The Privilege of Ignorance: A White Southern Pastor's Wife Reflects and Grieves

Photo by Gordon Parks/@gordonparksfoundation

I’ve been doing a lot of listening and reflecting these past few weeks. I’ve read books, watched documentaries, read articles, and listened to podcasts from the perspective of black Americans. As the weeks have passed, I’ve felt over and over this sense that I need to use my voice and speak out, but I just haven’t been able to put the words into place. I have written hundreds of posts in my head as I’ve tackled the big project of staining and painting my front porch these past few weeks. I’ve taken notes and written out some thoughts here and there, but I’ve been afraid that I will get it wrong and say something in a way that is misunderstood. One day, as I scrubbed my front porch to ready it for staining, I was filled with fury over some posts I had seen from the white community regarding racism. I kept feeling a need to write, but put it off. I just can’t put it off anymore. Mainly, because I met my dear friend for lunch the other day and this is what she told me. I should preface this with the fact that this friend has given me such wise counsel over the past year or so and has held my family and I up in prayer when I could barely breathe. I view her as a person who is filled with wisdom and I do not take her words lightly. She said, “We need your voice. If I speak up I will be viewed as the angry black woman. You don’t need to be silent. Tell it from your own perspective.” So, that is what I will try to do.

Much of what I have to say is addressed to white Christian Americans, because this is my sphere of influence. What I want to say to the black community (and all people of color) is “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry it took us so long to use our voices. We were silent for too long and that is wrong.

I am a pastor’s wife who grew up in a small town on the coast of North Carolina. I have never liked telling people that I am a pastor’s wife, and I used to think that was because I don't like to be put into a box. That is true, but, I think another reason I don’t like divulging that information is that I have felt some shame in being associated with Christians over these past few years. That is a terrible thing for me to admit and to say. But, it is true. Why would I be ashamed to be associated with Christians? Because I have seen some people in the Christian community converse in hateful and angry ways. It would be true for me to say that most of the people I interact with in my Christian world (near and far) are loving and kind, but, unfortunately, the loud voices are often the ones heard by the masses. Those loud voices have said things like, “Keep the refugees out!”, “All lives matter!”, “Those are isolated incidents.”, “You’re believing the leftist narrative.”, and “President Trump carries the Christian message.” I have heard denials over the fact that systemic racism even exists. The first thing I want to ask is, “Have you listened to the people of color crying out in America?” Because, from my perspective, as a believer in Jesus and a person who wants to live out what I believe I am called to do, I can only see that this kind of denial is the complete opposite of loving my neighbor. To love my neighbor I have to listen. Have you listened? Last year, I was in a small group with two black women I greatly respect. I learned so much from them about what it is like to live in America as a black person. It broke my heart. It isn’t right. And, when we claim that this doesn’t even exist, we are spitting into the faces of the black community. How dare you make an assessment over a life you’ve never lived? Yes, I’m angry. I believe it is a righteous anger and I will speak out against this kind of nonsense. I can assure you that the people of color in your churches experience a different world than you do due to the color of their skin. I’ve heard specific instances over and over of this happening to people I love within our church. How do you think it makes them feel to hear people they worship with every Sunday turn a blind eye and say things like “All lives matter”, “I’m not bowing to anyone. We are all on level ground”, and “America is not a racist country!” I can tell you that it is heartbreaking. This is hitting closer to home than you think and it is time to step out of your bubble and allow yourself to see another side of things. This is not a political issue. This is a heart issue. If your political leanings force you to treat another human being as if their pain isn’t valid, there is something in you that needs to change.

Denis Haack, a man that Jared and I have respected and learned from for years, recently wrote in an article entitled “No More of This”:

“Loving America means I will insist that it honors its deepest commitments, including that “all men [and women] are created equal.” And where it fails to do so, love requires me to not remain silent or to tell a story of America that lies by ignoring that bit, but to work for justice, speak truth to power and insist changes be made.”

