Racial healing from a minority perspective

When the Constituency Leaders Council (CLC) first recommended that we undertake a racial healing process, I thought, Here we go again. The dominant culture (“white folks”) is dreaming up some big plan just to make themselves feel good. There is going to be a bunch of processing, some hymn singing, a couple of meetings, then someone from the dominant culture is going to stand on stage and say, “I’m sorry, black people. I’m sorry, Native people. I’m sorry, Hispanic people.” And what will we, the people of color, be doing? Standing there with big ole’ Amos ‘n Andy grins on our faces trying to look appreciative? Been there and done that many times in Mennonite Church USA.

We do not want a repeat of what happened in San José. This time we want something more. You (person of the dominant culture) need to understand the challenges we have faced as a racial minority and the challenges we continue to face in society and in our chosen church. You have to be able to hear and understand our stories. Then you, as part of the dominant racial group, have to own and understand your white privilege before you can truly apologize for the systematic racism that causes those in the minority pain and divides the body of Christ. When that aha! moment hits you, and you understand that racism is a system that benefits the dominant culture overtly and covertly, then we can talk about racial healing.

I hate to say this, but it is the truth. There is a race problem in the United States of America, and it does not end at the doorsteps of Mennonite Church USA. When I speak of racism in the church, it does not mean that those in the church are not Christian or do not like or even love people of color. When the Intercultural Relations Reference Committee (IRRC) met with the newly formed Racial Healing Task Group (RHTG), personal friendships were not the issues. Many of those on the RHTG (all-white) were friends and acquaintances with those on the IRRC*. The issue is a system that does not fully recognize or utilize the gifts and talents of people of color. The issue is a group whose leadership structure may be out of tune with a portion of its constituency. The issue is a church whose styles and procedures do not always motivate and inspire a constituency desperately looking for ways to belong.

Racial healing cannot begin until those in the dominant culture have that aha! moment. Honestly, many in the dominant culture are ignorant of what it takes to survive in my world, the world of a racial minority, while I have had to become an expert of the dominant culture just to get to average. The RHTG is beginning to get to that aha! moment. It began with stories, stories of how some of us as the racial minority have had to hide our color in order to earn a living for our families. The groups heard stories of how white people have had to vouch for us in order for us to obtain loans—loans we were more financially qualified to obtain than the whites who vouched for us. There were stories of how some Latinos are not able to travel and how language-specific resources are difficult to come by. Some even told stories of genocide in their home countries and how white missionaries urged them not to fight while their brothers and sisters are being murdered. You could say that is the ultimate in white privilege, telling the person of color how to live out their faith when your family is safe and secure from war. Hearing stories is an important step.

Ownership was the next movement toward the aha! moment. Though the initial racial healing process proposal from CLC was flawed in that it placed a heavy burden on the people of color to fix an issue and system in which they are an oppressed victim, the revised proposal did a much better job of giving the burden back to the dominant culture, those that benefit from systematic racist oppression. Whites have to own the process and own their white privilege, whether they want to or not. Many from the dominant culture get disheartened when they hear they benefit from a racist system. White privilege does not make you evil or mean that you will be the next David Duke. It just means that as a white person in America you get the benefit of the doubt, and we as people of color get the doubt and have to work for the benefit. Understanding this helps you realize the flaws inherent in our society and in our church and hopefully will motivate you as a member of the dominant culture to work at dismantling the system.

The sharing of power is another crucial component to the “aha! I get it” moment. Power can be a dirty word in the church. We form committees and processes that are supposed to help diffuse the power in the church and spread it among many people. The truth is that the church does have positions and people of power. A lot of this power resides in the hands of Anglo males. Our system is set up and designed for the efficacy of Anglo males. Everyone else is trying to fit in. The RHTG did a wonderful thing. They gave the IRRC veto power over all decisions and recommendations coming from the group. That is truly a sharing of power and a sharing that allows healing. It is a simple but powerful step that is analogous to a mother telling one sibling, “One cuts, the other gets to choose.” When the one managing the resource realizes that another one gets to distribute the resource, more consideration and a greater sense of fairness goes into the decision-making process.

There is much work yet to be done in regard to racial healing in Mennonite Church USA. This work will take time and will make many people uncomfortable. According to Curtis DeYoung, “Systems of injustice in society and in the church exact a heavy cost on those outside the centers of power and effectively block reconciliation,” and “declaring that we are equal without repairing the wrongs of the past is cheap reconciliation.” We must avoid cheap reconciliation. We must work toward real healing. In the end, true racial healing will change the status quo. It will affect how we do business and how we worship with one another.

Glen Alexander Guyton is associate executive director of constituent resources for
Mennonite Church USA.