Racism amidst the Remnant

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Do you think that the above quote could be applied to both sides of this debate? It seems like the latest and typical narrative of racial relations in churches today is that white TODAY are RESPONSIBLE for undoing the injustice in the past by means of checking in their “white privilege” at the door. There seems to be a tremendous failure on behalf of the next gen black youth as to why such concept is both naive and unfeasible in concept of modern culture that chosen the route of individuality to resolve various problems that were cause by prejudicial approach to group identity.

And that’s what that “groupthink” ideology is ignoring. There are no “white people”, just like there are no “black people”. This categorization is an arbitrary concept which could be done to any number of attributes that people share. Yes, there are people with white skin, but that’s not what defines a person enough to ascribe “white people” as a group identity. Yes, there are people with black skin, but that’s not what defines a person in order to ascribe some “black people” as a group.

Amplifying these identities isn’t how you get to convince me that we are not that different after all, and that’s the paradox of this discussion. No one is forcing people into cultural cycles that exist today. These are cycles perpetuated by IDENTIFYING WITH THAT CULTURE. I rejected my culture, and that’s why I’m in US today. I don’t like the fact that people in my original cultural context are alcohol-dependent for cultivating relationship contexts. I don’t like the fact the moral relativism is the de-facto cultural “rule of law”, and I don’t really like the obsession with dubious “glorious past” in order to give some justification for dilapidated present. I rejected my culture, because I can see the problems.

So, yes. It’s very true that “white man” is responsible for the “black cultural context” of today. The cyclical poverty and fatherless. Lack of education that perpetuates that poverty and fatherless. The violence and the crime that results in the culture of anger and competitive necessity to “be important” and “be respected”. I get all of that.

I grew up poor, and I had to make my way out using sports which is brutally competitive and violent in some context. I left USSR alone at the age of 15 and grew up in NW Miami. When I was leaving my father said that I have to think of myself as “of lower status than blacks in US”, and I didn’t understand what he meant until I’ve experienced that. I wasn’t allowed to work legally. I couldn’t get a student loan. I had to get “under the table” work here and there at the rates far below the market value, and I had to claw myself to the top destroying my body for entertainment of other… so I EARNED MY PRIVILEGE I have today.

So, naturally, for any person lecturing me about my “white privilege” or those of my children I ask if they would be willing to go through the hell I’ve been to in order to land where I am. I’m not sure I’d do that again. And at the same time there are plenty of white Ukrainians today who would switch places with “poor black people” in the US in a heartbeat. You can’t truly contextualize poverty unless you’ve seen the world.

So you don’t get to cast a group identity on individual context, because that’s how we get to racism in the first place, and that’s where the greatest disconnect in this conversation takes place. I get desperation. I get hopeless states and limiting circumstances imposed by the societal structure. I get the need to band together and appeal for restructuring the society to have a more equal access to opportunities.

BUT. You can’t do that successfully by casting all people into some “privileged class” by merely judging their present state of position in society. It’s like walking up to Mohamed Ali and claiming that his achievements have nothing to do with his path in life and only because of his “black athletic privilege”.

You can’t carry a productive conversation that lacks these nuances because you automatically lose and alienate people like myself… even though I want to support the plight of poor and marginalized people of color. But it’s very difficult to do so when ideological presets of the modern “civil rights” demand one to reject one’s personal achievements and chalk these up to some “undeserved privilege”.

I’ve already heard that narrative somewhere, and that’s the very reason I left Ukraine, which still clings to this Marxist ideological past in many societal contexts, and that’s the very reason why it is in perpetual hole of poverty that it is today. People keep blaming everyone else for keeping them in poverty, while most of their time is occupied with activities that do nothing to improve their state, and perhaps making it worse.

That’s one of the biggest problems with Marxist “solution”. It equivocates inequality and success with immorality. And the moment you swallow that ideology, you are shackling that culture to the perpetual state of dilapidated mediocrity, because it’s a culture of “crabs in the bucket”, pulling each other down in order to feel some “unity and equality”. And I lived in the poverty context to see what such mentality does to people.

