The story starts with my arrival in the States in the early 80s to attend college.  That was when I had shiny eyes, no gray hair and no age spots! Actually, the US was not my first choice in terms of destinations for studies abroad.  I decided to come here after receiving rejections from universities in Australia and Canada.  I picked the countries that would give me some elbow room—psychologically more so than physically.  Anyone who has lived among my people in Japan knows what I am talking about. When I look back on those early days here in the States, my thoughts immediately go to some of the very special people I met.  Interestingly, with a few exceptions, those who left the strongest impressions on me were so-called “people of color” (a socially acceptable yet distasteful term).  I come from a culture that tends to look down on people of darker complexion.  As with many Anglos, so too, many Japanese who lack exposure think that they have little to learn from people whose skin is darker than theirs.  Yet, it is my experience which tells me that the abundant life that Jesus talked about doesn’t have anything to do with mingling only with Whites—or Japanese—and copying their ways.

For example, I think of Danielle from Haiti.  The reason why she is so memorable to me is because not only did we go through common struggles together as foreign students, but also because she was a thinker.  She was educated in Paris prior to coming to the States, and she would nostalgically talk about how French students would enjoy engaging in intellectual conversations.  I was also perplexed at the time as to why there was such a gap between conversations in classrooms and those outside.  In short, Danielle and I had a common yearning for an academic environment, which we didn’t find at the time at the college we were attending in St. Louis (I later transferred to a state university, where the intellectual climate was much more appealing to me).  Danielle was someone with whom I could talk about philosophy, society, God, etc., and she so often peppered our talks with laughter.  We also attended a college ministry gathering on Friday evenings, which was led by an Indian couple.  I still remember the delicious Indian curry they served us, which she and I devoured as we gave thanks to our God.

I also have a fond memory of Shade (sha-dee) from Nigeria, whom I met in an anthropology class at the state university, to which I transferred.  She was a cute girl with big, smiley eyes.  I knew she was younger than me, but I didn’t realize how much younger until a few years after graduation.  I saw her picture and story in the university alumni magazine.  Shade was introduced as the youngest student to graduate —16 years old!  Well, we took the anthropology class a couple of years before our graduation, so she was probably 14½ when we sat next to each other in that big lecture hall.  I was studying next to a teenager who had barely reached puberty!  Our friendship was, unfortunately, rather brief due to circumstances typical of student life, but her faith and focused study habits left a lasting impression on me.  One event stands out to me.  I ran into Shade at the university library, where she was busy writing a term paper.  I asked her what she was writing about.  “Terrorism,” was her answer.  What a yucky subject, I thought.  This was the 80s; surely terrorism was around, but it was an issue to which most people hardly paid any serious attention.  As I look back, I wonder if Shade had the foresight to see that terrorism would become one of the biggest global problems in the twenty-first century.  And I also wonder if she had some practical suggestions to make for fighting terrorism at the conclusion of her term paper.  She was the youngest person to graduate from college of whom I know, and arguably one of the smartest people I will ever meet.  And her heart was bent toward peace – I wish I had asked for a copy of her paper. Imagine the magnitude of stupidity to dismiss people based on their color or ethnicity, and think of the possibility of what we might be able to do to help solve the world’s problems by exchanging ideas and eagerly learning from one another from different parts of the world!

The third person I recall is Shirley, a bubbly African American girl with whom I shared an apartment for a semester.  The air was getting colder by the day, and I was still a few semesters away from graduation.  I was very poor at the time, and she was an office worker, who graciously paid a bigger chunk of the rent so that we could live there together.  My bed was a $20 mattress from the Salvation Army (somehow it didn’t occur to me to ask my parents for more money).  I do not remember the reason, but after some time, Shirley had to move out of our apartment to live with her parents several blocks away.  Still, she kept paying her portion of the rent so that I could continue living there.  There was no heat in the apartment.  So my strategy was to put on two pairs of socks as well as a few blankets over me at night in order to fall asleep.  A Midwest winter night can be harsh.  One day, I remember that Shirley came home and offered me a $20 bill.  She said she didn’t need the money, and she thought I could use it for something.  I was able to buy myself a warm pair of gloves without holes in them so that I could drive my worn-out car without getting frostbite.  It was also Shirley who invited me over for Christmas that year because she knew that I had nowhere to go.

