Continuing to Dream

Fifty years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his classic “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington D.C.  This speech was a part of the larger “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” which was designed to “dramatize [the] shameful condition” of discrimination and economic oppression that African-Americans faced. [1] The march in general and his speech in particular were credited with pushing forward the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. As a result, Dr. King is recognized today as a national hero.

But Dr. King was not held in such widespread favor. In his day, many people opposed what Dr. King was doing because they believed that the fight against racism was over. After all, slavery had been abolished for 100 years, the federal government had given African-Americans full voting rights, and an increasing number of African-Americans were rising into positions of influence. It wasn’t clear to many white people what Dr. King was still fighting for. Many believed that the American government had done its part. Now, it was up to African-Americans themselves to improve their situation.

But Dr. King knew that there was more to it than that. He saw that there were power structures that kept African-Americans at the bottom of society, and he could give a sophisticated account of what these structures were and was always prepared to supply specific examples of how they mistreated people. However, his reasoning by itself was not enough to persuade his opponents. So he helped organize boycotts and sit-ins, which exposed the ugliness of police brutality and brought the injustice that was occurring onto a national stage. When this happened, people accused him of making a big fuss over nothing and inciting violence, even though he was merely organizing peaceful assemblies! This is what led him to say, “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” [2]

This is still the greatest stumbling block to minorities today. Although we have had tremendous success in resisting the hard racism of the KKK, there is still a mountain of resistance from “the white moderate” who lacks the patience to listen to cries of racial injustice. [3] I know this because I was raised as a white moderate. I love my home family and my church and I cherish all that they taught me, but this was one area where they fell short. The white moderate today, like the white moderate a half-century ago, believes that the fight against racism is over. The white moderate today, like the white moderate a half-century ago, thinks you have a right to your opinions but discourages you from putting them in public forms, whether in political rallies or Facebook posts. The white moderate today, like the white moderate half a century ago, silences the conversation about race because, as Dr. King noted, they “prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”

Having been a white moderate myself, I do not believe that people who hold such views are secretly harboring sinister intentions to harm minorities or even believe their race to be superior. They are ignorant of the white privilege that they have inherited from the legacy of racism, and if you could convince them of it, most of them would give it up.  But their ignorance is a fierce one. It is not stirred by calm complaints and it won’t listen to passionate protests. Intellectual explanations lose its attention and personal testimonies don’t shake its conviction. I have often wondered how I can communicate the transformation of my own perspective to my white-moderate brothers and sisters in a way that is critical yet empowering, practical yet inspiring, confrontational yet inviting. And today I remember that Dr. Martin Luther King accomplished this by sharing a dream. So here is my dream:

I have a dream that wealthy white people will no longer avoid schools and neighborhoods that are predominately populated by minorities out of concern for their children, but that places with racial and socioeconomic diversity will be seen as the best possible setting for a child’s growth.

I have a dream that our prisons will no longer be filled with black and brown bodies, but that our nation will learn to pursue the kind of justice that restores individuals and communities to wholeness.

I have a dream that 11 o’clock on Sundays will become the most diverse – rather than the most divided – hour of the week.

I have a dream that my children will live in a society where we can have civil conversations about race, that they will understand that race is a creation of man and not of God, and that they will therefore be able to acknowledge its influence without legitimating its power. I have a dream that my children will not be surprised when the progress we make inspires other oppressed groups to speak out and that they will constantly renew their strength in the long journey toward justice.

I have a dream that people of every tongue, tribe, and nation will come from the east and the west to take their places at the table of Abraham, so that the one who gathered much does not have too much and the one who gathered little does not have too little. This is a dream of the kingdom of heaven. Only God can bring it about. But by dreaming it, I can see it, I can participate in it, and I can find the strength to keep striving for it.

End Notes

[1] This is how Dr. King describes the march in the second paragraph of his, “I Have a Dream” speech. http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

[2] This excerpt is from King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

[3] For a more analytical description of the racism that persists in the United States in the form of “soft racism,” see my post about the Zimmerman trial.