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Thanks, Daniel Xisto:

I enjoyed this essay. I like its simplicity, directness, and plain-spokedness.

I think it presents many facts about the history of Black and other non-white people in a way that is easy to read and understand.

I am going to ask our pastor if I can present it at our church, Waldorf SDA, in Waldorf MD, when I give the sermon. He should say yes, but I doubt that he will do so. I expect it will embarrass and offend many white people to present it. Hopefully, though, if so, it will move them to introspection, and not self-defensiveness.

However, I disagree with the way you framed a few points. For example:

• “Racism and white supremacy” is a redundancy. Racism IS white supremacy, and white supremacy IS racism. Put another way, white supremacy is the only functional form of racism.

• There is no “racism amidst the remnant,” because racist people are not part of the remnant. Racist people are part of the Racists. The remnant does not practice racism. @Rozellewatson got it right.

• I wholly disagree with the use of the term, “the remnant,” as a colloquialism for Seventh-day Adventists. It’s not true, cute, or endearing. But yet we keep saying it. I wish that this silliness would stop.

• I believe that the chief form of sin on this planet is white supremacy. I mean this, in a way, similarly to what the Bible intends when it says, “The love of money is the root of all evil.”

HA

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I think this is a switch and bate argument of the modern “unofficial SJW” movement that equates the racism context of the past with racism context of the present.

The racism context of the past was truly limiting and very difficult to overcome because it was structural. It was a culture that structured laws that treated people of certain races as underprivileged “outsiders”, limiting their access to educate, employment, political and legal representation, and economic activity. As such, it’s very comparable to the caste structure in India, which bars certain groups of people opportunities to climb to the top of the societal hierarchy.

You simply CAN’T make a case that INDIVIDUAL racism context of 2017 is in any way comparable to the structural racism in the past. It’s absurd. Someone making ignorant comments in your direction, or choosing not to associate with you due to their “private racism” is VASTLY different context than laws structured to keep you at the bottom.

With the above in mind, I don’t want to diminish the effects of structural racism of the past that propagate to the present, and I think as a society we should both want and should help people out of cyclical issues that they are effected by. We should seek to improve education in poor communities. We should help certain individuals reach their potential. We should seek to help people who are both willing and struggling to get education and employment, but who are at disadvantage due to the circumstances of the past structural impositions. I’m all for that.

But we can’t cultivate the attitude of predominantly Marxist idea that people who have stuff necessarily gained it through exploiting those who don’t have it. It’s an extremely dangerous idea, and it has proven to be disastrous in the past.

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Thanks, @Sirje.

I could be wrong. But I think that part of the reason @RoyMcD may have become so inflamed by your post, #3 in this series, is its tone, in the wake of its content.

That is, from reading it, it’s clear that many of your ideas about race are incorrect and uninformed. Yet, you state them with an apparent brio that is almost light-hearted, if not flippant.

In other words, you seem to be speaking with the spirit of true—and I’ve gotta thank @RoyMcD for this almost useless word :slightly_smiling_face: —ultracrepidarianism; that is, in the manner of “one who is presumptuous and offers advice or opinions beyond one’s sphere of knowledge,” to quote Merriam-Webster.

I say this not only as a Black person, but one who has made it my work to think, write and speak about racism in a direct, matter-of-fact way.

I think, for many Black people, race is a life-defining, spiritually disempowering issue. Given this, to hear people who aren’t Black, especially white people, seemingly approach it with a cavalier, “Snap out of it!” attitude, is to virtually risk detonation.

I think what’s great about this forum is it’s a place where white and non-white people can speak their minds about these and other issues. The downside, of course, is that it’s a place where white and non-white people can speak their minds about these and other issues.

HA

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Lol. You seem to think that all white people are of the same ideology and mindset, enough to create a global conspiracy of “White supremacy” in SDA church. Do you understand how naive such view is?