The last person I have space to introduce is Amy from Nigeria.  She was also a student in the States, and we attended church together.  I have several pictures of her and me taken on the day of my graduation from university.  In one picture, she is putting her hand on my shoulder as we were in the procession with caps and gowns.  A few other pictures show Amy in a dress and me in the gown smiling at the camera in the middle of the huge university campus.  Yes, just Amy and me.  My other friends were with their families because this was their graduation day as well.  My family couldn’t join me until my wedding day, which was to come a few years later. Amy was my friend and a good neighbor, who walked beside me and congratulated me on my graduation day.  I am very fortunate to have experiences with such special friends, who showed love to me during a very lonely season of life.

It is a privilege to introduce to you these special friends whom God placed in my path.  Each one is unique, each one is a Christ-follower, and each one has left a profound impact on me, shaping me into the person I am today.  When I read, “. . . and we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only (John 1:14),” it is difficult for me to separate my friends from Jesus their Lord, for he has manifested his glory in and through them to me.  Jesus’ glory comes in many colors and hues, and so we miss out when we fail to see the rainbow of his glorious love.  The first step of going beyond racism is to cultivate in our hearts a desire to get to know others of different ethnicities in all of their uniqueness and diversity, and an expectation that we will experience God’s glorious beauty in new and amazing ways through them.

When I was asked the question, “On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the greatest, to what degree does race affect your daily life?” Honestly, I really didn’t know how to answer that question. But it sure made me think a lot. True, when I look at myself in the bathroom mirror every morning, I see a female with black hair and brown skin, but I don’t regard myself as any different from my friends or co-workers who have lighter or even darker colored hair or skin. But there have been times in my life when I seriously wished I were white, had blond hair and blue eyes, or that I didn’t have this ethnic “baggage” to carry.

I am quite fortunate to not have had blatant experiences of racism. Maybe it was due to the fact that I lived for a while in very diverse California. But there have been plenty of times where I felt like an outsider, like I didn’t belong. I couldn’t really determine whether it was because I looked different or because of my personality, but the way people treated me made me feel that there was something wrong with me.

Nowadays I don’t really get affected by the fact that I am not a native to the United States. However, I cannot deny that going through an extremely grueling and shaming process called immigration, acculturation, and assimilation during an already tumultuous season of adolescence definitely shaped who I am today, at least how I have come to perceive myself. And my identity definitely plays into my spirituality and relationship with God. In fact, I have realized that a lot of the brokenness that God has been healing and working on me thus far in my adult life is related to my racial/ethnic identity in some form.

I came to this country when I was 12 years old. I remember my parents telling me and my siblings that they wanted a better life for us, and life is better in America. All I knew of that country was how much better their stuff was compared to ours in the Philippines. Every time my aunt and uncle sent us a package of American goodies such as candy and magazines, my siblings and I would be in awe. I went to a private Catholic school in Manila where I learned to read, write, and speak English (very well in fact). But I remember a time in 6th grade when the principal and teachers forced us to speak only English for a day. Now we had a bunch of other rules in the school, but for some reason I was really ticked off by that; it felt like oppression to my young pysche. So, guess what, I broke that rule. And although I was a highly-regarded student, I was given a de-merit.

When one of my sisters and I moved into my aunt and uncle’s house in Nashville and my mom moved to San Francisco to stay with other relatives, I felt like I was dumped into the ocean without a life preserver. Everything was so foreign to me but nobody, not even my aunt and uncle, bothered to talk to that budding teenager that she was experiencing culture shock, not to mention shock from being separated from most of her family. (My dad and two other siblings immigrated 2 years later).

From then on, life for me (this was all subconscious) was all about survival. That means do whatever you can to fit in, to not look or act or sound any different or do anything that would make people look at you weird or laugh at you or ask you stupid questions like where did you learn to speak English or you have such a lovely tan.