On Cussing in Front of Pastors

I am a pastor. Although I’m not ashamed of my vocation, I still break into a cold sweat every time someone asks me what I do for a living. Why? Because discovering that the person with whom you’re talking is a pastor seems to be equivalent to discovering that the unmarked vehicle in front of you is a police car.  As soon as I say, “I’m a pastor,” people immediately slam the brakes on our relationship because they assume that I’m pointing a moral radar gun at them. It's so predictable that it would be funny if it weren’t so alienating. Usually, you can expect one of the following responses: people will start trying to convince me that they're a good person or they will avoid talking about my work altogether. Most of all, people offer us profuse apologies out of nowhere. If someone cusses or tells  dirty joke or loses their temper in my presence, they stop themselves, turn to me and say something like this: “I’m sorry for doing that in front of you.” [1]

I recognize that this kind of apology is meant to show respect to my religion in general or to me in particular. That’s fine. The irony, however, is that such an apology creates the very effect that it sets out to avoid: it forces me to judge them. Honestly, when someone I don’t know cusses (or does something else) in front of me, I don’t judge them. In fact, the Bible commands me not to. Although Christians are called to “judge” in certain settings, it is always to be done with extreme caution and it is never to be directed at strangers or even acquaintances. [2] So when I meet people at social gatherings or talk with them in a business environment, my “moral radar gun” is turned off. However, if they offer an apology to me, then I have to judge because they have implicitly put a judgment in my mouth.  The unspoken premise that precedes the apology is this: “Whoops. I just did something that you believe is wrong and therefore that offends you. Consequently, I’m sorry for doing that in front of you.”

I want to reply, "Did I ever say that the action was wrong? You're just assuming that." In all likelihood, I wasn't "judging" their action either as morally acceptable or morally flawed when they made the comment, but now they've asked me to make a public statement about it. When they say, "I'm sorry," I have to either confirm or deny the wrongness of their action in my response. If I say something like, “Well, thanks for apologizing,” then I confirm not only that that the action was wrong but also the assumptions that I was judging them and that I am easily offended, which I really want to do that. On the other hand, if I say something like, “Oh, that’s ok,” then I have given my moral approval to their action, which is also not something that I want to do. Either way, I have to make a judgment. Thus, I almost always come away from these situations not feeling very good. [3]

But I think I’ve come up with a solution. As I was thinking about this last night, I realized that a person who apologizes to a pastor for their action not only forces the pastor to make a moral judgment but also defers taking moral responsibility for themselves. When you say, “I’m sorry for doing this in front of you,” it’s unclear whether you see the action itself as wrong or whether you are only apologizing for doing it in front of a pastor. So my solution is to turn the act of judging back on the person who apologizes. The next time someone apologizes for cussing around me, for example, I plan to ask, “Do you believe that cursing is wrong?” If they say, “yes,” then I can forgive them in accordance with their moral values. If they say, “no” then I’ll tell them not to be ashamed for doing things which they don’t believe are wrong. In either case, I can let them know that cuss words don’t have the same effect on me that water has on the Wicked Witch of the West: I don't melt when I hear them.  Pastors are not super-sensitive people, any more than we are super-holy. So, unless you commit an action that is aimed at me specifically, don’t apologize to me for it. If you do, I’ll use it as an opportunity for me to explore your moral values rather than mine.

End Notes

[1] This experience is not unique to pastors. Anyone who is known by their peers to have a high ethical standard is likely to experience something like this.

[2] To talk about the Biblical perspective on judging is to enter a heated discussion. Most people, looking to Matthew 7:1-5, assume that Jesus taught his followers never to judge, but that isn’t what it says. The point of that text is to emphasize that we must judge ourselves first and foremost rather than being self-righteous or hypocritical. Later, in Matthew 18:15-18, Jesus offers a model for how we should confront other people about their sins, which implies that we must judge them.

Another passage that I find very helpful is 1 Corinthians 5:9-13. Here, Paul argues that we are only supposed to judge those “inside the church.” From my Anabaptist perspective, I believe that this means we are only encouraged to “judge” those who have voluntarily entered into a covenant with us to follow Christ and to engage in mutual correction, rebuke, and encouragement. It is not license to judge any who call themselves Christians.

[3] Because this happens to pastors so often, we often respond in one of two ways. The first response is that we try too hard to make people feel morally comfortable around us. Some pastors dress down, get tattoos, frequent bars, and swear just to convince people that we’re not judging them. While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with any of these actions, it makes it very difficult for this kind of pastor to offer a prophetic or moral critique when this becomes necessary. The second response is that we stop resisting the “holier than thou” image that is imposed upon us and just pretend that we are, in fact, better than other people. This, of course, leads to hypocrisy: it encourages us to hide our flaws and to force ourselves/our family members to play into this image of perfection. 

