This Is Supposed to Hurt

by

In the predominantly white church in suburban St. Louis where I currently find myself, I’ve had the chance to lead two classes on racism since last August when Michael Brown was murdered. Some participants entered the class full of eagerness to make positive changes, some were fearful, some were skeptical, and some were clearly in pain. Seeing them, I was constantly reminded of my own (continuing) journey away from the Southern racism I acquired growing up. It’s been important for me to remember that experience because it lets me empathize with the pain and fear and remorse and anger of waking up to your own privilege and bias.

The thing to which I’ve compared that experience of seeking to become anti-racist (which is still a work in progress for me) is what I always heard “getting saved” was like, at least from my Southern Baptist friends. First you deny God and insist that everything is fine, then suddenly in a flash of conviction (or a slow awakening), you realize how sinful you are. Filled with guilt and self-loathing, you finally admit that you need God’s saving grace. You pray, you beg, you promise and you find yourself freed of the continuing burden of your sin, even if the results of past sins still linger. So you go out and eagerly tell people how you’ve been saved. Usually the story stopped there, but I would add that as you continue your spiritual journey, you realize that you have a lot more to learn, so your enthusiasm is tempered by your realization of your own limitations. You start to listen more as you realize how God shows up in so many ways and that you can seek God in all that you do without just preaching from a street corner.

For most white Americans, we stop at that very first step. As any repentant sinner can tell you, step two is a doozy. For me, at least, realizing my own racism meant recognizing the hurt I had caused so many people without realizing I was doing it, without meaning to, and simply out of ignorance. It meant a wholesale shift in my worldview. It meant seeing my family in a new way, realizing my heritage was as deeply troubled as outsiders said it was, and that I was just like generations of Southern women before me. It meant suddenly seeing whiteness as a real thing and not an invisible category we called “normal people.” And it meant realizing I was falling FAR short of loving my neighbors.

I still pray for forgiveness. I am currently wrestling with my cultural identity and the nasty parts of that heritage. I remember the pain of that realization, which comes in flashes of memory sometimes. I can recall the deadness of hate that filled me when “they” didn’t act like “normal people” should.

But knowing what it means, in a new way, for God to love ALL people- of knowing that Black Lives Matter! is salvation from that deadness, invisibility, and denial. It has freed me, though I am still on the journey. God saved me from the inability to really love.

I write all of this not to make excuses for racists or to make racial reconciliation about white people’s feelings. I say it for all those pastors who will be having hard conversations as their white congregations struggle with issues of race and injustice. Remember that it’s supposed to hurt. Recognizing our own racism is cutting out a cancer that has made us blind heretofore. There is no anesthetic. Remember that racism is sin, and we have the authority to talk about it as such. It’s not “a choice” in political affiliation or worldview, at least not for Christians. That will hurt too. This process is absolutely about making huge systemic changes that require those with social privilege to become uncomfortable (as Hannah has so powerfully stated), but remember there is an individual process of change that must happen too. Remember to be vulnerable about your own experiences and pain so that others know that the hurt they begin to feel is okay. And finally, remember that the pain those people are experiencing as they take their first steps towards anti-racism is not the responsibility of congregations of color who may be partnering with you; it’s your responsibility not to send bleeding open wounds into multi-racial ministry settings that are meant to be about dialogue and reconciliation. It’s your responsibility to let the hurt happen and to offer the salve of the Gospel.

Laura Patterson is in her third year at Eden Theological Seminary and a certified candidate in the Missouri Annual Conference. After four years in campus and young adult ministry, she's transitioning to congregational ministry in the St. Louis area. This post is reprinted with permission from the collaborative blog UMC LEAD.