Two years after living in the deep south, I truly felt like an American. Well, at least I could speak English without a detectable accent. I also had to move to California to be with the rest of my family. I was in the middle of high school. Guess what, my struggles with my racial identity did not end there; in fact, they got worse. My high school in a San Francisco suburb was very diverse. It brought me a lot of confusion. I just moved from a place where I was surrounded by white people, and all of a sudden, there were actually other Filipinos in my school! Talk about reverse culture shock. But I truly appreciated not being so different from everybody else anymore. I quickly befriended a Filipino gal my age. We got pretty close but all of a sudden she got into the popular social group and completely forgot about me. I think that was the time that I subconsciously started despising Filipinos and my native culture, as well as being ashamed of being Filipino. It didn’t help that my parents and other Filipino adults around me often backstabbed and criticized or were envious of other Filipinos.

It has only been through meeting Mariko and thus becoming involved with the focus group for “Removing the Blinders” class, that my eyes were opened to this deep-seated shame that I’ve carried regarding my race and ethnic background, and how God is so sad and grieving that I am so broken in this way. This brokenness has even influenced the way I perceive and treat people, even as a Christian. Although I haven’t really struggled with judging people for the color of their skin (in fact, I just love being and interacting with racially diverse people and learning about other cultures), I am definitely guilty of having a “consumer mind-set” when it comes to social things. Consciously and subconsciously, I think of people as either outsiders or insiders. And I have continued to behave and live (even within the walls of the church) so as to be an insider or at least feel like one. Being an outsider or feeling like an outsider feels like death to me. And I think this is due to the trauma I had experienced as adolescent trying to acculturate to this country. Unfortunately, I had not only successfully acculturated, I have completely assimilated. In most ways, I see myself as a white person. For one thing I am very independent. But deep inside I am always longing for true community and for communal relationships with people. Also, this very Filipino trait of hospitality just keeps spilling out in so many ways. And not to mention the artistic parts of me. Having been increasingly involved in the arts community in my church, I am getting back in touch with the artist that God created in me, and you know what, a lot of it is related or has been influenced by my Filipino culture.

God, the faithful Redeemer, is busy at work in my life! He is taking back what I had lost to the enemy because of the sinfulness and brokenness of this world. He is removing not only my blinders but also my shame. As I have intently looked into the nature of God, being the perfect community–Father, Son, and Spirit–whose unity and diversity welcomes and includes anyone and everyone, I am convicted of my self-centeredness and my exclusivity. It is hard to face this ugliness, but the God who also identified with my sin by becoming a frail human being, gives me the courage and strength to repent and join with others to seek his heart and allow him to truly make us into that united body and holy dwelling in which he lives through his Spirit (Ephesians 2:21).

Dr Metzger loves to say “this isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.” As Americans, we love to solve problems ASAP. But realistically, prejudice is as old as race itself, and it’s epidemic, yet it’s invisible to the perpetrators (I don’t know many people who claim they’re a racist, do you?). Let’s not declare the “mission accomplished.” Both systemic change and discipleship take time. People from the dominant culture need to take the time to listen, examine their attitudes and habits, listen to the Word, and retrain themselves; their brothers and sisters of color need to participate in this journey with them.

We have been so “stoked” about this journey that we decided to invite others to join. Because it’s a marathon, we’re pacing ourselves and preparing for the long haul. This spring we expanded this discussion into class offered through Imago Dei’s School of Theology. You can view the class syllabus below. If you would like to write your own story, we would welcome that as well. Send it as a comment, up to 1500 words, and I can post it for others to see.

—MerkerMatic.

During WWII he served in the US Army as a mess Sergeant. I can draw the conclusion that it was a meaningful time in his life just by the numerous photographs in his military garb with his proud stance and glint in his eyes. Many Chinese Americans willingly joined the military to prove they were true Americans. A few years after the end of the war, my father voyages back China to marry my mother. She came from a rural family who made a meager living growing mainly sweet potatoes and collecting and selling firewood. Ten days after marrying my mother, my father returned to America to continue working. The only connection they had were occasional letters and rare visits. Due to economics and The Chinese Exclusion Act, working Chinese men were kept from bringing their families over to the US which created a bachelor society.

