Confessions and Traps

When Dr. King died, I was still in diapers. Ford’s new muscle car, the Mustang, was brand new but the civil rights struggle was not.

I imagine that my parents and paternal grandmother, who played a huge role in my early development, tried to keep the turmoil of the times away from me as a toddled around the bare wood floors of that old clapboard house in Cherry, North Carolina.

But I think some things filtered in and became part of my virtual racial DNA, that part of me that needs to know about the whats, whens, and whys of the racial struggles of those times. That part that needs to make connections and reconcile (or at least, placate my conscience that we believers are striving for answers).

Over the years I’ve collected books on race penned in the 60s by people of faith, struggling/striving/praying for answers as well. I’m in debt to them. They help me put my arms around the some of the gnarly roots of racial hate in America.

Here’s a quote from Mandate for White Christians by Kyle Haselden (John Knox Press, 1966):

“What the white Christian church now needs to do is to free itself spiritually. … White Christians cannot escape from this mental and emotional prison so long as they think of the racial struggle in terms of “we” and “they.” … Christians are confused and inactive because it is difficult for the problem to understand the problem. Direct participation by the church in active solutions of the racial problems requires a confession of guilt, for the church continues to be the problem.”

Much of the racial oriented writings from this time focus on the merits of desegregation and the Christians role in that struggle to dismantle institutional racism. But it’s interesting to note that some of these writings are still relevant for today.

“The church continues to be the problem.” That’s a hard one. But that’s what Dr. Haselden, a white man who strongly endorsed President L. B. Johnson for re-election, wrote.

Is a confession of guilt the answer? Many folks are asking that questions right now. And others have simply given up, saying with their apathy and weariness, ’so what.’

Been there. Done that. Where’s my money?

You see, to some blacks the answer is not just a confession but financial reparations.

Dr. Haselden again:

“The Negro is caught in a vicious trap which the white man set. … White Christians are confused and immobilized because the Negro will not settle for the much he has gained but insists that he must as a man and a citizen have all that belongs to a man and a citizen, must have it now, and must have it here.”

Today many blacks want to get the money. Not an apology. Not a confession. Just money. Even though getting it could possibly mean mutilation, having left a foot or a hand in an attempt to escape the trap.

There must be a better way.