of their skin color. This week has brought tension to the public sphere and pain in private ones. The trial recounting the death of George Floyd, the killing of Daunte Wright and the murder of Adam Toledo wreaked havoc on many Black minds.

 It is time for all Christians to recognize their pain and to do the work to end white supremacy.

Pretending it isn’t real is evil.

Acting like it is not our problem blasphemes the life of Christ.

White supremacy is our problem, and it is terrorizing our kids and neighbors.

Below is a prayer of lament I prayed in church this week. I hope it invites us into the work God has given us to do.

This morning we come to you as your church, Asian, Latin, African, European, and Indigenous Americans. We bring our many voices and cry out with one voice: Lord, we are broken and weary. When we think of the grief pouring out of Atlanta, Minnesota, Indianapolis and all across our land, we feel our own grief rise, and we can barely lift our eyes to ask you for help. George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo. We are tired Lord. We feel abandoned when those we hoped were friends either ignore the trauma overwhelming us or, worse, question our experience. You are no stranger to betrayal. We feel afraid, as we look to our younger friends and know we cannot protect them from the evil white supremacy and violence gripping our country. You are no stranger to fear. We feel angry when we hear the blame, excuses or nothing at all coming from the mouths of brothers and sisters who claim to know and love you. You are no stranger to anger. We feel weary, distracted by grief, paralyzed by fear, stuck in the despair that wonders when it will stop. How long? Hear our lament as worship, Lord.

We have been oppressed and doubted, our dignity has been denied. We have also been oppressors and doubters, using our power to deny the dignity of beautiful image bearers you call “Mine.” We have allowed our bias to hurt those who need protection. We have blasphemed your name by refusing to act as your Church, as a refuge for those who suffer. We have called order peace, instead of making peace—even peace that disrupts. We have worshiped our own comfort, rejecting your way, which requires sacrifice. We have allowed systems that hurt Brown bodies to remain, checking out when it feels too hard or takes too long.

But you God, are patient. You forgive us and invite us into a new way. You do what you say you’ll do. You cannot and will not abandon your children. You sacrificed your comfort to be our Comforter. You disrupted your life to be our stability. You walked out of your way to make a way for us. You called out the powerful to lift up the lowly. You are the God who sees us when no one else does. We praise you that we belong to you. You see us struggling to get out of bed, and yet here we are because of you. You know when we cannot have one more hard conversation at work, and yet because of you some of us felt hope at work this week. You strengthen us before we even ask, because your new mercy comes each moment of the day. You lift our head when we cannot lift our eyes, and you remind us of the generations before us who have believed what their eyes did not see.

We put our collective hope in you, Lord. We will surely perish without your love. We praise you that we do not suffer alone. We praise you that Koinonia is no stranger to suffering, so we will open our arms all the wider to comfort those who mourn. Expand our capacity to stand with those who hurt, Lord. Show us how to bind up broken hearts. Give us a holy imagination for what our Beloved Community can be. Show us how to believe what we cannot see. Help us imagine your justice and mercy invading our broken systems. Pour your compassion through us, so that we become a church that embodies solidarity with those you love. Remind us that your justice will not wait forever, and we can trust you to redeem all things to you. Thank you for taking our burdens as your own, and give us your strength to do the same.