There is no unified “white culture” or “white ideology”. American whites are vastly different from Ukrainian whites in their cultural upbringing, which is vastly different from German whites. Casting all of these into some lump of “white supremacy” as some overlapping “power structure” of the church that only prefers white people… is extremely disingenuous.

Likewise, you seem to think that the only viable context for racism is that of “white supremacy” against other races. There are elements of racism in all scope of human existence even inside racial context there’s racial prejudice against the “shades of black” or “shades of Asian”.

So, let’s not pretend like racism is an inherent problem of “white privilege” or that it’s a prohibitive context for successful coexisting in modern US or modern Adventism.

There are much more important issues to focus on, like the fact that outdated language and fundamentalist narrative drove out and alienated younger generation that left the church, leaving no viable way for church in the US to perpetuate its existence in the next 10-15 years.

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And something that you seem to ignore in your quest of making it your work to think and speak about racism is the fact that the vast majority of “white people” don’t think of ourselves as “white people” in our day to day relationships with people.

So, when we think of Mozart, Einstein, Leibniz, or Twain… color of their skin is not the first thing we think about when it comes to what made these people distinguished in history.

I understand that it’s difficult for you to understand as someone who identifies with race being “life-defining”, but isn’t that the context for racism to exist in the first place? The idea that the color of one’s skin alone could be attributes to a wide variety of socio-cultural baggage that one get to lug around their neck. Wouldn’t the point of getting rid of racism be getting rid of the baggage associated with race and look at humanity as a whole - a socio-cultural variation that all of us get to inherit from, and be proud of the best and reject the worst?

Instead, this “new civil rights” context decides to do the opposite. It fixates on race. It reminds everyone that they are black or white. And it reminds everyone to identify with that, and either be proud to be black (whatever that means) and be ashamed to be white (whatever that means).

No one is asking you to snap out of it when it comes to present day racial injustice. If you show me clear examples of racist people that wronged you… I’d gladly stand with you and tell them to go back to whatever corner of rural “nowhere” they crawled out from and die in piece of their racial uniformity. But, if you are talking about structuring a culture in which you make it your job to remind me about my “white guilt”, when my ancestors likely suffered far worse fate than yours did… then sorry. You are on your own.

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@Harry_Allen

First, thank you for your measured response.

We all speak from our own personal experiences. Our world view grows from our experiences, coupled with what ever education we have received. In the end, we all feel our experience defines the world and speaks truth to us. No matter how much information we pour into our heads, our experience speaks louder. This is why I say, “I’m white, and I can’t help it.” This is also why some people must see the world in terms of black and white. Unless I make it my life’s objective to live in others’ shoes, other people’s experiences are defined by my own. It’s true, I’ve never lived a black person’s life. I have lived among black people in the suburbs of NY, and four years in Philadelphia, particularly; but I have lived in those places as a white person - quite true. I have black friends; taught black kids; had black class mates. Never has the blackness of any of my friends or colleagues been a problem for me. That’s my personal experience.

My point is, I can’t apologize for the entire black experience in North America when I don’t feel responsible for it. I can’t apologize for being white because that is beyond my control. I can empathize, and I can help mitigate, but I can’t help the heart of black America to stop hurting, no matter how many books I read. No matter what, I can’t live the black experience. What I can do, as a mother and grandmother, and teacher, is instil a respect for others, no matter the colour or ethnicity, or gender.

Racial problems will never be solved - not on this earth. If there is an expectation that the “remnant” are somehow immune to racism it’s because we expect that remnant to be perfect in all areas. That’s a theological problem. The fact is, the SDA population has the same social ills present, as the rest of the general population. It’s called, “the human condition”. Of course, Harry Anderson’s picture of Adam and Eve doesn’t help.

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Harry,
Let me put my position this way - If I were walking down a deserted street - in the dark - and saw a group of guys on the other end, walking toward me, way before I saw their faces, I would be looking for the nearest exit from that street. If the group were to be black, I would be accused of racism, regardless of anything else. Agreed?

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Thanks, @Arkdrey.

I said:

You said:

In response:

The quest is not “making it my work to think and speak about racism.”

