This expectation can have several effects and one can either accept the position or reject it. Accept it and she or he will be believed to be powerful, whether the strength is possessed or not. This having but not having, being but not being is internally dislocating as one struggles to find a place between the social ideal and her and his reality. Reject it and finding another place in American society can prove problemmatic. We just don’t seem to have a place for and cannot consider a world wherein socially colored “white” people are on equal footing with others. It seems to go against what the color white represents.

The socially colored “white” body is a vision of perfection; we point to it and say, “This is what beauty looks like.” And there is no other example, no one to be compared to except to point out why they have been chosen. “They deserve it. Just look at them.”

Part of the reason why we associate all things good and pure with socially colored “white” people is because of the meanings that we associate with the word white: good, pure (i.e. morally and spiritually), immaculate, spotless, clean, transparent, heavenly even. Likewise, our protagonists are dressed in white. Our heroes, our angels and our God is socially colored “white” because all other skin is dark and therefore, bad. The sacred scriptures use of the word white has also been included in our understanding of whiteness (Job 9.30; Psalm 51.7; Isaiah 1.18; Lamentations 4.7; Daniel 7.9; Matthew 28.3; Mark 9.3; Revelation 1.14). Thus, white is good by association. White is comparable to light and dark is comparable to night. This is why we, as believers, are sons and daughters of light: “Walk as children of light– the fruit of the light results in all goodness, righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5.8-9). White is good, pure, immaculate, heavenly so God must be white, right?

The color white is good. White teeth are good as it is a sign of health. White socks are good as it is a signal that they are clean. White picket fences are good and represent the American Dream. But socially colored “white” people are not always good and we should not expect them to be because they are human beings not divine. When such meanings are transferred to a cultural group, they come to represent moral purity, social perfection, honesty, goodness and even God. The problem is that we have located a color and all of its social meanings inside of a particular people group, socially recreating some persons as good and others bad– based solely on appearance. We have invested our identity in color and you either have the right one or you don’t. There is no grace in this racial faith.

Socially colored “white” people become the way that we are to look and not long after that, the way that all of humanity should be. “White is right” and to be white is to be in right- standing with God. It is a faith that is based on the works of appearance. They, these socially colored “white” people that we have created, become the single expression of God’s creative genius in humanity. We want to be like them, like the socially defined “white” people. They have something we don’t have and we will spend our lives trying to attain it while rejecting it, attempting to be accepted into it while denying it, loving while hating its ability to at least appear good. Socially “defined” white people become successful having done nothing save being born. In American society, it is the silver spoon skin.

This desire to be like them, in turn, brings power and with it, control. “White” people, their goodness and purity then represents trustworthiness, power and authority. The social color “white” begins to equal power and if you are not “white,” then you begin to view yourself as powerless. Power then becomes about a color. White people are then believed to have all power and in our minds, are all- powerful. The socially defined ”white” man becomes the Man, the physical symbol of the establishment, the government or George Orwell’s “Big Brother.” He is perceived as one to whom we must remain connected as he is the source of our social health, community vitality and personal liberties. The Man is the oppressor, the boss, a police officer or anyone in a supervisory role who has an authority that appears to be overarching. We don’t want to live with him but we can’t live without him.

The Man is not affected by the “conditions on the ground” and appears to be above it all. He is up and his sole objective is to keep others down. This socially colored “white” man is “free from color,” not tied to its struggles, not bound to any people. Though human, socially constructed “white” skin is somehow different. In the capitalization of the letter “m,” the socially constructed “white” man becomes divine. He is the Man of all men and consequently, the ruler of all men. There is but one problem: There is no people group but only one person who was both human and divine– Jesus Christ and the social construct of race had nothing to do with Him being chosen.