Fast forward to 1950, my father returned to China and moved my mother and grandmother to Hong Kong before the Communists rose to complete power. As soon as they settled into a flat he purchased, he left for America again. My mother began living her new life in the bustling big city of Kowloon, eking out a living doing all kinds of manual labor and eventually found her niche as seamstress for a garment factory. Her daily orders can consist, for example, of a dozen tailor quality trousers–and this all done on a machine powered with a manual foot pedal! For 1.50 a day she work vigorously from early morning to very late into the night. Though my father had employment in the US, he wasn’t consistent in sending money back to my mother. During those 13 years apart my mother adopted her first child, my older sister, from a poor neighboring village woman. This adoption was very much out of the norm as Chinese rarely would do this for a complete stranger.

Finally in 1963 my father sent for my mother and I was born a year later. We lived in a sketchy boarding house in Old Town by the American cafe my father was running and very soon after my mother joined in. A couple of years after I was born, at the urging of my mother, my father bought a house (paid in full) in a working class white neighborhood. Even at a very young age, I learned there was much suspicion from the neighbors. I think they wondered how a Chinese family could afford to move in to their neighborhood. I have memories of racial harassment from whites kids calling us “F-O-Bs” and “Chinks“. One grandchild of a racist next door neighbor yelled out to me “How much money did you pay to come to America?”. Upset, I ran to my father (I would describe as a Chinese version of Archie Bunker) and he gave me my first race relations tip. He said, “Just tell the to go to hell. Tell them we built the railroads”. So I proceeded to yell this statement to this young boy and in the future others, not understanding at all what I was saying. It’s quite humorous when I think about it now but it also makes me think about my father’s trials with racism that I could only guess was tremendous.

Throughout my childhood I had incidences of racial harassment. However I did become friends with some of these kids and became a part of this neighborhood community and even babysat for the racist neighbor’s grandkids. Throughout of my life my typical Asian response to racism was more “personal”. I went on the “better my economics track” by getting a college education and creating a good life in my Asian bubble and neglecting the bigger picture. Well God has been bursting me out of this bubble and making me aware of the injustices that occur with structural racism. Sadly things have not progressed as much as we’d like to think and many many people of color are still struggling in so many ways and real barriers do exist.

When I was 8 years old my father suddenly died and my world drastically changed. I was demoted from the fairly comfortable status of working middle class nuclear Chinese family to a single parent Chinese household on the verge of welfare. My illiterate and uneducated mother and had to raise her 4 daughters by herself on minimum wage. She was too proud to accept government assistance even though she clearly qualified. She fought to make it on her own and succeeded but it nearly killed her. I became keenly aware of my lower socioeconomic status which caused me to feel very stressed out and insecure about my life instead of having a carefree childhood . The weightiness of being a minority magnified when I became poor.

In my mother’s wisdom she sent us to a Chinese Christian church because she wanted us to learn “good manners”. I accepted Jesus at the age of 12. The church was my saving grace and a safe cocoon from the ills of the world. There I felt understood and cared for and began my spiritual transformation.

1994 was the year of the beginning of the end of my yellow and white world. I got accepted to a month long intensive internship at an inner-city church in Brooklyn NY. I was thrust into the Black and Latino world of the boroughs of New York City. For many of the children there it was the first time they touched an Asian person’s straight hair! My experience there was enjoyable and saw that God’s Kingdom is expansive and I was beginning to see a clearer picture of His inclusiveness. When I came back I grew restless and felt like an alien at my homogenous Chinese church.

A couple of years later my Chinese American pastor was asked to start a multi ethnic church. I jumped at the opportunity and knew this was God’s directed step for me. The next 10 years were full of joys as well as challenges in fellowshipping with a diverse group of people. Our small church intersected with Native Americans, Blacks, Asians, Caucasians, mentally ill, poor, single parents, seniors, and many struggling in various ways. I had an epiphany that this was a glimpse of God’s eternal kingdom that is without racial and socioeconomic barriers! (Read Revelations 7:9 and beautiful picture of heaven).