The quest is for justice, undertaken on the presupposition that justice is better than racism.

I suspect it was at this that @RoyMcD was driving.

You said:

In response:

Even though I can’t validate this statement, I think I believe it to be true.

However, I’m not talking about how you and other white people “think,” but how you function. White people, collectively, function as white people.

I realize that this previous statement may strike some as a meaningless redundancy. But I don’t think it is.

What I’m saying is that the people who classified themselves as white did so for a reason. That reason, apparently, was to practice white supremacy. Otherwise, why call yourself white?

Further, as is clear, white supremacy has become a raving success; to paraphrase Lt. Aldo Raine, from Inglorious Basterds, cousin, business is a-boomin’.

That’s why, to the degree that they don’t, the vast majority of “white people” don’t think of themselves as “white people” in their day-to-day relationships with people. They don’t have to, any more than, until I mentioned it, just now, you probably weren’t thinking about the fact that, as you read these words, you have taken about sixteen breaths during the last minute.

You don’t think about this, because oxygen is plentiful. As long as it’s all around you, and your lungs function well, you won’t think about it at all.

Now, if your trachea were suddenly to become clogged by a morsel of unmoving, medium rare porterhouse, you would think of nothing else but the next, sole, out-of-grasp inhalation. Every system in your body and mind would become tortured by the goal of grabbing that single breath. Whereas, seconds earlier, you’d been tossing them off at the rate of 12-20 a minute.

“Not thinking about” something is typically an aspect of its a) nonexistence, b) great rarity, or c) overabundance.

Racism is obviously not non-existent. And it is clearly not rare. So, it makes sense, to me, that white people may not think about being white, much the same way, I’d venture, fish probably do not think about being wet.

You said:

In response:

You don’t have to do so, because you have a race system to do that work for you.

You have a system of white supremacy, aka racism. Its function is to squeeze every bit of possible meaning from the whiteness of those individuals, and to keep it “on hand” for use, as necessary.

Like, right now, for example.

You said:

In response:

I don’t understand this sentence. What does it mean?

You said:

In response:

Yes; that is a somewhat crude, though, perhaps, useful description of race.

You said:

In response:

I’d say the point of getting rid of racism would be to produce justice and correctness.

Put another way, it would not only mean getting rid of said baggage. It would also mean removing the ability, of those who order we carry it, to do so.

You said:

In response:

I don’t know what “this ‘new civil rights’ context” means, or is.

What is it?

You said:

In response:

I take it as a truism that any charges made against non-white people are always better made against the white supremacy system.

So, according to you, “this ‘new civil rights’ context”:

• “…fixates on race.”

If so, it doesn’t even come close to the system of white supremacy, which both invented and outputs race, systematically, as its primary product; its raison d’être.

Claiming non-white people fixate on race is like the NFL telling a high school player that he fixates on football; literally the Vantablack pot calling the kettle black.

• “It reminds everyone that they are black or white.”

Seriously?

You’re saying that non-white people currently remind people that they are Black or white…more than this…

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…or this…

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…or this…

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…or this…

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…or this…

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…or this…

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…or this…

…or this?

If your answer to this question is “Yes,” please kindly explain and support that response with examples.

You said:

In response:

Do you mean that it’s done this more than the race system has demanded the reverse, and has arranged economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war, throughout the known universe, in order to make the same real?

If so, please support your answer with examples.

You said:

In response:

What is your proof of this statement?

You said:

In response:

This offer sounds like the kind that was probably made to Black people regarding George Taylor’s assailants in 1918, Recy Taylor’s in 1944, or even Sandra Bland’s in 2015.

I’ll respond to your kind proposal in the same spirit with which I reply to atheists who demand “irrefutable evidence” that God exists: How would you define “clear examples of racist people that wronged you”?

You said:

In response:

Thanks.

I’m not interested in your, or any white person’s, “white guilt.”

I don’t even care if you experience guilt, or not. Indeed, I’m most reminded of one activist’s objection that, in the fight to eliminate racism, the problem is that white people are moved so easily to guilt, but with such difficulty to shame.