~Isaiah 59.19, King James Version

Today, a standard is a measurement by which all other things are judged. To raise or lift up a standard not only means to display it (often used in connection with a flag) but to raise the bar concerning our moral behavior. A standard can be the expectation, the norm, the criterion. But in the biblical narrative, the phrase that the Old Testament prophet Isaiah employed has several meanings which include “to put to flight; to cause to disappear or hide; and to drive hastily.” In the fifty-ninth chapter of the writings of Isaiah, he discusses the sinful plight of the children of Israel. He writes, “Indeed the Lord’s hand is not too short to save and His ear is not too deaf to hear. But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God and your sins have made Him hide His face from you so that He does not listen” (1-2). Isaiah then goes on to write about their sins in great detail: “Your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies and you mutter injustice. No one makes claims justly; no one pleads honestly. They trust in empty and worthless words; they conceive trouble and give birth to iniquity” (3-5). And because of these evil deeds “justice is far from us and righteousness does not reach us. We hope for light but there is darkness, for brightness but we live in the night” (verse 9). And the experience and expressions of life that it creates are soul- numbing: “Justice is turned back and righteousness stands afar off. For truth has stumbled in the public square and honesty cannot enter. Truth is missing and whoever turns from evil is plundered” (14-15). And because there was no justice, no one to intercede on their behalf, “God’s own arm brought salvation and His own righteousness supported Him” (15b, 16).

Unfortunately, the spiritual condition of the children of Israel sounds similar to that of today’s American Church. Generation after generation of meaningless indulgence, of half- hearted discipleship, of spiritual immaturity has tainted our speech. Ironically, we, who trust in a Savior who is described as ”the word made flesh,” trust in words that are void of meaning and ability. Truth, drunk with power, is slurred and stumbling in the marketplace. The presence of honesty would only bring shame. We mock the good Samaritan as a goody two- shoes and beat him to entertain the masses. What a great fault we will have to admit, that our standard is now based on that of the world’s convictions, that we are too afraid to raise the bar for fear of ostracization, too weak to lift the standard, our energy exhausted due to the toll of living two lives.

We know but willfully forget that we have an identity and with it a calling that goes beyond who we are and is deeper than who we perceive ourselves to be, that trumps and trivializes, that undermines and undercuts the authority of race. We know and willfully accept its standards though they have compromised our witness and soiled our identity as Christians. We believe in and do repeat its worthless speech because it gives us power as our lips are its author. But, we also have a standard of holiness and of righteousness that is not dependent upon us for life, identity, strength or continuity. God’s standard remains in the absence of faith and in the presence of hopelessness. And I’m so glad that God does not need our arm to raise it!

We need only return to the Standard- Bearer whose criterion for holiness does not include race and is not prejudiced in the administration of right- standing with Him, who does not steer our purposes or enter into relationships with us according to stereotypes. When I am overwhelmed by this hyper- racialized society, when I feel that its words might overtake me and that I might never find myself again, I can turn to God’s standard and it lifts my countenance. God be praised.

But, while many might agree that the idea of the melting pot is problematic, it is still viewed by many as the American way. Wait. I’ll prove it to you. The melting pot is about acculturation, assimilation and more importantly, identification as persons are melted down to an homogenized image of what it means to be an American, which is raised as the standard and in turn, becomes our golden calf. It is the image that we bow down to; this image of whiteness that was presented to the Italians, Jews, and those from Poland who first immigrated to the United States. The Chinese immigrants faired worse as they were often ostracized and forced to form their own communities of support, referred to as ”Chinatown.” Today, we hear the same arguments that were presented beginning in the 1890s when there is discussion of immigration laws, America’s borders and the “browning of America.”  The mixture of equal parts or at least the illusion of such must be maintained. We are deciding who gets to be in the pot.

And the melting pot begs the question, “What are we attempting to make?” And since we’re on the subject: Whose recipe are we using? Who decides which cultural groups get to go in? Who is adjusting the heat? Who is responsible for the mixing? How will we know when the melting is complete? What is the desired appearance of the mixture, the end result, the desired outcome? And are we mixing and melting in order to form an image?  And if so, of who or what? At least for me, it would call for one who is not able to be mixed in, who must remain pure and whose presence is not a requirement. Who is removing the dross and what classifies as such? Who is standing over the melting pot? Finally, ”Is God calling us to jump into a melting pot?” I don’t think so and I’m jumping out.

Additional Readings

There have been many attempts to explain the differences found within the human family from the earliest of times until now. Endlessly in awe and confounded by the fact that we are not all the same, many of us are unable to move beyond our external distinctions. Unable to imagine that the differences are not indicative of differentiations in worth and ability, each community believes itself to be God’s example, God’s choice, God’s leading people of the earth. We still don’t know what to make of our differences and so we tell stories, make diagnoses and draw conclusions as to why persons do not look like us or why we don’t look like them.