Unfortunately, I don’t have a “third option” for pastors to take. We can’t change the fact that our vocation makes people uncomfortable. The best we can do is to continue interacting with people and let them see that our moral judgments are aimed at ourselves (with some exceptions). This may not be “relevant” or “effective,” but it is faithful. 

A Critique of “Holding Biblical Texts in Tension”

A few Sundays ago, I preached a sermon on Psalm 85, which includes a lot of language about the wrath of God. Recognizing that this language has been used abusively in modern times, I spent a little time explaining what it means. "God's wrath" represents the suffering we experience when we (as individuals and as a society) experience the consequences of our own sins. [1] This is not a punishment that God inflicts on us directly, as it is our own actions that create this type of suffering. However, it is a punishment that God inflicts on us indirectly, by stepping back from the situation and allowing sin to run its course. Because sin is intrinsically destructive, this indirect response truly constitutes punishment, for sin – left to itself – will leave its captives in torment. This is, by the way, the essence of hell, which theologians have long defined as the absence of God. [2]

A few days after I preached this message, a member of my congregation sent me a very respectful email that challenged me on this subject. He wrote, "Regarding your observation that God's response to sin in the examples cited was to step back and let the consequences fall as they may, were you suggesting that that is one of several ways God responds to sin in the Biblical record?" [3] As a matter of fact, that is not what I was suggesting. I was pushing it further, claiming that this is a privileged definition of God’s wrath by which we should interpret divine wrath whenever it comes up. Nevertheless, as a Biblical scholar, I can’t help but appreciate the insight of his question. Undoubtedly, there are several cases in the Bible in which “God’s wrath” indicates something vindictive or retributive, not in keeping with the “indirect” interpretation of God’s wrath that I promoted above. I can’t deny that God was directly punishing sin in the stories of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 and the striking down Herod in Acts 12. Furthermore if I am being rigorously honest, I must also admit that these destructive stories conflict with other Biblical descriptions of God as loving and merciful. [4] So, the million-dollar question is, what should Christians make of conflicting passages of Scripture? If we are called to make claims about God on the basis of the Bible, how can we do this when the Bible itself offers differing views of God?

For our current purposes, I would like to suggest that there are three basic responses to this problem of internal Biblical conflict. First, one could simply affirm those passages that conform to one description of God and ignore or reject those that conflict with that description. This is often dismissively referred to as “picking and choosing,” but there are some intriguing arguments in favor of this approach. [5] Second, we could do what the majority of Christian theologians have done through the centuries, which is to try to find unity within those conflicting passages. This is commonly referred to as “harmonizing,” and it usually involves re-interpreting the texts we find problematic in new ways so that they cohere with the texts we find attractive. These interpretations are not always convincing, but they give us a way to affirm the whole Bible. Finally, a third approach would be to acknowledge that there are irreconcilable differences in the Bible and to make a commitment neither to ignore nor to harmonize these differences. This is generally referred to as “holding Biblical texts in tension,” and it strives for honesty and faithfulness, but at the cost of coming to any concrete conclusions about what the Bible says. 

In seminary, the preference of my professors and classmates was overwhelmingly for option #3: “holding texts in tension.” We were taught that the good scholar or the good pastor acknowledges the conflict or “tension” of Biblical arguments and doesn’t try to twist them to fit her theology. Undoubtedly, there are some merits to this approach. From a scholarly perspective, your best chance at learning something new from a text begins when you set aside your agenda and listen to what it has to say. From a spiritual perspective, acknowledging that the Bible is complex and that you can’t make every verse fit together is an exercise in humility. Upon affirming this approach, my professors guaranteed that the other two approaches would be viewed with some disdain. Anyone who tried to make a Biblical argument that selectively emphasized a certain set of verses would be accused of not “holding the texts in tension.” [6] As a result, we were encouraged to hold the pro-government and anti-government elements in Scripture in tension, the demand for order in the Church and the promise of freedom in the Spirit in tension, the different presentations of God’s wrath in tension, etc.