More, I’m interested in non-white people finding the language, and a suite of correct thought and action, with which they can engage the race system, aka white supremacy, and eliminate it.

That’s my prime objective in this area, generally, and even the reason I poked my head in this forum a week after it started.

I mean, you offered to stand with me and tell clear examples of racist people who’d wronged me to go back to whatever corner of rural “nowhere” they crawled out from and die in piece of their racial uniformity.

O.K. Suppose the first person I bring, for your assistance, is your wife, daughter, or son?

Or suppose it’s you? What then?

HA

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Thanks, @Sirje.

You said:

In response:

You’re welcome, and thank you for saying that.

You said:

In response:

I don’t think I object to most of this.

That is, I think I understand what you mean, when you say, “I’m white, and I can’t help it," but I’m not sure.

On one hand, it sounds like you’re speaking about the biological markers of whiteness. These, obviously, cannot be helped.

But it also sounds like you’re talking about the experience of whiteness; the events that molded you into a White Person®; the process that makes the following statements likely, if one is white:

These statements blend with many of the things that @Arkdrey has said, and that @RoyMcD apparently found so infuriating.

One’s experiences shape one. But one can also choose their experiences. That’s why people, for example, travel, or go to schools in faraway states, or read books, or join clubs & organizations.

You are not responsible for all of your experiences. But you are responsible for a very significant number of them.

So, if your point is that, “Being white, I was pushed into the life experiences that make many white people into Black justice obstacles,” I’d say you, by the fact of your mind, have the choice of if you are going to remain that way, and you’ve had it before you were even an adult.

You said:

In response:

During his October 2007 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture) said this: “A good apology has three parts: ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘It was my fault,’ ‘How do I make it right?’”

Then, he added, “Most people skip that third part. That’s how you tell sincerity.”

So, even if you felt responsible for what you call “the entire black experience in North America”—a phenomenon that has far more to do with Black people and Europeans than it does Black people and African slave traders—unless you were prepared to give an apology with those contours, it probably would not be worth much.

As for your offer to “instil a respect for others, no matter the colour or ethnicity, or gender,” that is probably too vague and generic, at this point, to be of much use, either.

You said:

In response:

I actually agree with you about this, mostly for the reasons I’ve given, above, and others we’ve not discussed, writ large.

But any sin can be dismissed with this wave of the hand, including idol-making, adultery, stealing, lying, and covetousness.

Racism twists all of these sins, and others, into a teraforce. So, what should be the response to it…on this Earth?

You said:

In response:

As I said, above, I wholly disagree with the use of the term, “the remnant,” as a colloquialism for Seventh-day Adventists. But I suspect that you may, also, given your use of quotation marks.

But, this is a side issue.

SDAs are victims of “the human condition,” true. But racism is a sin that SDAs avoid discussing. Then, when they do discuss it, they do so badly. [Daniel Xisto, the author of the above essay, states this in various ways.] So, how are its victims and perpetrators supposed to heal?

You said:

In response:

The most interesting fact, Sirje, about this hypothetical, is:

a) why you are asking it, and

b) the way people answer this question probably divides by racial classification.

HA

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I am from Macon,Ga, grew up Adventist in Macon and am very familiar with both of the Adventist churches in Macon. If this rosy comment is regarding the Wimbush Rd SDA Church in Macon, Ga, my opinion is that this comment is clearly presented through a rose colored filter.

It is very clear that the perspective on past and present life and the state of thing is greatly influenced by the “different sides of the tracks” and which side you’re from. Just getting to the realization that people from one side or the other can see the same thing but it looks differently depending on the side of the tracks… that’s progress and civil conversations can be had.

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My point is - not all action against black people happen BECAUSE of their blackness. BUT, it never fails to be presented that way.

You say - “the way people answer this question probably divides by racial classification.”

That doesn’t fly. This implies that black crime can never be confronted without an accusation of racism. Anyone in this situation would not know the race of the group of guys coming down the street; and has concerns, not because a group of black men is approaching, but because a group of men is coming down the street. A call of racism in this situation is clearly racist in itself.