I know without a doubt that racism exists because it has surrounded me for my entire life. And, when I say “racism”, I don’t just mean blatant, in your face racism. For much of the time, it subtly lives under the surface. At other times, it is in your face. If I listed off all of the things I have heard said over the course of my life pertaining to the black community, one of two things would happen. You’d be heartbroken and angered. Or, you’d take it as an offense and feel that I am a traitor. All of this depends on where your heart is. There is so much shame wrapped up in it all. If white people admit that racism exists, they have to admit that they, along with their mom, dad, grandparent, aunt, neighbor, etc. contributed to the cycle and that feels like turning against the people we love. I see it as being very similar to an abuse victim having to name their abuse at the expense of a family member being outed and shamed. It often feels easier to keep it covered to avoid the shame that will follow. There is a loyalty to our family and our town. We don’t want to turn our backs on the ones we love. But, here is the deal. Healing will not begin until the truth is told. I’ve wrestled a lot with this as I’ve considered how to share my own story. I love my family and the community I was raised in. I don’t want to bring shame to anyone. Perhaps, we, who know it is time to stop the silence, should all consider having some hard conversations with our extended families. What did you hear within your family as you grew up? How were you shaped by what you heard and saw? These are healthy questions to ask ourselves. I’m not discounting all of the good in my community. It would be unwise to throw it all out. We can’t expect perfection because we live in a fallen world. However, growth as a person is an evolving process and we must be willing to root out what doesn’t bring beauty and goodness to our world.

My parents heard things like, “Well, they (black parents) just don’t love their children like we do.” This was the response my Mom received when she began asking questions about why she couldn’t play with their maid’s grandchildren. My Mom also began questioning as they traveled and stayed in hotels, asking her parents, “Where do the black families stay when they travel?”

The black people who they hired for various jobs could never drink from the same cups the family drank from. They had to use mason jars. This was normal life for my parents. It was normal life for everyone they knew. I’ve been conversing with my Mom as I’ve thought through all of this the past few weeks. She describes a “subtle subservience” between the older generation black and white communities that can still be seen today, and it breaks her heart to see it. She regularly reminds me that her parents were incredible people who were a product of their generation, misled by false beliefs.

If only my grandparents could have listened and actually heard these words back in 1933 from former slave Jennie Hill (born in 1837 and enslaved in Kansas and Missouri):

“Some people think that the slaves had no feeling—that they bore their children as animals bear their young and that there was no heartbreak when the children were torn from their parents or the mother taken from her brood to toil for a master in another state. But that isn’t so. The slaves loved their families even as the Negroes love their own today and the happiest time of their lives was when they could sit at their cabin doors when the day’s work was done and sing the old slave songs, ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot,’ ‘Massa in the Cold, Cold Ground,’ and ‘Nobody Knows What Trouble I’ve Seen.’”

As I grew up in a small community, I heard the “n” word on a regular basis. I heard the black community talked about as if they were worthless and every now and then you’d come across “a good one”. It hurts my heart to even write this. I’ve erased my words a couple of times and chosen not to share some of them because it is just too painful for me to see it in print. I heard things like, “It’s not Martin Luther King day! It’s Robert E. Lee day!” I experienced the humiliation of having a loved and respected family member refuse service from a black server at a restaurant. I saw black history month scoffed at with responses like “What about Italian American History Month?” and I heard accusations of “playing the race card” on a regular basis. I grew up believing that everyone had the same chance at life. From my perspective, we did. The word “reparation” was considered a swear word and the general consensus was that slavery happened so long ago and it was just time to move on and quit playing victim. As I said a minute ago, this grieves my heart to even write out. But, it is true. Recently, two white police officers in NC with the Wilmington Police Dept. were fired for their racist banter which ended up on a recording. “We are just gonna go out and start slaughtering them f@!&@$? ni—–. I can’t wait. God, I can’t wait.” I’m so glad the WPD did the right thing in firing these hateful officers.

As I’ve read, watched, and listened to the black community over the past couple of weeks, it feels like I have had a film reel playing in the back of my head the entire time. I’m hearing all of the excuses and lies I heard from the white community my entire life. It is painful to replay that reel and see all of the places that I stood back and did nothing. I had the privilege of ignoring injustice because it didn’t affect me. I am saddened that I never had a conversation with my black classmates about what it was like growing up in our little community. Most of my classmates and I went to the same school from Kindergarten up through high school and I never once had a conversation with any of my black classmates about their experiences as a black person in a predominantly white community. I’m also saddened that I never viewed my black classmates as people that I could be real friends with. We were acquaintances, but everything other than school was completely separate. We never ate meals together or stepped into each other’s homes. This truly saddens me as I look back.