After my church closed its doors, (an unfortunate sign of the difficulties of establishing a multi-ethnic ministry) I strongly desired to attend a Christ-centered church that was not only in my community but involved in my community. It is only by God’s sovereignty or ironic humor, that I ended up at a very large predominantly white hipster church just minutes from my home. Even thought I feel deathly out of place, I no longer could take a consumerist mindset of attending a church that met my every need but to stay and hopefully add to this church. Hey, in this sea of my white brothers and sisters they could use a single, middle aged Chinese woman around here!

Happily, the arduous journey to pursuing a Kingdom image of God’s heart for inclusive fellowship continues. A group of us at the church have been exploring, dialoging and wrestling with this subject and are now praying and actively trying to move towards true community as God intends. In eternity we expect that all nations will come together at the Lord’s table–why not purposefully pursue this now?”

It is most likely at this point I should share that I am white, or Caucasian. It is also a good time to apologize for the use of the term “white people”. It is a stereotype that I am trying to overcome and yet it a label the world uses to describe me and those of which I am speaking.

I am a standard American, with bloodlines resembling a European soup. But unlike many Americans I have traveled and lived across the country, and world, and learned to love, and often seek out, diversity. My story begins before I am born. From what I can tell I am two parts German, two parts Danish, and four parts Polish. There is also at least one sixteenth or more European seasoning of Irish, Scottish and maybe some French. Three of my grandparents were first generation Americans, which means I am a third generation American. My mother was raised in a mostly Polish neighborhood of Chicago, and my father was raised in many low income towns in California in the 50s and 60s. I am assuming most Americans can find a similar soup of nations in their past. It is also one of reasons I, like most Americans, never felt a connection to any one race or people group. I won’t say I am bland but I am mixed.

My life begins in California, just north of San Francisco, while Jimmy Carter was still president, which has nothing to do with my story except the time frame. I did not decide to be born in California, or the US, it is just where the stork dropped me. I don’t remember the area much, but have seen pictures where my sister is smiling in her gym clothes, or dressed for Halloween, with an Indian girl (from the subcontinent) who was her friend. I am assuming this meant there was diversity in the neighborhood. My family moved to Chicago when I was five. The neighborhood we moved into was once Little Poland. But over time the white people moved to the suburbs, leaving the neighborhood to those from which they ran away. My neighbor and my grandfather had the same name, spelled and pronounced differently. My grandfather was George, from Polish and German ancestry; my neighbor — Jorge, pronounced Hor-Hey, was from Puerto Rico. For this reason, and against the wishes of my grandparents there, a number of my friends I remember were Puerto Rican or Mexican in school. There was definitely racism in my grandparents’ hearts just judging from the words used and the way they were used.

However, my parents taught me and my sister that all people are equal. Most likely this was a result of the diversity of California and the fact my parents lived through the civil rights movements of the 1960s and Martin Luther King Jr. It was around this time that I remember a talk with my sister about marriage. We were little kids, not mature at all, but realized that because of the friends we had and the places we lived we were most likely not going to marry another white person. We had no problem with this and it became more likely when we moved after 5 years in Chicago to the southern US and the ever expanding city of Atlanta. Today my sister is married to a Puerto Rican and therefore is engulfed in that culture through his family and their daughter. I am dating a gal from Vietnam who has never been to the United States and currently lives in a Muslim Asian country. We crave diversity and not just the status quo. But, back to the story.

When we arrived outside of Atlanta, it was like a whole new world to me. We were in the suburbs of a smaller city compared to the north side of the third largest city in the US. My first day of fifth grade there were a lot more African Americans than I had seen before. This might also be because I was in public school compared to a private Catholic school. Whites were still the majority, but there was definitely more African and Asian ancestry surrounding me. It was at this point that I realized race meant something. By the time I was in middle school I had learned about the role of slavery in building up the land. I was aware of the fact that there were people proud to be the descendents of slaves and – for some— slave owners. I realized the impact the stars and bars of the confederate flag had on many, many people. I knew by then, as a 12-13 year old, as I know now, that confederate flags were not about history or as much about ancestry as they were about segregation, racism and oppression. I almost experienced a race riot at my high school over Malcolm X and the confederate flag. It was resolved with an assembly when the principal handed out “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” T-shirts to everyone and commanded that no more Malcolm X or Stars and Bars were to be seen on campus. Years later, I was the only white kid on my bus most days of my junior and senior years of high school. Partially because of my ability to drive, or not drive, but mostly because the majority of Caucasians at my school no longer lived in my neighborhood.