This is all well and good until you are confronted with a situation in the real world that demands a Biblical response. If you find yourself in a situation where you must choose whether or not to obey the unjust demands of an oppressive government, or whether the need for church order is great enough that you should muffle your concerns about a congregation’s unfaithfulness, or if you are asked whether someone’s premature death is a manifestation of the wrath of God, it won’t suffice to offer a list of verses that could be used on either side of the argument. These situations need a “Yes” or “No.” Now, it should probably be a nuanced “Yes” or “No,” one that proceeds cautiously and sensitively, one that acknowledges the weaknesses embedded in it, one that recognizes its own fallibility, etc. Nevertheless, Christians are required and empowered to speak a clear word of truth in these kinds of complex situations. And the moment that we do that, as soon as we take a stance on the basis of some Biblical texts – with the awareness that other texts could be cited which would oppose this stance – it becomes clear that we do, in fact, have an interpretive preference, that we do privilege some verses over others, and that we are already involved in harmonizing the Bible. And what is wrong with that? Jesus privileged certain verses above others, the apostles reinterpreted OT texts so they would conform with the Lordship of Christ, and the Bible itself is intrinsically a harmonization! [7] Although it has its dangers, harmonizing Scripture is not a bad thing. On the contrary, it is an inevitable part of preaching the gospel.

One of the dangers of harmonization is that Christians can get so comfortable with their reading of the Bible and so convinced by their own hermeneutic that they are no longer able to be challenged and convicted by the text. I think this is one of the main reasons that my professors encouraged us to “hold texts in tension” rather than to quickly harmonize them: on the surface, this seems to prevent the kind of arrogance that claims to have the Bible completely figured out. However, there is a better way to try to integrate this kind of interpretive humility in our lives: to establish communion with Christians who read Scripture differently. Because other Christians privilege different texts and harmonize the conflicts differently, these brothers and sisters can offer us plenty of opportunity for wrestling with the readings of the Bible that we have come to accept. [8] However, genuine dialogue must begin by acknowledging where each side is coming from, and we can’t do this honestly unless we evaluate and own the ways in which we already harmonize Scripture.

So, given all of that, how should I have answered the church member who challenged me for pushing one reading of God’s wrath over and against other Biblical possibilities? Perhaps like this: “You know, I have to admit that there are Biblical passages that don’t seem to take this view of God’s wrath, and I’m not sure what to do with those. But when I read the Biblical story as a whole, this is my best understanding about what God’s wrath is. If you have a better understanding, which incorporates more of the Biblical record, I’d be open to hearing it. However, I am compelled not just to offer a fair interpretation of texts but to make a proclamation about God. And based on my reading of the Biblical story, I genuinely hold this to be the true nature of God’s wrath. How do you see it?” [9]

End Notes

[1] It took a lot of self-restraint for me not to write this sentence as, “I believe that ‘God’s wrath’ represents the suffering we experience…” Of course, I do believe that God’s wrath represents the suffering that our sin creates, but why does it feel so important to add the words ‘I believe that’ at the beginning of the sentence? If all the words indicate are, “I myself hold this to be true,” then there’s no need for me to write them. After all, if I am telling you that something is true, it’s clearly implied that I also believe it. However, that is not all that the words “I believe” indicate.

When I begin a sentence with “I believe that,” I am lessening the force of my claim by moving it from the realm of fact into the realm of opinion. There it is less threatening because it doesn’t impose a truth on someone else. Consider the difference between these two statements: “Sean Connery was the best James Bond” and “I believe that Sean Connery was the best James Bond.” Although they mean the same thing, the first sentence is asking for a fight, while the second statement is just expressing a sentiment.

Living in the United States, we have learned the pluralistic etiquette that teaches us to present all of our religious beliefs as opinions. We are permitted to have our beliefs, even express our beliefs, so long as we promise to contain them in the realm of opinion rather than fact, faith rather than reason, and the private sphere rather than the public sphere. Christians on both sides of the theological and political continuums have unwittingly embraced these assumptions, which necessarily distorts the radical and political nature of Jesus’ message. Perhaps the most challenging task for Christians today is to drop, “I believe,” from their vocabulary. It’s easy enough to tell your non-Christian friends and neighbors, “I believe that Jesus is Lord.” It’s much harder to say, “Jesus is Lord,” in their presence.

[2] For a more thorough defense of this idea, see my post, "Heaven and Hell Reconsidered"

[3] I received permission from this person to include his question in my blog. I am so grateful to be a part of a congregation of people like him who challenge me and dialogue with me on these things.

