Dear England

 

Dear England,

About our racism problem. It isn’t an ignorant minority, who can be shamed (or educated) into better behaviour. It is the majority of us, at our worst. The good news is that no-one—not one of us—is fully or solely defined by our worst. And our best is truly amazing, inspiring, can hold its head high. But racism, and its side-kick xenophobia, is our shame. And the cure for the poison of shame is not found in further shaming (or, indeed, in educating) but in acceptance. Not the pretence that racism is acceptable (denial), nor even inevitable (resignation), but the acceptance of the truth, the acceptance of the alcoholic who confesses, “I am an alcoholic, and I need the help of a higher power.” Without acceptance, without choosing to love ourselves in our unloveliness as well as our presentable and easily loveable characteristics—to not give up on ourselves—there can be no lasting transformation.

We can address racism, in sport and every arena of our lives. One day at a time. Together.

 

On a day of salvation

 

The New Testament reading from Morning Prayer this morning is 2 Corinthians 6.1-7.1, from an ongoing and at times difficult correspondence between Paul and the church at Corinth. In particular, in these verses, Paul is addressing the way in which he, who has served them, has been treated badly for his efforts. While I resist the temptation to read scripture as being ‘all about us,’ I find, there, principles for all of us; and this morning I cannot help but read it against the experience of recent weeks during the Euros 2020/21.

Like Paul, both Gareth Southgate and RaheemSterling have written open letters to (in their case) fans, holding out their lives and the lives and record of their team-mates—players whose lives are scrutinised, every error of judgement but also every misinterpreted move punished by public crucifixion—and asking that, in return, those for whom their hearts have been put on the line might open their hearts to them.

In the face of critics who see the very presence of some of the squad as imposters, who refuse to see in them the image of God and the inspiration of the breath of God, this is a squad and a manager who have conducted themselves with dignity; who are more than winners, despite an empty trophy cabinet; and who have held out for us the day—moment, opportunity—of salvation from tribalism, racism and hatred: to respond as we choose. We see that response, clearly, as clear as light and darkness.

They have shown us what it is to be family, and to be rich. And they have participated in, and pointed to, something greater than fleeting national pride. And so, this morning, in collaboration with saint Paul, the lions inform my prayer.

 

This is not That (but they are connected)

 

The murder of police officer Sgt Matt Ratana is an absolute tragedy. My heart goes out to his family, his colleagues, and the families of all police officers who will sleep a little more fearfully for a while.

But today I am seeing a disgusting meme circulating, asking, rhetorically, whether Black individuals in the public eye will take a public stance, and answering that they will not. I should not have to point out why this is wrong, but, apparently, it is needed.

First, this meme implies that the named individuals lack a shred of human decency: of course they do; they are sub-human, after all. Not like us.

Second, this meme accuses them of double-standards: of speaking out at the death of a Black man or woman at the hands of the police, but not at the death of a police officer at the hands of, it is assumed, a Black man. But these are not the same.

Police officers are called to protect the public, a calling that at times brings them face-to-face with criminals, and danger; not to criminalise, or endanger the public. We can argue that what happens to Black Americans has nothing to do with British Blacks, but that is to fail to attempt to understand the complexity of their different and yet connected life experience. We can argue that police officers who kill unarmed men or sleeping women are ‘bad apples’—so why are they not held responsible?—or that their victims were far from innocent—so they don’t deserve a fair trial? Both these moves are excuses, to justify racism. We can argue that this is the UK, not the US, but that is to deny that racism is an issue here. Here, where a Black, female barrister was assumed to be a defendant three times (and a journalist once) on the same visit to a magistrates court. And yes, that’s just one example, so, listen to the experiences of Black people in England, both British and other nationalities.

It has already been pointed out to me that the reason this police officer was shot inside his own station was because the Met’s hands are tied because of the media profile of a ‘semi-famous athlete and her boyfriend’ who were ‘legitimately’ stopped and searched. Why does it matter whether they were semi-famous, world-famous, or unknown? That’s just a put-down. And, in the absence of the results of IOPC review, how can it be claimed to be legitimate to stop and search those guilty of owning a nice car while Black? But, worst of all, such a view puts the blame for the death of Matt Ratana on the Black community and their allies. Because, again, it is the Blacks who are the problem.