It was after my graduation from high school that I really noticed race though. Granted by the age of 18, I had seen the racism against Latinos in Chicago and African Americans in the south. And I heard stories from my Asian friends that they were discriminated against and made fun because of their skin or hair, or judged to be Muslim or Buddhist while they were Christian. The change came when I started college and moved from Georgia to Alaska.

In Fairbanks, Alaska I was exposed to the Inupiat Native Americans mostly known to the world as “Eskimos.” Within a week I heard how much they were hurt by that term, not because I used it but because they let me know not to say that when they heard I was from the lower 48. I was judged to be naive, which I guess I was. Igloos, dogsleds and muktuk had their place in culture but were not the primary way of life anymore. The other noticeable thing in Alaska was the lack of true diversity around while everyone embraced it. There were basically Natives and Caucasians. Only a few Asians were around—mostly running the Chinese restaurants, even fewer African Americans were around—mostly serving with the military, and almost no Latinos. Yet those in Alaska were some of the most open minded people I have ever met. One reason: they traveled – to get away from that cold maybe, or because many had disposable incomes from oil, tourist or military salaries. Either way, diversity mattered to them.

Fast forward 10 years and you reach the modern Jeremiah. Since that first day in Alaska I have rented a bed in 41 states in the US and 15 countries in Asia and Europe. I am a solid believer that my diverse upbringing and traveling have impacted my view on race. On the first week of the Removing the Blinders class at Imago Dei, a question was poised to us, “On a scale of 1-10 how much does race impact you?” I responded with a 10. Not because I am intentionally racist towards people but because I have to take into account where a person came from and how to honor them. But I am a racist, mostly towards white people that don’t realize they have white privilege. They are more likely to get a better job, a better mortgage, or better treatment at the hospital simply because they are historically more likely to fit the status quo, keep a job to pay off the mortgage and to have good insurance because they have a good home and job. If you think I am wrong, look around your office or school and see how many managers are “ethnic”, where workers live and how they are treated at hospitals, banks and restaurants. If you never thought that way before it might shock you. Obviously I don’t think it should be this way, but with all that traveling and nomadic living I have yet to get my beliefs to a high enough position to get them out.

Racism is alive and well in America from the conservative Bible Belt to the liberal Pacific Northwest. It’s a marathon so let’s take just a step forward to improve that racism in our hearts. I am in need of work on it just like you.

Likening skin color to ice cream flavors does make sense. Most flavors are somewhere between white and brown. But to define Northern Europeans as “vanilla” or “white” implies that they are tasteless and colorless, which is yet another way of defining white as the racially and culturally neutral “background” color of our society.

I long for the day when white Americans realize they aren’t just part of a neutral vanilla background. Here’s an example of what I mean: April 15’s episode of World Have Your Say posed this question to minorities: “Do you feel like you have to leave your culture at the door when you go to work…?” Whites would have a hard time answering this query. Our response would be somewhere between “I don’t have a culture” or “My culture is the culture.” Therefore, as white figures on a white background, the cultural baggage that we carry is hard to see or grab ahold of, and impossible to leave at the door…

Everyone has a culture. Let’s start with that. Everyone has an ethnicity. Everyone has a story. Knowing one’s story–really a compilation of stories about one’s family and how one got to be where one is today–is vital. God tells his people in the Shema in Deut 6 (“Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one God…”) to retell again and again the story of their people. Knowing one’s story…let me begin again in the first person…knowing our stories helps us know how we were formed, appreciate who we are, laugh at ourselves, and live an examined life. And it’s fun.

It’s fun and profitable to share our stories, too. A dozen of us formed a multiracial group this winter to gather, pray, study the Bible with Dr Metzger, and take turns sharing our stories. It was a moving experience to participate in a group where people could be open about everything, including their sin and their anger. Now we are inviting others to join the group as we begin a class entitled Removing the Blinders of Prejudice in the Church starting April 6.