[4] Consider Ezekiel 33:11, “‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but would rather that the wicked turn from his way and live.” Also consider 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” These are not the only two verses that oppose a vindictive or retributive view of God’s wrath, nor are the examples cited the only passages that conform to it. This is a deep-running conflict in Scripture. I just offer these as particularly clear articulations of the opposing sides, intentionally showing that they both have a presence in each Testament.

[5] The best arguments I have heard in favor of this selective approach have come from the liberation traditions. These groups point out that specific verses have been particularly responsible for encouraging racism, violence, and genocide, and that these verses should be clearly identified and rejected by churches so that this cycle of violence continues. I am not convinced that this is the only response to oppressive and historically-loaded passages in Scripture, but the point is worth mentioning. The Africana Bible is a great resource for this kind of thinking.

[6] In my opinion, this is why there is tension between the Biblical and theological departments in many seminaries. Since theologians are no longer allowed to harmonize Scripture, they have no Biblical resources by which to create coherent theologies. Any time they cite Scripture, they risk receiving criticism from their Biblical counterparts for not really understanding the Bible. As a result, they have often times abandoned the Bible as their primary resource and turned to more “centralized” sources such as Augustine, Aquinas, Wesley, etc.

[7] Jesus commonly gave certain texts priority over others. For example, in Matthew 22:34-40, he identified Deut. 6:5 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength,” as the greatest commandment and Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” as the second greatest commandment. This clearly shows that some passages have more authority than others. In an interaction with the Pharisees in Mark 10, Jesus argued that Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 should overrule the “concession” that God offered in Deuteronomy 24:1-3.

As far as the apostles go, the New Testament and especially the gospels are FILLED with passages that are often taken out of their original context and given new meaning, as any critical scholar would readily admit. For example, Matthew cites Jeremiah 31:5 in Matt. 2:18 as a prophecy that Herod would slaughter infants to try to kill Jesus. But if you read the actual chapter in Jeremiah, especially the verse that follows it, it is obvious that “Rachel” is bemoaning the diaspora or forcible removal of the Jews from their land, not this specific event. However, I don’t think that Matthew is simply misusing the OT. He is trying to frame Jesus’ story as Israel’s story, so that every stage of his life corresponds to one of the key events in Israel’s history. Thus, this quotation gives new meaning Jeremiah 31:5 without necessarily violating the original meaning.

I argue that the Bible is intrinsically a harmonization because the sixty-six books within it were written without an awareness of all of the others or the expectation that they would be compiled into one great “book,” as one grand religious text. By putting the books together in one volume and calling them “the Bible” (i.e. “the Book”), we predispose believers to embrace the (appropriate) assumption that these texts go together, that they somehow constitute one continuous story. If we were really opposed to harmonizing, then we should call this collection of books, “A Christian Anthology” rather than “The Book.” But once we do that, we will start raising questions about what books should and shouldn’t belong to this anthology, which completely undermines the purpose of “holding texts in tension.”

[8] I suppose I need to qualify this claim. It is possible to be “in conversation” with other Christians without being challenged by them, if we accept the pluralistic framework. That framework says that religious views are interesting particularities that reflect on the people who have them but that don’t have anything to say to people of other religious commitments. Unfortunately, this pluralism threatens to undermine the Biblical call to “encouragement, correction, and rebuke” – or what Methodists call “accountability.” John Howard Yoder taught me that true ecumenism involves critiquing other versions of Christianity while at the same time seeking to listen to my own blind spots that other Christians may see. For more on this, read the anthology of Yoder’s works, The Royal Priesthood.

[9] I didn’t answer him with this much wisdom, but perhaps he will read this blog and it will give him a chance to respond.

Well, I Guess I Have to Boycott Some NFL Games This Year…

                I am a new member of the Mennonite Church USA, and my church graciously paid for me to go to the denominational convention in Phoenix this past year so that I could get an idea of what the Mennonites were all about. What a wonderful experience! One of the speakers was a woman by the name of Cheryl Bear who spoke about Christianity, the pursuit of justice, and her Native American experience. In her address, she called my attention to the tremendous discrimination that Native Americans have faced and continue to face in our country. Unfortunately, unlike the racism experienced by other groups, this racism has gotten very little national attention and thus has gone by unchecked. For example, did you know that Native Americans were not granted the right to vote until 1924, and that some states continued to prohibit them from voting until 1948? That’s later than both African-American suffrage and women’s suffrage! Or did you know that Native American children were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to Euro-American schools, whose explicit purpose was to break the Native Americans away from their “barbarous” culture into “civilized” Euro-American values? [2] Did you know that the last of these schools didn’t close until the 1990’s?