Again, the murder of a police officer is a tragedy. If the suspect, who, apparently, turned his weapon on himself, survives, he will be charged and tried and sentenced according to law. There will be an enquiry into what happened, not to point the finger of blame, but to see what lessons can be learned; with recommendations that will, in turn, be considered, and, perhaps, implemented. The family of the officer will not get their loved one back, but they will at least get the justice they need and deserve. No, this is not the same as for other families.

All lives matter, and police lives matter. But to use Police Lives Matter, like All Lives Matter, as a response to Black Lives Matter is not to support the police—it certainly does not honour a Maori officer—but to take a stand against those who experience systemic racism every day. To stand with racists, in a sick, manufactured competition. You wouldn’t want to do that, unthinkingly.

The murder of a police officer is a tragedy. People using it to stoke racial hatred is a disgrace.

 

Strengthened

The Lectionary readings for Holy Communion today are 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 and Matthew 24:42-51.

[1] In the passage from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells a parable in which the master to whom we are all accountable is delayed in returning, in which the one given charge of the household might persist in diligent service of others or take opportunistic advantage to exploit those for whom they have oversight.

[2] In the opening verses of what is commonly referred to as Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, but is in fact Paul and Sosthenes’ letter, they write, not once but twice, of being strengthened to endure: ‘just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you’…’He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be faithful on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

This is no coincidence. Sosthenes’ name combines two root words, the first meaning to save or be saved, and the second meaning to strengthen or be strengthened. As a ‘Christian’ name (as a name given new focus and purpose by Christ) it points to the One who both saves and strengthens.

[3] Today, the Church remembers Monica, the black African mother who prayed for seventeen years that her son, Augustine, might come to put his hope in Jesus. For seventeen years, there was no evidence that her prayers were heard, let alone being answered. There was no evidence that Augustine was being drawn back to the faith Monica had raised him in as a child. And yet, after seventeen years her prayer was answered. Augustine went on to become a great theologian, and, indeed, a bishop.

I cannot think of Monica this year without thinking also of Julia Jackson, the black American mother of Jacob Blake, an unarmed black man shot seven times in the back by a so-called law enforcement officer. And of her prayer for the healing, not only of her son but—from before he was shot to public attention—of her racially divided nation.

[4] Yesterday, the theologian Miroslav Volf posted on Facebook, ‘When we lack reasons for optimism, hope is what we need. Optimism is about the future that grows out of the present. Hope is about the future beyond the possibilities latent in the present. Like the birth of Isaac, the object of hope is a new thing not coming from the situation we are in, but from God.’

There is nothing in Julia Jackson’s situation to be optimistic about, just as there was no reason for Monica to be optimistic. It is hope, alone, that resists despair, or the abandonment of doing what is right in favour of doing what is expedient or self-serving.

[5] We need to experience strengthening, because we are in this for the long haul, before we will see that which we hope for made manifest in our situation. The mother who prays for her children’s future, as she takes them to the food bank. The army veteran, contemplating suicide as they struggle with civilian life. The elderly man whose wife died not so long ago and whose daughter has just died of cancer, who cannot even imagine tomorrow and needs strength just for today, and today, and today, until tomorrow dawns. We need to know that the One who has saved us, and is saving us, and will save us, has strengthened us and is strengthening us and will strengthen us.

This is why Paul writes with Sosthenes.

 

How To Be An Anti-Racist

    

This summer, I have been seeking to grow in my understanding of racism; to examine my own life in an ongoing, life-long process of repentance and belief, or, turning away from a particular outlook and pressing into a new one. To help me, I have been reading (and lining up yet-to-read) and listening in on conversations. I have sought to learn from female and male voices; UK-based and US-based and other global voices; Christian, Muslim, and secular voices; written and spoken voices—all while recognising that this is a life-long challenge, not a summer-long challenge.

I’ve just finished Ibram X. Kendi's How to be an Anti-racist. I would strongly recommend it, as being both helpful and hopeful. In marked contrast to much of the noise around this cultural moment, Kendi is unwaveringly honest about the complexity of the issue at hand (including about his own dishonesty). Though he wouldn’t use the terms, Kendi models an ongoing practice of what Jesus calls “repent and believe”—and the often painful or embarrassing moments of revelation that move us on from one stage in our journey to the next.