A legend attributed to those indigenous to what is now the United States of America suggested that “the ‘black’ man had been left in the oven for too long; the ‘white’ man had not been in the oven long enough but the ‘red’ man had come out just the right color.” The Greek myth involving Phaethon, the son of Helios, who asked his father if he could drive the sun chariot and while doing so lost control of it, burning parts of Africa has been employed to explain the variations in skin pigmentation within the human family. Even the story of the leper whose skin was made “clean” has also been used to imply that socially colored ‘black’ skin is the preferred and natural appearance of humanity while ‘white’ skin is lacking in color and in need of a cure. Those socially defined as “white” were referred to as the “pale race” and their skin was viewed as leprous. However, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, leprosy ”causes skin sores, nerve damage, and muscle weakness that gets worse over time; it is caused by the bacterium Mycobacteriumleprae.” This is leprosy, its symptoms and cause.

Our skin, no matter its social coloring, is not indicative of this disease or any other. It need not be changed with the pseudo- healing lather of skin whiteners or tanners, as this was the way that it was created. Let skin be skin and nothing more. It is not a measure of success, an indicator of beauty, a sign of wealth or social perfection. And it is not a symbol of disease. It is simply skin: epidermis. It is natural; it is normal. It is healthy. It is our perspective on skin that is not and needs a miraculous healing from the hand of Jesus Christ.

Additional Readings

Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Out of Power: Leprosy, Race and Colonization of Hawai’i

‘The Island of the Unclean’: Race, Colonialism and ‘Chinese Leprosy in Great Britain in 1891-1924

Anderson, W, Leprosy and Citizenship

Anderson, W, Disease, Race and Empire

Arnold, D, Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth Century India

Arnold, D, Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race, and Madness

Bashford, A, Imperial Hygiene

Buckingham, J, Leprosy in Colonial India: Medicine and Confinement

Gilman, S, Disease and Representation: Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS

]]> http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/leprosy-race-making-skin-color-a-disease/feed/ 0 trackstar13 Christ_Healing_the_Leper http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/short-circuiting-black-and-white-power/ http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/short-circuiting-black-and-white-power/#comments Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:58:56 +0000 Starlette McNeill http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/?p=2230 Continue reading »]]> “God has spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongs unto God.” ~Psalm 62.11, KJV

“If we choose, we can live in world of comforting illusion.” ~Noam Chomsky

Power, at least as supreme when relating to human beings, is an illusion. No matter how comforting, this consolation is a self- sustaining ruse. Supreme power cannot be contained in a culture, totally or absolutely possessed by a government or its leader, passed between color- coded groups, exchanged on a market or consumed no matter the product it is packaged in. This supreme power cannot be possesed and energy is wasted in our strivings for it. Supremacy cannot be taught or explained. One cannot be trained to be supreme. And there is but One example of such power and God does not offer lessons.

Instead, the power that we feel is an agreed upon power, both as an individual and as a member of the group. We or I or you agree to a position and the group agrees to submit to the authority of this position in support of an agreed upon goal or position.This agreed upon power is circumstancial and is determined only by those who agree to submit to it. We apply for positions of power and are elected to influence. But, it is a power that can be voted out or that we can choose to leave behind when the rulership is no longer worth our time or talents. It is the power of will.

But, even our wills are not supreme. We believe that because we were able to wake up this morning, get dressed and go to work that we are somehow self- sufficient. Only God has that designation. Our ability to look at a clock and tell the time we arose does not mean that we have any knowledge of how we get up from day to day; neither does it suggest that we will know the day or the hour when when we will not rise. We simply do not determine our uprising and downsitting. Luke is right: “In Him, we live, move and have our being” (Acts of the Apostles 17.28). No matter our position, regardless of our possession, we don’t live a part from God, take no action without His knowing and cannot move outside of His strength.

Black Power and its counterpart White Power, the belief that one socially defined racial group is supreme and the ruler of all, is a comforting illusion. But, we can stop our chanting, lower our fists and take off our costumes and end this masquerade of social purity and omnipotence. Power is not the solution to oppression and no socially colored group is the definition of power. Though Public Enemy sang “Fight the Power,” a rhythmic social critique to white supremacist ideas, the racial formation that pervaded American culture and the need to fight these powers of persuasion, the power is only in our heads.