                This is disturbing historical information, but I didn't really think about the continued racism that Native Americans face or my involvement in it until I arrived back in Indianapolis. Within a week of coming back, someone invited me to go a minor league game, to watch our local team, “the Indianapolis Indians,” compete. All of a sudden, I realized how much I have been a part of the racist system that discriminates against Native Americans. I watch sports teams all the time with names like, “Washington Redskins” and “Kansas City Chiefs,” and I have never raised any serious complaints against these titles or showed any resistance to them. Thus, my actions give the message: “This is no big deal. Making caricatures and using racial offensive identifiers for this group of people is ok.” Well, I can’t do that anymore. I am hereby boycotting any games or products associated with any team that uses a Native American caricature as their mascot. I would invite you to join me, and also to sign the petition below that tell an owner of one of those teams that racial team names are not ok with us. [3]

                Now, I imagine that some of you are thinking, “Woah, woah, woah. You’re making way too big of a deal about this. It’s just a harmless sports name. And why is it even offensive? After all, it emphasizes the bravery and/or fierceness of these groups.” The short answer is this: It doesn’t matter why it is offensive. I have some guesses as to why, but my guesses are irrelevant. The important point is that Native Americans have been making formal protests against this at least since 1992, and since it bothers them, we must stop. [4] What’s incredible is that sports owners have rejected this request by arguing to Native Americans that those titles aren’t offensive. Let me give you an analogy: Imagine if someone took a picture of you without your permission and then proceeded to blow it up and hang it in a public place. Now imagine that you saw it, hated the way it looked, and asked the person to take it down. Then the person replies, “Well, I disagree with you. It’s not a bad picture. So I’m going to keep it up there.” What the heck!?! Can you imagine how frustrating that would be? It’s a picture of you. If you don’t like it, then they shouldn’t be able to display it. Period. In the same way, names like “Chiefs” and “Indians” are portraits of certain people groups, and if it’s offensive to them, then we have no right to display them, especially for something as insignificant as our entertainment.

               Here’s the thing: This would be such an easy thing to change. It wouldn’t take any major legal work or redistribution of resources. All it requires is a simple name change. But the owners of the teams with these names won’t do it unless they realize they’re losing money from it, which means we need to stop supporting these teams. Also, I am starting the habit of replacing any Indian team name with the word “Racist” whenever I refer to one of these teams, to call attention to the offensive nature of this language. For example, “Alfred Morris, of the Washington Racists, was one of my best pick-ups last year in fantasy football.” So please join me in resisting this social evil.

Notes

[1] For more on Cheryl Bear, you can visit her website at http://www.cherylbear.com/.

[2] For a general introduction, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_boarding_schools. If you ever find yourself in Phoenix, AZ, the Heard Museum has a great section that introduces you to this experience.

[3] The only online petition I have been able to find is the petition against the “Washington Redskins,” whose name is certainly the most offensive of any professional sports team, as “redskin” is a racial slur. Even if you disagree with me about other team names, I would encourage you to sign this petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/washington-redskins-ask-daniel-snyder-to-change-the-name. If any of you know of other petitions or would like to start them, please include links in the comments section.

[4] The most easily accessible information is about the “Washington Redskins.” The following articles offer a helpful introduction to the controversy and manipulation surrounding that issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Redskins_mascot_controversy, http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1696718-daniel-snyder-and-nfl-embarrassed-as-washington-name-change-support-grows.  I know that other battles have been fought as well, including a protest by Native Americans at an “Indianapolis Indians” game. Unfortunately, it’s taking me more than a few minutes to track that information down. However, if anyone really wants more information or feels compelled to challenge me on my contention that Native Americans find terms like “Chiefs” and “Indians” offensive, let me know, and I’ll do the work another day.