At times, I refer to myself as a Scottish American and Swiss American; when I do, I’m not necessarily trying to be funny, nor am I trying to “get in touch” with my roots; I’m just trying to be conscious of having a particular identity, in the same way that African or Native Americans are always seen as “particular” when set against that white “background” of the dominant culture in North America.

I only know a little about my ancestors. They came to America fleeing war and famine in Alsace, religious tensions in Graubunden, and who knows what in Scotland. I probably know more about the stereotypes concerning Swiss and Scottish people! Of course we need to be careful with racial/ethnic stereotypes, but they don’t have to be used for ill. It may explain why I’m cheap and why I’m a perfectionist…and why I look good in a kilt! It may also explain how I was raised: don’t be too demonstrative with your emotions; don’t be too showy; don’t ever be late. No matter who you are, I would suggest that it’s important to know how you were raised and what you are like: your communication style, your sense of humor, your cognitive style, your attitudes toward privacy, money, your tastes, what your gifts are–and it doesn’t hurt to acknowledge that these qualities were influenced by the culture of your race, ethnicity, religion and family.

As far as I know, my white Protestant ancestors met very few barriers to becoming prosperous once they settled in America. The only barriers I know about were self-inflicted: cases of drunkenness and incest. The Great Depression set their standard of living back for awhile, but my parents say they never knew they lacked anything. As adults they were very successful and moved our family from Portland out to a new suburb in the early 60s. I suppose you could call it “white flight.” There was a 1200 square foot minimum for houses on our street (that was big in 1964) ensured a solidly middle class demographic. Every neighbor was white as I grew up.

My family’s expressed attitudes about race were a mixture of bigotry and benevolence that has slowly evolved with the times. In the 70s I can remember racist jokes. In the 80s those completely stopped, but I remember xenophobic comments and a state of denial about racism: “The schools aren’t what they used to be.” “The worst racism is visited on dark-skinned blacks by light skinned ones.” “The children of mixed race couples have lots of problems (a not-so-subtle hint to marry a white girl)” “First they want to be called negroes, then blacks, and now African-Americans…what next?” Also, special praise was heaped on minorities who’d succeeded, because they demonstrated that the barriers are gone: anyone can prosper in America with a little hard work, just as our family had. I remember probing this world view as I got older, and finding a complete blindness to white privilege.

The houses in that neighborhood where I grew up are nearing their 50th birthdays and the neighborhood is less white– only around 50%. Crime levels have risen dramatically. There have been two attempted murders and one homicide in houses immediately adjacent to my parents’ in the last 3 years. Given experiences like that, it’s typical for whites to conclude that decline and crime are directly associated with color.Today, my parents have become a little bit cognizant of white privilege, and the barriers that obstruct minorities. They are very conscious of race and nervous about it. As they talk, and a character in a story is a minority, it will come out in the telling. We often chuckle about it later, that whenever they mention a black person, the adjectives “neat” and “distinguished” and “articulate” are soon to follow. If any minority makes a favorable impression, they’ll mention how nice the people were. Many of my friends’ parents are the same way. I remember laughing about a friend’s mom who came home from the supermarket saying “there’s a new black checker, and she could sure work that cash register!” Clearly, the generation that lived through the civil rights era feels bad about racism, they’re trying to put things right, and they’re terribly awkward as they go about it.

We are, of course, trying to put things right in our own way. When we bought a house, my wife and I chose the smallest house we could stand. We believe in voluntary simplicity, which includes a desire to live among people that are diverse in terms of race and class. But as parents, we face a decision: where should our son go to school? The neighborhood schools offer fewer academic and extracurricular opportunities than those in more affluent neighborhoods; the culture of the other students is less college-bound as well. Portland Public Schools has a pretty generous transfer policy, so it’s possible to transfer up if we want. Many families do this. Should we? We are challenged by John Perkins’ call for the redistribution of the fruits of white privilege. And we’re encouraged by Sandra Tsing Loh, one mother who decided to buck this trend of abandoning local schools. Her essay appeared in the March Atlantic Monthly. As a result, we have decided to enroll our son in the local high school and have already started talking with the faculty there to see how we can help them offer more opportunities.