And we  make a social tug of war spiritual, assigning designations of black and white devils, black and white Gods, black and white Christs. All the while, our words undo us as we script God and His Son into our narrative. We make the Divine a mere character, a social puppet that we string to our issues and agendas. We fight against God’s power in suggesting that we need to be supreme in order to right the wrongs of the world.

Power is not the problem. The problem is the illusion that we can do anything a part from God and God’s ability. The problem is that we feel that we are truly independent of God. But, this is our reality: “power belongs to God.” It is not reality if not founded upon this truth.

]]> http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/short-circuiting-black-and-white-power/feed/ 0 trackstar13 blackpower whitepowerpatch http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/loves-lip-service/ http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/loves-lip-service/#comments Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:20:50 +0000 Starlette McNeill http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/?p=2267 Continue reading »]]> “If a man says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” ~ I John 4.20

Valentine’s Day. Today, love is in the air as well as an array of balloons, held tightly as we exited grocery stores and then stuffed them into our cars. Bushes go bare as we purchase roses by the dozen, carried behind our backs or specially delivered to our spouse’s job. Card racks suffer from more of the same as we pick through them for just the right words to say on this special day. It will continue with chocolates and stuffed animals, romantic dinners by candle light, weddings and wedding proposals. Love is indeed on display.

Ah, but it is a specific love, a self- guided love and perhaps for some a self- serving love. Though we aspire to it, this love is not without condition. This is easily discerned when he or she does not bring balloons, flowers, card or candy, when one does not propose as was expected after two years of dating. What would we call this kind of love that though not on display is seen far too many times? These thoughts and actions suggest that there is a way that we want to be loved, that we must be loved or we will not feel loved at all.

And after today, what will we say of our love for each other? Is it summed up or completely captured on this fourteenth day of February? Will we not expect to hear the voice of love until next year around this time? Like a Sunday morning worship service, our love is limited in its expression, contained to one day when we rise early with Bible in hand and file into a building to be reminded of God’s goodness and our need to show our love. But, what about the rest of the week? Does God not want the quality time, the expressions of gratitude, the display of love?

And when do we love those around us, those we see everyday? No, it’s not on the calendar. There are no cards in the card rack or special flowers that would indicate this love. This ability to love is the most revealing, the most telling because it is not found in balloons or red roses, copied expressions of commitment and unfailing love. This love gets at the very heart of who we are for if we cannot love in this way, then we do not love at all. If we do not love God’s creation, our siblings that we see everyday then we do not love God. How can we if, while in a relationship with God, we do not like the handiwork of God? We are giving nothing more than lip- service and are mere deceivers, loving based on what we hope to receive in return while not truly giving love at all.

]]> http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/loves-lip-service/feed/ 0 trackstar13 http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/the-benefits-of-racism/ http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/the-benefits-of-racism/#comments Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:28:07 +0000 Starlette McNeill http://thedailyrace.wordpress.com/?p=2232 Continue reading »]]>

“A good tree doesn’t produce bad fruit; on the other hand, a bad tree doesn’t produce good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs aren’t gathered from thornbushes or grapes picked from a bramble bush.” ~Luke 6.43-44, Holman Chrisitan Standard Bible

Almost everyone will agree (if asked publicly) that racism, the belief in the inherent superiority and likewise inferiority of human beings based on the social coloring of one’s skin, other physical characteristics such as ones’s hair texture, the shape of the nose, the size of the lips and the socially prescribed animosity necessary because of these differences, is bad. Some of us might even be willing to admit that it is unfounded. But, this fact will not change one’s belief in it because there is power in believing in race and there are benefits to accepting racism. So, we make excuses for racism: “It is simply the survival of the lightest, whitest of humanity. We were created differently and those differences are indicators that some are better than others in appearance and ability. God made us this way and there is nothing that we can do about it.”

