From the editor

The still-unresolved case of George Zimmerman shooting Trayvon Martin has laid bare some harsh realities for us all. As Mennonite Church USA continues to work at dismantling racism within our circles, we need to talk about how those realities also exist in our minds and hearts.

The first reality: African-Americans hear a starkly different narrative than do white people. A national poll released on April 5 substantiated this disparity. According to the Christian Science Monitor/TIPP poll, twice as many blacks and Hispanics as whites say race played a major role in the shooting death of Trayvon (73 percent to 36 percent).

Blacks also understand the responses to the shooting differently from whites, according to a similar poll done by USA Today/Gallup. Gallup editor in chief Frank Newport concluded that blacks believe Zimmerman would have immediately been arrested and charged had the victim been white, not black.

Iris de León Hartshorn, the Executive Board’s director for transformative peacemaking, asked why the Mennonite Church USA made no statement about the situation and explained that African-American members in our church are waiting to see whether we would stand in solidarity with them and the narrative they hear.

So, on our Facebook page and website, we asked whether Mennonite Church USA should make a statement of such solidarity. The results from both (unscientific) surveys were the same: By clear margins, respondents did not want such a statement from our church.

A second reality from this tragedy is also a learning for some people: the difference between race and ethnicity.

In his March 25 column, Leonard Pitts Jr. explained that George Zimmerman is both white and Hispanic.

“ ‘Hispanic’ is not a race but an ethnicity,” Pitts wrote. He then cited the U.S. Census Bureau: “People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino or Spanish may be any race.”

Examples help. Pitts wrote: “People we now regard as white—the Irishman Conan O’Brien; the Armenian Andre Agassi; the Jew Jerry Seinfeld … had to earn their whiteness, a feat African-Americans have found impossible to duplicate.”

In other words, people from any ethnic background can become part of the dominant culture only if they look white. For people who do not look white? No white privilege for them.

Within our circles, this difference between race and ethnicity could serve as a significant focal point in establishing intercultural competency.

A final reality confronting us from the Martin shooting is the “stand your ground” laws in too many states. It is here especially that a tradition such as ours can speak to other Christians about nonresistance and peacemaking. But it may be that we, too, have become so attached to “our ground” that we are unwilling to even verbalize a third way.

I do not agree with some who responded to our polls, insisting we should say nothing until all the facts are in.

African-American members of our denomination are experiencing something very different from the majority. It is a measure of our love and commitment to these sisters and brothers that makes it incumbent upon us to speak up and stand in solidarity with them.