Kendi contends that the root of racism is what he terms powerful self-interest (I would also use the terms selfishness and self-centredness) which enacts racist policies and then creates racist ideas to justify itself. This, in contrast to the view that racist ideas result in racist policies which result in racist power. And while human beings in every age have known powerful self-interest, Kendi contends that racism, as we see it today, is only around 400 years old, an expression of modernity, conjoined from birth with economics. While humanity is not going to rid ourselves of self-interest, racism is not inevitable.

One of the key learnings for me is Kendi’s recognition that you cannot change hearts and minds in order to change bad policies that are, ultimately, killing us all. That approach is too abstract; and there is too great a sense of fear at what we will lose. Instead, we need to change policies (which requires taking opportunities to challenge, and to shape and test and refine and assess and repeat-the-process, policies). Hearts and minds will follow.

For me, so much of this book, written from a secular outlook, chimes with the gospel. With the repeated challenge and invitation throughout scripture from genesis to revelation to embrace the stranger, to reject othering—and to reject making others invisible in a false post-other-ing. With the repeated challenge to put to death our desire to be at the centre—to die to self—and to live for others, preferring them over ourselves. With the call to repent and believe, again and again and again. With the body politic and economic of the kingdom of heaven as an alternative society in the midst of the world, however (inevitably) imperfect it may be. And all in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I am grateful for Ibram X. Kendi’s voice.

Pressing on

Two things I am appreciating this July:

on Monday evenings, listening-in on a series of four conversations between Denis Adide and Richard Moy on racism and anti-racism—and Denis’ reading lists;

and on Tuesday evenings, taking part in a series of four Bible studies on Paul’s letter to the Philippians, hosted by St George’s House.

In Philippians chapter 3, Paul lists the many hierarchies which have enabled him to benefit personally;

rehearses his coming to realise that he needed (not to disown his sense of self—not a self-loathing and hatred of his background—but) to deconstruct those privileges in order to participate more fully in what God was calling him (and others) to in Jesus Christ;

and calls those he is writing to, to imitate him in this ongoing act of leaving behind and pressing on towards the goal which is yet to be realised.

The pattern holds.

On earth, as in heaven

I’ve been doing plenty of reading and listening to podcasts around the issue of racism recently, from the perspective that it is a pervasive evil, but also seeking to understand the push-back I note among my family, friends, local church congregation, and the wider city where I live. This push-back is deeply rooted in cultural conservatism, which differs from political conservatism: it is possible to be politically socialist and culturally conservative (indeed, that might describe a majority of the population of Sunderland), and, moreover, advocates of cultural conservatism would argue that the Conservative party has capitulated to the Left on culture (for example, it was a Conservative government that legalised same-sex marriage). The key argument of cultural conservatives is ‘Take Back Control’.

I would contend that the Left is pretty much spot-on in its critique of the Right, but, mirroring it, fails to offer a genuine alternative. Those on the Left are right in claiming that power exists, and is often marshalled to oppress people (and so provides an ‘umbrella’ for such groups). The Right dissembles on this, presenting the myth of the heroic individual who, by virtue of their superior qualities, overcomes the struggles every human faces, and so demonstrates that they are best-qualified to guide nations. The Left, they argue, is ideologically committed to destruction. This is at best a half-truth, equating deconstruction with destruction and positions in their ‘logical’ extreme with a wide spectrum of thought and practice. But in general, the Left and the Right only play one another at their own game.

The argument, from both sides, goes like this. Thinkers and influencers on the Left realise that they cannot overthrow the Right by force, and so seek to do so by stealth, by subversion and resistance within cultural institutions. Seeking to take control. Thinkers and influencers on the Right recognise the success of this, that they have lost the culture war—that the Left has occupied and consolidated their hold over our places of education, the BBC, the Church of England, even the Conservative Party—and that they must now employ stealth, subversion and resistance in order to take back control. Winning the vote to leave the EU was a victory, but the war is far from won.

Take Back Control expresses a fundamental truth of the human heart, that we desire to be just a little bit above others.

When I look to scripture, I see a clear contrast.

A recognition of sin—of the fundamental breakdown of relationship and universal need for reconciliation—expressed at the personal level (as the Right emphasises) and the structural level (as the Left emphasises) of ‘powers and principalities’.