It is the predestinations and predeterminations of appearance: who we are and can become, where we are located economically and the social positions we can aspire to all based on how we “look” to others. It is a social examination and evaluation to determine the privileges and disadvantages of each person. Racism is a benefit in that we can take entire cultural groups and position them so as to profit from those who have been disadvantaged because of race. It is an easy way of ordering the world that serves those who have been socially colored to rule it. Despite these truths, we are not helpless because of our socially assigned race and should not discuss it as if there is nothing that we can do about its meaning in our society, as if God gave us race when we know that we created this system of skin “color”-based privileges. We need only cancel this social policy. There is no rationale for our continuing to  behave as if we are mere animals when it comes to race as we seem to lose the ability to reason and to will ourselves to change. We are human beings and now is as good a time as ever to begin to behave as such.

There is an Indian proverb that says, ”Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But, tell me a story and it will live on in my heart forever.”  When it comes to racism, it’s not that we do not know or believe that racism is bad. We just want to hear the story and it is a particular story that ironically, does not acknowledge the facts or the truth. We simply don’t want to accept responsibility for our actions but instead, want to be told what to believe. “Read it to me, again,” we say.

But, if the fruit of race, that is racism, stereotypes and prejudice, is bad, how can the tree be good? Race simply must be pulled up from the root of our society. Having tasted of the fruit of race, what knowledge have we gained? What have our eyes really been opened to? God is not mocked but knows that we are merely attempting to be like Him, not as sons and daughters but equal in power and ability. Thus, to assert that this unjust system of privilege and self- serving favoritism is from God is anathema. Race is not rooted in God neither is its fruit sustained by anything that comes from God. Paul Tillich tells us that God is “the Ground of being” and this tree was never a part of His garden or the paradise planned for us.

Even as adults, we don’t talk about our treatment as children even though it has shaped who we are and malformed us in some places. It’s still not respectful or polite or appropriate to talk about what went on in our house. It’s still no body’s business. It’s still not our place. But, how long? How long do we pretend that we have nothing to say about what is being said about us? Does there ever come a time when we have a say in our lives and the social forces that are acting upon it? Or, do we simply trade one cloak of invisibility for another more age appropriate one?

Maybe this is why we don’t talk about race. What we say in our community as socially colored people, brown/ red/ yellow/ beige/ white/ black, about race and incidents that are racially informed or incited stay there. It’s none of their business. It’s not our place. It won’t make a difference anyhow because we, too, see ourselves as invisible in one way or another because of race. We are also seen and not heard.

No one wants to talk about it. Even after all these years, we remain in this American “house of bondage,” a society stuck in its childhood memory and position. Shhh.

If you believe that you are the boss, the leader of your life, that you can turn your stereotypes and prejudices on and off, that you can schedule when and where you will judge persons based on the social coloring of their skin and the historical interpretation of race; If you believe that it’s not a problem but that you can quit thinking racially anytime you want to, then consider evaluating the work of race with me. What has race been hired to do and is it working for you? Is it working for your family? Is it working for your church? Is it working for American society?

What has been race’s job performance in the past: The Jewish Holocaust, South African apartheid, the killing fields of Cambodia, American slavery, lynchings, race riots, Jim Crow segregation? Even today, we remain unable to approach one another because of what race has told us and it slows down our relational and spiritual productivity. Race makes us poor siblings and disconnected disciples of Jesus Christ. Is this what we want? Because this is the resume of race. This is the work experience of race. These are the skills of race. Still, we find ourselves unable to mouth the words, “You’re fired.” We don’t want to give race the slip.

Maybe you can begin with the words, “I quit.”

(Social) color motivates us; it drives us. We marry for (social) color. We go to war for (social) color. It is a pigment of our imagination that opens and closes our minds to the possibilities of what God has to offer. Color holds us in the palm of its hand and it can either elevate us or crush us. It all depends… on the social coloring our skin.

We have no say in what social color we will be. Race cannot be judged as graceless or biased. Its “thoughts are not our thoughts and its ways are not our ways.” It is simply the way of the world of race and unlike God, when it comes to race, we don’t question it. We are made in its image and for many, so is God. We have complete and unwavering faith in it for good or for ill. Why is that? It is because God has a competitor: race. Will it be hard for those who believe in the supremacy of color to perceive, to practice or to enter into the kingdom of God (Matthew 19.16-28)? We have loved God; we have kept the commandments but some of us will find it hard to leave behind the gains of the social coloring of our skin. Is (social) color almighty in your life?