The Bigger Picture in the Zimmerman Verdict

I have read a handful of articles and watched a couple of videos recently that argue passionately for George Zimmerman’s innocence. These articles generally make two points: First, that Zimmerman certainly had no hatred toward African-Americans. He grew up with African-Americans, befriended African-Americans, and even advocated for African-Americans in difficult situations. Second, that Trayvon Martin was dangerous. Martin had a history of drugs and violence, knew Mixed Martial Arts, and even physically assaulted Zimmerman. Taken together, these arguments conclude that Zimmerman did not kill Martin because he was a racist but because Martin was threatening his life, which presumably justifies the verdict that declared Zimmerman “not guilty”. Although there is a lot of truth in what these articles are saying, they entirely miss the bigger picture.   

For those of you who are defending Zimmerman, I’d invite you to take a couple of minutes to read this post and consider what’s going on here from another perspective. But first, I want to affirm a part of what you are doing. One thing that I appreciate about the recent flurry of articles defending Zimmerman is that they seem to be concerned for Zimmerman’s well-being. People who go on trial – especially highly publicized trials – are socially vulnerable for the rest of their lives. Zimmerman will never be able to escape the shadow that these events have cast over his life, and he at least deserves to have his story told in a fair light.

That being said, I must point out that all of these arguments all focus on the exchange between Zimmerman and Martin that occurred after Zimmerman made the decision to pursue Martin. To move the focus there is to preemptively frame the debate in Zimmerman’s favor. Had this been a different situation, where Martin sprang out of the woods and started viciously attacking Zimmerman, who happened to have a gun and decided to use it in self-defense, then there would be no debate, no outrage from the black community. But that’s not what happened. Remember, the entire encounter began with racial profiling. Of course, a number of white people do not believe that Zimmerman was racially profiling Martin. After all, the evidence suggests that he cared deeply for African-American people, that he wasn’t a racist, right? Well, that depends on what you mean by racism, which is why I find it useful to distinguish between hard racism and soft racism. [1]

Hard racism is the explicit and intentional persecution of people who happen to have a different skin color. Members of the KKK or Neo-Nazis, or people who reject or insult others on the basis of their ethnicity, are all hard racists. Fortunately, there aren’t a lot of hard racists lurking around in the United States anymore. Through reforming our laws, educating our children, and checking our attitudes, we have made hard racism socially unacceptable, and reduced it to the margins. Is hard racism over? Well, it hasn’t been completely eradicated, but it no longer enjoys the support and status of dominant society. [2] It certainly has no place in this current trial. I firmly believe that George Zimmerman was not a hard racist.

But there is also soft racism, the kind of racism which is not hateful in nature but which nevertheless makes instinctive judgments about people on the basis of their race. Almost all of us are soft racists to one extent or another. Generally, soft racism begins with by distrusting another person –the group of African-American teenage boys who are walking down the street, the Latino who is adamantly denying that he did something wrong, the Arab-American who is getting on a plane flight, etc. This distrust or suspicion then influences our behavior. White people go the other direction to avoid black crowds, Latinos are tuned out while they try telling their stories, Arab-Americans are searched more thoroughly by security, and all of these interactions become emotionally-charged. Now often times it ends there and no further injustice occurs, but these little discriminations have a tendency to escalate and to accumulate, to take root in people’s identities and in social structures. So, for example, wealthy people – both black and white [3] – tend to avoid African-American boys so often that they pull their kids out of black schools, move out of black neighborhoods, and create ghettos that are devoid of funding, businesses, and strong education programs. The discrimination against Latinos causes them to lose more arguments with business managers and police officers, which leads to higher criminal records, insurance rates, and employment problems. People of Arab origin both here and around the world face tremendous discrimination, to the point that we have imprisoned some of them without trial at places like Guantanamo and elsewhere. In a worst case scenario, this kind of “soft racism” could even kill someone, which is, in fact, exactly what happened to Trayvon Martin. [4]

One final point about soft racism before I talk about the trial: it is impossible to prove that it has occurred. Although you can prove that an action was committed (e.g. an Arab person was frisked by a security guard or a black person was interrogated by a police officer), you can never prove why it was committed. And that is what makes it so frustrating. People of color keep coming up against discriminations that white people – on the whole – won’t acknowledge. This makes it impossible for people of color to address the social evils that flow from those discriminations or legally defend themselves against discrimination. This is why the Zimmerman trial is so important.