The choice of Jesus to empty himself and willingly take on the nature of a slave (Philippians 2) and the call on his followers to be of a like-mind.

The insight that those who fight to save their lives will lose that life, while those who lose their life will find life. For control is an illusion, with destructive consequences for ourselves and those around us.

The building of diverse communities of reconciliation that, for all their difficulties, are able to not only survive but flourish beyond the end of the world as they have known it, the great and regular cultural upheavals of history.

And in almost every case where taking control is spoken of, it is not control of a nation (the exception being the books of the Maccabees in the Apocrypha/Deuterocanon, which concerns taking back control from an occupying Empire) or over another person, but self-control.

Interestingly, much of what I have been reading on racism is concerned not with control of others, but with self-control. In How To Be An Anti-Racist, Ibram X.Kendi writes:

“The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist the next. What we say about race, what we do about race, in each moment, determines what—not who—we are.”

We should not be afraid to examine our own views, for the life of discipleship is a call to the habitual practice of repentance and belief, of turning from one perspective and embracing another. Not by coercion, but as ministers of reconciliation. This is not of the Left, as it is not of the Right; but of the wholly other kingdom of heaven, the loving active participation of God with humanity in this world.

UPDATE adding a conversation with a friend in response to the above:

‘Thank you, Andrew … I particularly appreciate your observation that “Take back control expresses a fundamental truth of the human heart, that we desire to be just a little bit above others.” I like how you frame this as a fundamental truth, not just a problem that some other people have. And it definitely resonates with some of the push back I have felt from some of my family and friends to expressing an anti-racist perspective—the fear of ‘where will it stop?’, rooted in the fear of becoming oppressed (or at least not in control).’

and my response:

‘I think you get at something really insightful here in rooting the desire to control in the fear of becoming oppressed or at least not in control. I think this is, in fact, a fear of humiliation, of being humiliated before others, which, albeit in different ways, stems from childhood experiences—of being bullied, for a variety of reasons. It is a matter of shame, and a life-long attempt to have control over shame. Again, I come back to Jesus, who put shame to scorn by choosing to humble himself; and who, through his being humiliated by people but vindicated by God, triumphs over shame and empowers us to triumph over shame by not only being our example but our promise of future hope.’

A tragedy in the making

On Friday, a 28-year old Sudanese asylum-seeker was shot dead by armed response police officers in Glasgow, after stabbing six people. I don’t doubt the bravery of those police officers, nor that this was their last, not first, resort. This is a tragedy for all concerned, and for my hometown. And at the centre of the tragedy is a young man whose hopes of a new life were cut short. His name was Badreddin Abadlla Adam.

I am not a journalist, and I have not researched his background. But until last year, Sudan had lived under a 30-year long dictatorship, that had imprisoned and tortured opponents and practiced ethnic genocide in Darfur. This young man never knew what it was to live in a society at peace. He was precisely the kind of person who should qualify for asylum, having made it to the UK, most likely through the exploitation of people traffickers.

Before any facts were established, Nigel Farage had tweeted that this was precisely the danger to our citizens we face for allowing illegal immigrants. To be clear, this man was not an illegal immigrant, he was an asylum-seeker. But Farage is not entirely wrong, in as much as we do treat asylum-seekers as criminals. From the moment they arrive, they experience the ‘hostile environment’, official government policy (only just acknowledged and now to be reviewed) of making their life so miserable that they will choose, at any point in the process, to voluntarily return home. Preferring to take their chances with a genocidal dictator than in a democracy. Let that sink in.

Then, rather than direct resources to provide essential, expert mental health support for people suffering from PTSD, money is given to private companies to provide the most basic accommodation. Asylum-seekers being an income stream for unscrupulous landlords. In effect, they become property.

And so, yes, it is perhaps inevitable that sooner or later some such young man might just break, with devastating consequences for those who happen to be around him.

And it is easier to blame immigrants than to take responsibility for our own actions.

According to the most recent statistics I could find, two women are killed by their partner or ex-partner every week in England and Wales; and a further two women are killed by their partner or ex-partner every week in Scotland. As Scotland has a much smaller population, I can only assume that it is an even greater problem there than south of the border, that the men of the long-term, predominantly white, British population cannot control themselves and are a danger to those around them, especially British women.

