The root of racism

The roots of racism have always eluded me. I've never understood how bias, prejudice, discrimination, intolerance and even hatred can be based solely on the basis of a person's skin color. Yet racism has a long and hateful history and even though we have made great strides in reducing it in this country, its total elimination appears to be light years away.

I was raised in a totally segregated society. There were no people of color in my hometown nor in the school system I attended. There was a small Black community located a few miles south but few members of that community ever came to town. Of course "Black" was not a term used in those days to describe the minority community. They were sometimes referred to as being "colored," but "nigger" was the word of choice used by most White southerners. That nefarious, hateful term was even used in my own family, by people I loved and respected. I remember clearly hearing my folks talk about a particular person and referring to them as a "good nigger." It was a concept that had been imprinted on them by the culture they lived in and, consequently, they saw nothing derogatory or offensive about that term at all.

Between my junior and senior year in high school, we were planning Vacation Bible School at the First Baptist Church as we did every summer. I was in charge of the youth group at the Church because of my status as youth minister and as we were putting together plans for our Bible School, one of the other youth members wondered if the Baptist Church in the Black community had a Vacation Bible School. I asked our minister and he told us he would call the pastor of that church and find out. He came back to us shortly and told us that they didn't. We volunteered to help them get one started and the pastor thought that was a great idea. He called the other pastor back and told him of our desire and it was met with great enthusiasm on his part.

We went down to that small little church and helped them organize and implement the first Vacation Bible School they had ever had. The people of that church were wonderful and the kids were a joy to work with. As the week was coming to an end, I asked our pastor if we could hold their bible school graduation during the Sunday evening services at our church since we always had our own graduation services during the Sunday morning services. Our pastor turned white as a sheet and told me in no uncertain terms that if a "colored" person ever set foot in our church that the membership would have our pastor on the next train out of town. That was my very first experience with racism and it has stuck in my craw ever since. Even today, forty years later, organized religion remains the most segregated social institution in the country, a fact I didn't understand then and I don't understand now.

There are probably as many reasons for racism as there are people. Some see other races as being "inferior" to the white race. Some see people of other races as being a threat to their job security or way of life. Some base their racist ideas on images they've seen on television or read about in the newspaper that they then use to develop stereotypes of a race and apply stereotypical qualities to all members of that particular race. Others are racist out of nothing more than sheer ignorance.

But racism practiced by anyone for any reason always acts to divide us rather than to unite us and that is never good for a country or a community. Until we learn to evaluate people on their own individual merits rather than their group membership, we will always be less than we could be.

So during this holiday season as most people once again celebrate the birth of Christ, it might be a productive exercise to ask what He would do and feel about other races if He were you.