Race Matters

I have been away for a few weeks, and came back to all the commotion regarding "A Declaration Against Intolerable Racism."

I have read the Declaration, and in a minute will comment on it.

I wanted to share a different experience however that I had recently. I was in an Ikea store north of Dallas – with my daughter. During that three hour plus stay we looked around, shopped, stood in a line along time for lunch, and had lunch. I was struck by the amazing diversity of people in line for lunch. There were English speaking white people, English speaking Hispanics, Spanish speaking Hispanics, English speaking black people, black people speaking non English languages, and oriental people of different nationalities speaking English or oriental languages. It was a people-potpourri for sure.

All rubbed shoulders in line, were nice to each other, sat at adjacent tables, and no one seemed to care a twit about the color or language of the people next to them.

I find the same basic experience everyday in countless stores and restaurants where I rub shoulders with people - black, white, Hispanic and Asian.

OK, racism no doubt exists in the hearts of many people. It probably exists in some minor form in the heart of every person. But we have come a long way.

And yes, racism is very bad. But other things are also very bad. Like classism. Like consumerism. What united all the people in the Ikea that day was that they were all consumers, they all apparently had the means to consume, and they were all goo goo eyed over all the STUFF.

I think overall that classism is more prevalent and more insidious these days than racism. The fact that there may be some overlap between these does not mean that they are not different matters.

I am a white guy, so what do I know, but I think most white people don’t care all that much what color another person is. But I think that all kinds of people, white and black, care too much, in a bad judgmental way, whether another person is poor, shares or does not share certain “middle class values,” dresses shabbily or smells bad.

I think we judge others more on class than race.

Which gets me to the Declaration. First of all, what a totally lame name. Sounds like a Jim Carey movie title.

Secondly, I think REAL racism, and its seriousness, is cheapened by false charges of racism.

I am a pastor of a Presbyterian Church. We believe in the devil and in demons, but we aren’t as inclined to see them in as many places as some of our Christian brethren. We might be inclined to say, if asked, that we “don’t see demons behind every tree.”

Likewise, we should not see racism behind every tree. The Declaration has been well critiqued by others. I concur with many others that most of the items are just silly. Well, it is silly to pull out the “R” word as a cause for the problems which themselves aren't silly. The problem with doing this time and time again, is that it discredits those who may have insight into or be working against real racism. I concur that the tendency here in our city and county to pull out the racism card, and to hype racism as the source of so many evils, does not contribute to the decline of racism, nor does it solve the problems of real racism. Indeed it polarizes and possibly even creates and promotes racism.

If a bunch of white people continually say stupid divisive things, it provokes similar divisive thoughts and emotions in some other people, it deadens others to whatever the white folk are saying, and it may even cause some people to come to dislike white people, just by association. I think Dumb Declarations can have the same effect.

Is racism still a part of the structure of our culture? Yes. Does it need to be rooted out? Yes. Is it found in all the places as claimed in the Declaration? No. And eventually, with all the yak yak from the same crowd about racist boogeymen behind every tree, people will just stop listening. And that is a disservice to Black or Hispanic or Asian people who are in fact the victims of real racism.

I take comfort in the fact that in the general culture, at lunch at the K&W, at dinner at The Outback, waiting in line at the DMV, at the movies at the Carousel, there is much less regard to or thought of race as compared to a generation ago.

And meanwhile, we should all look into our hearts, not only for signs of racism, but for signs of classism as well. Because it is the natural inclination of the human heart to look for ways to feel superior to others. None of us is immune. None of us.