And the silence is deafening.

So, don’t give me your bullshit about how we are civilised men of honour, taking a principled stand to protect our communities from those who would betray us with their bleeding hearts.

Sulking children

Author Candice Carty-Williams has won Book of the Year at the British Book Awards for her novel Queenie. She is the first black woman to do so. Interviewed, she admitted to a host of emotions: pride at her work, and gratitude towards her publishing team, alongside sadness and confusion that she should be the first black woman to have won the award.

BBC Radio 2 shared the news on social media, and the comments are vile, ranging from the racist, “this isn’t about talent, it’s about politics: no white authors will win prizes for the next few years” to the racist, “she’ll have to live with never knowing whether she only won because of the colour of her skin” (white authors, how confident are you?) to the racist, “this prize should be about writing, not skin colour” (indeed; so why is she the first? and why are you so defensive?) to the desperately emotionally-stunted, “If she can’t even be happy to win, she should give the award back.”

In the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday, from Matthew chapter 11, Jesus describes his society as being like children sitting on either side of the marketplace, one group calling out, “we played the flute for you, but you would not dance,” and the other responding, “we wailed, and you would not mourn.”

Jesus is describing learnt, coded, culture. Men led the community in celebrations, such as weddings; women led the community in lament, such as funerals; and boys and girls learnt their expected roles—as leaders and followers, depending on context—through role-play, while the adults went about their daily business. But the role-play had broken down, into two camps, each aggrieved at the other.

Jesus’ point was, surely, (at least in part) we’ve forgotten how to hold celebration and mourning together. He goes on, John (the Baptist) came in prophetic severity, proclaiming God’s imminent judgement on injustice, and you dismissed him; I came proclaiming God’s embrace of the marginalised, and you dismiss me. But the two go hand-in-hand, each taking a turn to be the leading- and responding beat.

It seems to me that Carty-Williams gets this, and that her critics don’t.

Idol chatter

And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves. You shall have no other gods beside me. You shall make you no carved likeness and no image of what is in the heavens above or what is on the earth below or what is in the waters beneath the earth. You shall not bow to them and you shall not worship them, for I am the LORD your God, a jealous god, reckoning the crime of fathers with sons, with the third generation and with the fourth, for My foes, and doing kindness to the thousandth generation for My friends and for those who keep My commands.”

Exodus 20:1-6

(The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, Robert Alter)

In these days, I find myself in conversations with very defensive white people. Our defensiveness ought to tell us something, if we will listen. I hear bewildered statements like “The world’s gone mad” and “Where will it end?” and a particular focus on statues.

The power statues have over us calls to mind the Commandments. Through Moses, God warns against the raising of likenesses, images. Later in the biblical account, as this word is ignored, such likenesses are called idols. Representations of some claimant over us, to our allegiance; things made by God, for blessing and fruitfulness, to whom we hand over a power to hold us captive. To enslave us.

When we cannot even acknowledge that there may be good reason to pull down the likeness of a literal slave trader, or, even more recently, to revisit whether it is a good idea to immortalise a man who was a vocal supporter of Adolf Hitler, then are not these images idols?

I am not arguing that there should be no sculpture, no three-dimensional tactile art. Indeed, such things are a way in which we explore the world, and our place in it.

I do wonder whether it might be a good practice for any and all public statues to stand on their plinth for one hundred years, and then be removed; alongside an assessment—a re-evaluation—of their impact. This would not be to erase history—and certainly, not to lose the gift of the sculptor to society—but to engage with history.

In issuing such a strong warning against the power of likenesses to cut us off from our Creator and Redeemer, from ourselves as created and redeemed, and from our neighbour, God speaks about generations. God demands retribution from only three or four generations, and upholds treaty obligation to the (vastly more) thousandth.

And this is why I wonder about a one-hundred-year statue limitation. Three or four generations. The longer reparations go unreconciled, the more difficult they become. We are all guilty of sin, of that which separates us from God and neighbour, and of the particular ways that manifests itself in our lives. It isn’t enough to argue, “On such an exacting measure, no-one is guiltless!” and it isn’t enough to say, “It is dangerous to assess historical figures on the morals of our times rather than theirs.” Yes, Baden-Powell’s vocal homophobia must be seen in the context of a society that was structurally hostile to gay people; yes, our common values are very different today; and, yes—take note—these may change again in the future. Neither removing a statue too soon nor leaving it for ever are wise.