Now, let me reiterate that Zimmerman is not a hard racist, as far as I can tell. I don’t believe that he had an agenda to hurt a black person on the night that he shot Martin. This, however, does not acquit him of soft racism. After all, let’s honestly ask, “Why did he follow Martin in the first place?” Here was a young man who was by himself, unarmed, and not threatening anyone. Without knowing anything about him, Zimmerman decided he was a threat, called the police, and pursued him against their recommendation while armed with a gun. Was this soft racism? Some of you are saying, “Well you can’t know for sure,” or “You can’t prove it,” and you’re right. That’s exactly the problem! You can never prove that soft racism has occurred. But indulge me in this thought experiment: Do you honestly believe that if a short white girl who was wearing the exact same clothing and performing the exact same behavior, Zimmerman would have followed her with a gun in hand? I don’t. If that’s the case, then Trayvon was discriminated against on the basis of his race, and that discrimination was the first event in a series of events that led to his death. Now, in the rest of that series of events, did Martin contribute in any way to the events that led to his death? Maybe. Perhaps the only thing that Zimmerman did wrong was to racially profile Martin in the first place [5], but even if so, that was wrong and it got someone killed. So, for people who have to deal with soft racism, individually and social, on a regular basis, what does this verdict mean?  The US government is officially declaring that it can offer no protection to people of color from soft racism, even if it kills them. How terrifying and disempowering!

Perhaps you think that I’m making too much of this. Perhaps you believe that a trial is not supposed to be a national spectacle but only an assessment of one individual’s guilt or innocence, and that the only relevant question is whether George Zimmerman committed murder or not. I disagree. Every trial serves the dual function of judging individual cases and making a public statement about justice. This is why Supreme Court cases like Roe v. Wade or Brown v. Board of Education are so important. They are not just trying to help a handful of individuals work through a really complicated situation; they are making a statement about justice and setting a legal precedent for how it will be pursued in our country. Thus, a public, legal action must be taken to respond adequately to this event. The call for a “fair verdict” in the Zimmerman case is not ultimately a call for revenge but for repentance; it’s a call for the public acknowledgment that soft racism is wrong and that we will do something about it.

But maybe Zimmerman isn’t the proper scapegoat for this necessary public repentance. Perhaps Zimmerman was rightfully declared innocent on the basis of Florida’s “Stand your ground law,” but this only means that Florida’s laws are themselves guilty of injustice. Because soft racism goes completely unregulated, laws like “Stand your ground” give racism a space in which it can flourish. People can invoke the power to kill from “Stand your ground,” and protect themselves under the invisibility of motivation. This is why black leaders here in Indianapolis and across the country are responding to the verdict by demanding the state governments to consider repealing their own versions of “Stand your ground” laws. [6] For if Zimmerman didn’t do anything illegal, then the law must be changed. After all, if there are no legal consequences for Martin’s death, that represents the United States’ tacit approval of soft racism. And that’s the bigger picture here. This is not just a question of whether one man was truly defending himself or not; it’s a question of whether those unnamed racial forces which perpetuate so much injustice in our society, will be publicly named and defeated.

End Notes

[1] I have found this distinction between "soft racism" and "hard racism" to be very helpful. For an excellent article, see http://sabhlokcity.com/2010/09/soft-racism-in-the-west-the-last-frontier-for-equal-freedom/. That being said, I realize that the boundary between the two types of racism probably breaks down, as they are interconnected at least to some extent. Nevertheless, I think it is a valuable heuristic distinction to make, especially considering how ambiguous and loaded the term "racism" is.

[2] However, hard racists can still do a lot of damage from the margins. Almost every person of color that I know has had at least one negative encounter with a reactionary hard racist, and those traumatic experiences tend to stick with people for the rest of their lives. So, even though we have won the war, let’s not stop fighting the battles on hard racism.

[3] Yes, you can be a soft racist against your own “race.” Perhaps this is the most common way to be racist.

[4] See the movie Crash for a beautiful demonstration of the way soft racism can escalate, and what kind of soul-searching must be done for there to be any redemption.

[5] I do not personally believe that this was the only thing that Zimmerman did wrong, but even if it was, the argument would stand.

[6] See http://www.indystar.com/article/20130720/NEWS/307200031/Trayvon-Martin-supporters-Gov-Pence-review-Indiana-s-stand-your-ground-law