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The biggest “priviledge” for all of us is to grow up in a home with two parents. The biggest cause of poverty in the USA is the divided or unfortunately the single parent household who may not have had a choice in the matter.
If meaningful conversation is ever to take place we all must acknowledge our mistakes with no one getting a hall pass. As with you “white privelege” is full of flaws. There are poor and well off in every culture and it is not always determined by the color of one’s skin.

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Emmitt Smith A/A former pro football was wealthy enough to look for his “roots.” He discovered his roots back in Africa then found out, to his dismay , it was blacks that had sold his family to slave traders. His perception was completely changed he states.

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Perhaps unsurprisingly, no one has called this grotesque statement out. To say it as if you speak like holy writ, now there is rare privilege. But i fear there is nothing and no one who can disabuse you of your notions.

Harry, i must say that i both pity you and i respect you, for being the first fish i know who is trying to not be wet, and blaming “the other” for said dryness. Have you considered that strategy such as yours is perhaps not only not helping the dry fish get wet, but is actually draining the ocean? Even a dry fish has the privilege to be wrong, as much as a wet fish like me might sometimes be right…

C’mon in, the waters fine, and the fisher of men promised it covers all.

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J –
Not attempting to present a “rosy picture”. Just presenting facts.
That there IS a small presence of the INTEGRATION of Conferences
in the Southern Union. At least in GA-Cumberland.
Separate BUT Equal is Very Challenging when it comes to the Goal of
presenting the Gospel to the Local World.

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It is true that every race consists of some who are racist. But black racism cannot be compared to white racism. To say that they are of the same magnitude is to deny the history of this country and the racism that blacks continue to experience in this country.

White Americans need to learn from Jamaicans. All races live in Jamaica peacefully. The motto in Jamaica is “Out of many, one people.”

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Beverely,
What would be nice would be, if others would not speak of “White Americans” as if they are monolithic. There are good hearted whites and good hearted blacks. There are “challenged” blacks and whites. And, white supremacist are in a relative small percentage and are a disgrace wherever they exist.
Nations aren’t fixed, human individual hearts are called to repentance. The BIGGEST sin of humanity is the desire of autonomy from God and refusal of accepting Christ, repentance and the reception of the HS so that healing of the soul may begin. Red, and yellow, black and white!

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“Out of many, one people”
The US Declaration of Independence goes further. It says–
“We hold these truths to be self evident – That ALL men
[meaning ALL Humans] are created EQUAL.”
And this in the days when the British had brought Slavery
to America. Slavery to the Islands to work on the sugar
plantations.
It does not say anything about “Equal but Separate”. Just Equal.
Equal Together.

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Theologically, the cry of “identity politics" (or I’m not guilty) as obstruction to truth-telling is akin to thinking we can have the forgiveness and reconciliation of resurrection without going through the painful truth of the cross. Anthropologically, groups/societies will not be released from the embedded effects of the Scapegoat Mechanism without noting solidarity with the victims who are the product of structuring human community founded on losers and winners, on those sacrificed and those who carry out the sacrifice. The cross reveals the potential for human blindness and planted the seed that has grown into a body of Christian thought that cares for victims.

Antiracism work is a key part of healing and care for victims. Yet the necessary first step is to provide a diagnosis of the problem which is too often hastily labeled as “irrelevant to me personally” or “identity politics.” Reconciliation will not happen without truth-telling. People tend to live within their own frameworks that will be supported by their own matrix of facts.

Daniel Xisto’s article describes some facts. Some truth. Healing will not occur if the dominant culture cannot acknowledge the pain and injustices of the past and that are happening now.

Racism refers to a power inequity, not to implicit bias. We all have biases and I don’t think these will ever be eliminated. For society to live in peace, then people have to trust that justice will be done—this is true in the context of church and all levels of group function. Justice will never be perfect, of course, but having longterm peaceful coexistence will mandate that people in power attend to the function of justice and also to the image that justice is a concept for which those in power will strive.

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