Statues commemorate the people we look up to, and statues in turn shape us, mould us, set us hard—and brittle—in bronze. The longer we gaze upon a slave trader in admiration, the harder it is for us to be set free from our own captivity to the believe that some people are justifiably more human than others. (The great irony being the diminishing of our own humanity.) The longer we gaze on statues of Queen Victoria, Empress of India, in public parks and squares the length and breadth of the land, the longer we justify ‘our’ Empire, and the harder it becomes to journey on into freedom.

Sometimes what we need is to be melted down and remade, by the One who creates and redeems, and who is committed to doing so through all generations.

Where does it all end? My hope is in it arriving at the life shared with us by the God who unites all. My expectation is that this will be a life-long pattern of being brought out of the house of slaves. I note how hard we resist that kindness. Lord, have mercy.

White chalk

If we are honest, we all have ‘kairos’ moments that break into our days, confronting us with systemic racism and the white privilege it perpetuates. Opportunities to turn from one often unconscious perspective and to seek to move deeper into a new outlook. Here’s another of mine.

Jo Saxton is my second-favourite Jo in the whole world, second only to the one I married. When I first knew her, she was Jo Oyeniran, and she was the first British Nigerian I properly met. She was an undergrad in the university department where I was a postgrad. I was the teaching assistant on one of the modules she took, on the portrayal of biblical characters in art and film.

On one occasion, I wrote the names of several students on the board. I don’t even remember why. On the list, I wrote Jo O. This was the name by which I was aware that she was called, more ‘neutral’ and, from a white perspective, ‘less racist’ than ‘Black Jo’, by which she was also referred to. But I had never taken the time to find out how she felt.

Jo called me out. Not good enough. You need to do better.

Say my name.

Jo called me out, to do better, to overcome my toxic laziness. Lazy, because it is quicker to write O than Oyeniran. Toxic, because I probably would have written Oliver or O’Brien in full. Probably; I can’t say, for sure: I am not a committed racist, but a casual one. [Edit: even had I abbreviated a white name, the action would not have had the impact. Jo responds, “Hey Andrew—thanks for your reflection. I don’t recall that specific conversation, but I remember how tiring it was, how frustrating and dehumanizing it was to have my name erased, or to be known as “the Black Jo”. And how over the years I stopped calling people out, stopped demanding people learn my name, because I didn’t have the capacity to do it all the time. I side eyed some people, backed away from others. But I noted it and absorbed it all. It cost me. So it was good to see an example of where/who I was before I was worn down in that area.”]

And Jo called me out, to try harder, to do better, to overcome my fear. Fear of an unfamiliar name, fear of spelling it wrong, fear of causing offence, fear as an excuse—I don’t think Jo would have minded had I needed help spelling her name.

Say my name.

I am deeply thankful that she called me out. I am deeply sorry that she needed to. I am glad that she was brave enough—for, in that room, I held the structural power; she held onto the moral empowerment.

Say my name.

My own name causes me enough problems. I cannot begin to tell you how many people can’t say my name. Dowsett. Dow•sett. The ‘e’ hovers somewhere between ‘e’ (Dow•sett) and ‘I’ (Dow•sitt). But I get Daw•sett or Dossett or godknowswhatelse. My wife’s maiden name is similarly problematic. Is it Mar•fell, or Marf•le? In his best man’s speech at our wedding, my brother commiserated with her. He had taken to using his flatmate’s name when ordering pizza, and would recommend it, except that her new flatmate had the useless name. And so, as his wedding present to her, he gave her his flatmate's name—Matthews—to use at her discretion. Oh, for a good, solid name like Saxton!

Even when I correct people’s pronunciation, they persist; largely, I think, because we tend to listen to confirm what we already think we know, and not to hear and understand and learn and grow. One form teacher in particular refused to say my name correctly. In the end, I refused to respond at registration, forcing him to look up from the register to see me in the room. Reader, I called him out.

On a superficial level, this is the same. “See! Not racism! You’re being overly sensitive, unnecessarily defensive. Black stubbornness. White guilt. Get over it!” In fact, they are entirely opposite. No-one ever shied away from my name because it was different. On the contrary, they assumed a familiarity.

