What follows is a Bible study series in four parts developed by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove who was mentored, for lack of a better word, by Ann Atwater, as seen in the movie, "The Best of Enemies," a true story based in Durham, NC with C. P. Ellis and Ann Atwater becoming good friends. You can find the materials at this link along with other significant materials. Please check them out. As part of my walk to Easter Sunday, I will be sharing some thoughts and reflections here on the blog for friends to read and walk alongside me.
I
give these exercises of “Reconstructing the Gospel with the Best of Enemies” as
a prayer to you, Oh Lord. My heart is moved just with the words, “I give these exercises
to you,” and I do not know why the tears well in my eyes. I am a man born into
Jim Crow south into a poor family, a family that was known for hard working,
much like J. P. in the movie. I seldom
had Black friends like Ann though there was Charlie and there was Cora, who is
now just an image, a myth, a part of my story, but not a real person. Charla
and I live in Little Creek, a community in the middle of a low SES housing
addition. I feel both at home and not at home.
I
read Jonathan’s section from his book and underlined the text. White supremacy
may or may not be blatant. We see it on the news and we hear its rhetoric from
the mouths of politicians of the land, and we hear it from various and sundry
radio and television hosts. Many proclaim
it is not so, and by doing so, they let us know that it is so. I, too, am guilty of thinking and assuming
and walking in white spaces, running around as if whiteness was the only show
in town, and then getting challenged left and right. Along the way there were
smacks upside the head. In high school being called a “nigger lover” because
Mr. Washington and I were tight and he gave me a white lab coat. Standing on
the outside looking in at a card game at LCC when only Black acquaintances were
playing the game. A Black chorus member getting angry at Charla and me. A white
friend wanted to date a Black friend and that caused an uproar on campus.
Charles traveling with us to Memphis and getting doors slammed in our faces
until he started staying in the car. “You’re not getting an apartment because
of me.” He knew what we did not know and could not see. There are many, many of
these stories.
The
movie was intense, hard to watch, and inspiring all at the same time. KKK members were frightening. Have I known
some of them? Did I grow up with some of them? Not that I know in actuality,
but have heard a few things or two.
The
text of Mark 8:22-25 is a curious text to study. The people brought the blind
guy to Him. He took him outside the village and healed him. At first, he could
only see things like trees walking and then suddenly he could see clearly, and
Jesus told him not to go back into the village.
Blind to sight. Blind to seeing clearly.
I
have lived my life in a white world with white assumptions. I am a good man, so
why would Black people look at me with suspicion? I am so white, and seen as so
white, that I need Black people to open the door for me, to vouch for me, to
vet me. It has been done before and it is going on now. “He’s one of us,” I
heard the lawyer say. I have never lived in a racially diverse neighborhood
until now, since El Paso, and even now, my white enclave is separated from the
larger world. There is a biracial couple
around the corner and there is a Hispanic couple on the corner. Strange that
that gives me comfort. I had only white teachers until Mr. Washington. I had no
Black teachers in any of my formal education. My Black teachers have been
colleagues and friends along the way.
A
racialized habit has been that of thinking that my view of the world is the one
and only view of the world whether about politics or sports or anything. My
habits were dominated by whiteness. Charles, Charlie, friends, Black farmers,
Gary Grant, Ridgely Muhammud, New Orleans, and now have taught me otherwise.
Once I entered a world of Black farmers and began to hear their stories, I
could not go back. Though Black farmers
are a very, very small percentage of America, the movement was huge for me. I
saw racism in ways I’d never seen it before.
I saw white people behaving in ways I’d suspected but never seen before.
I can never return. I have read report after report after report. I have
listened in interview after interview after interview. The stories are the same.
Only the names of the people change. The advantage goes to the white male. Women
and minorities are left on the side of the playing field, metaphorically, as I
have seen in the Black farming world of USDA v African Americans. Shame on us
for maintaining a racist system that marginalizes people.
The
social cost of my racialized behaviors has been my segregated, uninformed self.
A poverty of spirit and experience accompanied me until my eyes were opened,
not by Jesus and His spit, but by people of color taking the time to “coach me
up.” And coach me up they did. My life has been richer ever since.
The
willingness to change my racialized habits has been both rewarding and costly.
The rewards far outweigh the costs. Living more fully, respectfully, and
engaged has provided a deeper walk and appreciation for humanity. It has also
cost me personally, not that people overtly treat me differently, though at
times they do, but looking at me askance, or fussing with me about things,
overtly or covertly, sending me coded messages overtly or covertly of “what
would you want to do that,” or “you know we have changed a lot since then,” and
“you know, not all people are racist (which means me).”
I
have more to learn and experience, and by the grace of God, I will continue to
do so until my last breath hearing upon this earth.
Lord,
I confess my blindness to you today. Open my eyes that I may see. Thank you for those who led me to Jesus,
those who led me to see my own inability to see. Thank you for your Spirit who
guides. Thank you for friends who were patient and still remain patient with me
and I break the bonds of slave holders’ religion. Amen
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