Unknowingly, I was being shaped by my culture and that is reflected in a letter I wrote to my dear friend when we were in the third grade. A few weeks ago, she messaged me with a picture of the letter she found and jokingly said, “I hope you never run for public office.” We laughed, but there was also a part of me that was so saddened to see that version of me. A little girl shaped by the subtle racism that was woven into the fabric of her culture. My Mom can remember us getting off of the bus and talking about the black kids. I hate that this is a part of my history, but it is. And, I’m not going to pretend it isn’t there.

Do you see that? The words I wrote read “There’s a boy in my class and he’s black. He is mean!!! And stupid!”

As I grew into a pre-teen, I watched movies with my Mom about slavery and the civil rights movement and was so angered by what I saw. “Mississippi Burning” came out in 1989, when I was twelve years old and that really started the conversation about racism with my mom. I can see that began changing my trajectory as a girl, and I am so thankful for the conversations I was able to have with her as I began figuring out life and deciding what I believed. Her questions as a little girl in her own community, knowing that something wasn’t right about what she was experiencing, led her to be a parent who allowed her child to question the wrongs in our culture. We had great conversations, and I will always be grateful for her influence in my life to be willing to grow and change. She has always refused to remain stagnant and has made conscious efforts to educate herself on the history of our community regarding racism. A few years ago, she signed up for a class called “Black and White in Wilmington” and joined people to learn about the history of Wilmington, good and bad. They met in the historic Williston School (the black school during segregation) and had open conversations that led to growth and healing.

I have always been a justice person and I hated that these injustices occurred in America. However, I never stopped to consider that black families in our community were still facing the injustice of racism on a daily basis. I don’t know how I overlooked this, because I certainly heard racist talk from my community. It was ingrained in the community. I never knew any differently, so I didn’t even consider that it didn’t have to be that way. I didn’t like some of the things I heard and never considered myself to be racist. However, what I couldn’t see growing up was that this system was filling me with biases I wouldn’t begin discovering until I was moving into my thirties.

As my first child grew, I began taking stands against some of the things said in his presence. I was determined to not allow my son to think this was okay or normal. As we began homeschooling, I discovered some hard truths about the history of America. I began to realize just how glossed over history had been in my own education. I vowed to seek out primary resources for educating my kids on the history of America. I wanted to hear from the actual people. Not a retelling. In the last few years, we’ve read books together and learned so much. My daughter has beat her fist against our couch in anger over the injustices she learns about. We have to teach our children all of history and we have to admit where we screwed up so they don’t repeat our mistakes.

Dr. Anthony Bradley (a former seminary professor of my husband) wrote in his article entitled “Finally Healing the Wounds of Jim Crow” in 2018:

“All people, including white evangelicals and political conservatives, must be willing to be vulnerable and humble enough to let Jim Crow survivors share their stories and put this history on record. When we follow up a story with statements like “I wasn’t there so what do I have to apologize for?”, we are forgetting the precedent of repentance in the history of God’s people. In the Bible, God reminds his people of their collective past failures and provides opportunities to repent for the sins of previous generations (Nehemiah 9).”

White Americans, I am begging you. Please listen. Stop talking and defending and just listen. When a person faces trauma, they just want a safe person to listen. And the traumatized person not only needs you to listen, but also to believe them. That’s the first thing they need. The black community has faced trauma after trauma and they need us to listen and believe. We are dealing with years and years of broken trust due to racial trauma and it is hard to be seen as safe with that kind of history. But, we must try. I hope you will put aside your own ideas and just listen. If you are a follower of Christ, to not do so is in complete opposition to what you are taught in scripture. We must be willing to step out of our comfort zones. As you listen, you will learn. After learning, take the time to lament what you’ve learned. Latasha Morrison says to listen, learn, lament, and then launch. I’ve learned so much through her book Be the Bridge and all of the other resources available through her website.