White friends, we need to stop making excuses, attempting to justify ourselves, to distance ourselves from the problem, to tip the playing field back in our favour.

Jo, I am so grateful for your presence in my life, your friendship over the years, your challenge on more than one occasion. Forgive me for honouring you, perhaps clumsily, and without permission. You are welcome to edit this telling, as you have edited my life; though you may choose not to. You are undeniably part of my story, but you are so much more. Thank you.

Friends, you will benefit from Jo Saxton’s writing and podcasting.

White privilege

I’ve seen several posts shared over recent days, written by white people who want to stress that they have never seen systemic racism in their workplaces; the occasional explicitly racist individual—bad apples—yes, but not systemic racism. And I believe them. Not that there is no systemic racism, but that they don’t see it. That we don’t see it. That we don’t see what it costs people of colour to inhabit spaces shaped by whiteness, default spaces seen by whites as neutral.

There have been moments that stand out for me, when my white privilege has been made visible. At the time, they have been deeply uncomfortable. Nonetheless, I am thankful for them. I need more of them in my life. This has nothing to do with self-flagellation, and everything to do with being awoken and invited into a deeper experience of life as a human being.

A story. Back when my wife and I were engaged, she worked in an Anglican cathedral bookshop. It is hard to imagine a whiter space, nor a more English one. I used to meet her there, arriving ahead of the end of her shift, in order to browse the shelves. On one occasion, a Rastafarian came into the shop, like me, looking around. I watched him, and a smile broke out on my face. I smiled because his presence was a joy to me, a delight. His very being in that space made it more colourful, in every sense but in particular in the sense of God’s creative handiwork. Watching him was as watching God breathe life into the room. Smiling was both a prayer of praise to God and a reaching out to another human being who bore God’s likeness.

He did not see it that way. In fact, he confronted me, wanted to know why I was watching him, why I was grimacing at his being in that space? Did I feel that he did not belong there, as I did, as people like me did?

I was shocked. That, by the way, is white privilege right there. It had not crossed my mind that this proud (I mean that entirely in a positive sense) man should be bone tired of white people watching him, keeping an eye on him, in case he stole something, in case he turned threatening.

I was offended. That, by the way, is white privilege. I had just experienced prejudice. And yes, it was prejudice; but it was not reverse racism. Prejudice is forming a conclusion ahead of all of the facts; racism is prejudice plus power. In this case, his prejudice was founded on countless previous experiences, encounters with white people; more than reasonable odds. But in that space, and however I felt, I had the power. I was the one who, taking offence at prejudice, could have accused him of causing a scene, of being ungrateful, of demonstrating the very reason why some white people are explicitly racist and why it is just so damn hard for those of us who aren’t. I was the one who could shut that space down to him in a way he could not shut it down for me.

I was confused, as to why a black man—someone used to prejudice—would be guilty of prejudice. That, by the way, is white privilege. An ignorance—not wilful, but lazy; questions I had never had to ask, let alone wrestle with.

I was hurt. That, by the way, is white privilege, exposed. Over sensitive. Myself cast as victim. I am neither an explicit racist nor a bleeding-heart liberal nor a right-on Leftie; but I have been, largely unconsciously, shaped by white privilege (among other privileges) my whole life.

We talked, and it was okay. But I was left shaken. Which, as I said, was deeply uncomfortable at the time, but necessary. Absolutely necessary. My experience in no way whatsoever equates to his; but, it did make my white privilege visible to me.

It is about me, about what I needed to learn, and need to re-learn again and again and again. But—the paradox of all true learning—it wasn’t and isn’t primarily about me. I move closer to who I am when I am dethroned from the centre of my life. No-one needs my approval—and only when I understand that does my affirmation truly build the other person up. No-one owes me a debt of gratitude—and only when I understand that is it safe for me to receive gratitude when it is freely-given. And no-one needs my awkward smile, but that’s another matter.

There have been other such moments I could tell you about, and perhaps sometime I will. This is not a class we graduate from, though our sight can become clearer or more clouded.

If you are white—and if you have read this far—I wonder how you reacted to this re-telling? Honestly. But, please, respectfully.

If you are black, please forgive me my ongoing mis-steps, as I try not to shed my skin but to see you more clearly, and with a clean heart.