Enough about me. Thanks for reading this. This is a space where you are invited to respond with your own story.Will you share your story–and how it was shaped by race?

Class Overview:

We all struggle with prejudice—pre-judging people. Even in the church, we distort and minimize those whose stories and experiences are different from our own, as we view them through our limited cultural lenses. We need to see others rightly from God’s global kingdom perspective. This 8 week class hosted by a group of Christ-followers from Imago Dei will develop further the themes addressed during the “Are You a Passive Racist?” forum led by Paul and Mariko Metzger at Evangel Baptist last November. The aim of the class is to share God’s kingdom vision where God invites all of us and incorporates each of our stories into Christ’s story through the Spirit. Building on the biblical story where God invites all of us to participate in his story, we need to invite others whose experiences are different from our own to share their stories so that we can move beyond the pain, victimization, and isolation associated with prejudice toward healing, victory, and hope. As our eyes are opened as we listen in love, we hope to move from racial, ethnic, and cultural prejudice to just forms of perception as we look through God’s eyes as viewed through Christian Scripture.

Ground Rules:

*Stay engaged: Participants should do everything possible to come to all classes as these 8 weeks are a relationship building exercise.*Be prepared to experience discomfort: You may experience guilt, sorrow, conviction, followed (possibly) by repentance, renewal, greater self-awareness, and a heightened appreciation for God and one another.*Speak your truth in love: Truth can be objective and scientific. But it can also be personal and passionate. It can be complex, reflecting pain, anger, disbelief, or even ambiguity as a result of encountering unfamiliar experiences. If all truth is God’s truth, then God’s truth includes crying truth, stuttering truth, expressing truth with uncomfortable pauses, and even angry truth. Make sure to express hard truths, and also to express them in love, seeking to build up one another.Listen well: It’s so easy to write off those whose experiences are different from our own. Listen well to others as they share their experiences. Good listeners are often God’s healing agents.*Expect and accept non-closure: Sometimes offenders have to give time to victims to heal before they can experience full reconciliation and move forward. No one in this class should expect closure for racism on the macro level at the end of the class; if anything, our hope is that we will all come away more sensitized to racism and other forms of prejudice, becoming more effective agents of reconciliation.Sense your own brokenness and need for God: We are all victimizers and victims, depending on the contexts in which we find ourselves. Accept one another, seeking reconciliation with God and with one another.*Four of the points listed above as ground rules were adaptations of points made in the book, Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools, written by Glenn Eric Singleton and Curtis Linton (Corwin Press, 2005)

Select Resources:

Mark DeYmaz, Building a Healthy Multi-ethnic Church: Mandate, Commitments and Practices of a Diverse Congregation, J-B Leadership Network Series (Jossey-Bass, 2007).Curtiss Paul DeYoung,Michael O. Emerson, George Yancey and Karen Chai Kim, United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation As an Answer to the Problem of Race (Oxford, 2004).Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith, Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (Oxford, 2001).Martin Luther King, Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. Clayborne Carson (Grand Central, 2001).Charles Marsh, The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, from the Civil Rights Movement to Today (Perseus, 2006).Paul Louis Metzger, Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church (Eerdmans, 2007).John M. Perkins, Let Justice Roll Down, 30th Anniversary Edition (Regal, 2006).Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice, More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel, Revised and Expanded (IVP, 2000).Glenn Eric Singleton and Curtis Linton, Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools (Corwin Press, 2005).Richard Twiss, One Church, Many Tribes: Following Jesus the Way God Made You, Revised Edition (Regal Books, 2000).Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Free To Be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line (Navpress, 2008).Other helpful works include significant works of literature, such as the following: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man; Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird; and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Other important sources include the following films: The Color of Fear, Crash, Eyes on the Prize, Race—the Power of Illusion, and Unfulfilled Dreams.Removing the Blinders of Prejudice in the Church©2008, Paul and Mariko Metzger and Imago Friends