I feel like we (the white community) are standing outside of a counselor’s office. Some of us have ripped the bandaid off and are ready to walk into that office and get to work on the wound. Others of us know there is a bandaid covering the wound, but we believe the wound has healed. There are others of us who do not even see the bandaid.

Here is what I know. We must rip the bandaid off. We must walk through that door and get to work. If you think the wound has healed, read from the primary source. The primary source is the black community. Read and listen to what they have to say. If you can’t see the bandaid, ask questions of your friends who do see the bandaid. Step outside of what you know. If your first response to any talk about systemic racism is defensiveness then you need to stop and listen. What are you afraid of?

The Department of Archives and History in Alabama recently released a statement, and I could not agree more with this sentence…..

“The decline of overt bigotry in mainstream society has not erased the legacies of blatantly racist systems that operated for hundreds of years.”

I live in North Dakota now. I know a lot of people who grew up in ND and never met a black person until they moved away for college. Because of that, it is easy for North Dakotans to believe racism doesn’t exist here. But, I have an observation to make that you may not like if you’re North Dakotan. The things that I have heard said and the attitudes I have seen toward the Native American community is no different than what I grew up with in the south. I can assure you, racism is alive and well everywhere. Even here. Start looking around and open your mind to hear from other perspectives. I highly recommend you listen to this podcast to hear from the perspective of a Dakota woman who traced the history of her ancestors in Minnesota. She was asked toward the end of the episode what reparations looked like to her. She said she just wanted the atrocities done to her people to be acknowledged. Repentance leads to liberation. Have you, as a white person allowed yourself to fully know and feel what our people did to the Native American community? Acknowledging and repenting builds bridges. We can repent on behalf of our ancestors who didn’t repent.

I began my day today listening to a conference held a few years ago called “Grace Justice and Mercy: an evening with Tim Keller and Bryan Stevenson”. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend you take the time to listen. Bryan Stevenson moved me with his true and hope filled words. He said:

“Hopelessness is the enemy of justice. Justice prevails where hopefulness persists. If you are not hopeful you are part of the problem. Hope is what will get you to stand up when other people say sit down. As people of faith we have to stand up and say, ‘there’s something better on the other side of acknowledging our sins. That’s called liberation.’”

I discovered the song, “White Man’s World” on a playlist recently and have been so moved by Jason Isbell’s words…

I'm a white man living on a white man's street
I've got the bones of the red man under my feet
The highway runs through their burial grounds
Past the oceans of cotton
I'm a white man looking in a black man's eyes
Wishing I'd never been one of the guys
Who pretended not to hear another white man's joke
There's no such thing as someone else's war
Your creature comforts aren't the only things worth fighting for
You're still breathing, it's not too late

I don’t grieve the fact that I was born a white female in America. I believe in a sovereign God who placed me here at this moment in time for a specific purpose. And I believe He is drawing together a large group of white Americans (conservative and liberal) who are ready to use their voices to lift the oppressed. I will not allow someone’s race, political leanings, gender, sexual identity, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, etc, to be a reason for not listening and loving. All people are made in the image of God and when I allow my political associations or beliefs to stop me from love, I have a problem to deal with in my heart. Love is not a slippery slope. Regardless of your opinions and beliefs on certain topics in our culture, our calling as followers of Christ is to love. That means listening and grieving with all who suffer.

I’m so encouraged to see voices rising from people near and far who have shaped me over the years as I’ve journeyed with Christ. This new song by Andrew Peterson, “A White Man's Lament for the Death of God's Beloved”, speaks to my heart:

There are things I’ve done that need to be forgiven
But I’m still learning how to ask
Because the virus in my veins has been contained
By this inherited mask
And I’d rather be exposed to what is killing
Than to hide from what’s to blame
So let me lift my voice on Broadway,
Let me lift my brother’s cross,
Let me mourn for what it cost,
And feel the magnitude of loss
In every name
George, Breonna, Ahmaud
All beloved of God

Will you join me? I don’t know what is next, but I’m willing to use my voice in any way I can to help people of color in America be seen and heard.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” - 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Resources I’ve enjoyed so far:

Books-

Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Photography-

Bare Witness: Photographs by Gordon Parks

The Gordon Parks Foundation

Movies-

13th