For five years I have been working in the black community in Washington, D.C. As a white minister and representative of a predominantly white Protestant denomination, and without former relationships with black people, I have been made constantly aware of race issues during these years. Because of this, opportunities have come to speak to white audiences about the black experience in this country, and I have conducted seminars on the subject of racism and reconciliation.
I have a problem, though, which I believe is shared by other whites who like myself have opportunity to enjoy inter-racial fellowship, particularly in the context of the Christian church. My problem surfaces nearly every day, certainly whenever I read U.S. history of race relations or consider the continuing white supremacist attitudes which prevail in our society.
My problem is guilt. It doesn't take much talking, reading, or reflecting to bring it to the surface. At times I'm immobilized by it. I ask myself, what right does a white minister have to say anything to black people after all that has happened in our country with the blessing of white Christianity? Some have said to me rather directly that there is nothing I can or should try to say; now is not the time for whites to be talking to black people about getting themselves together. I agree. When I think of my own heritage I can only wish for forgiveness and grace.
I have deliberately immersed myself in experiences which would help me understand, at both intellectual and emotional levels, the black experience in the United States. I have taken steps, however timid and uncertain, to be among those who could help me uncover my own racism and inform me of what the world looks like from another point of view. The more I read, the more I experience, the more overwhelming are the feelings of guilt. Yet, in the midst of it I've found grace from those who have every right to separate themselves from me.
The first possibility of this grace came to my attention in a phrase Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted from Kenneth Clark, author of Dark Ghetto: "Black people need white people to free them from their fear and white people need black people to free them from their guilt."
Indeed, behind the somewhat threatening and violent image the black community presents to white America is fear; fear born in the history of violence, discrimination, and rejection; a deep fear which is neither easily nor quickly dispelled even after blacks have had opportunity to move freely among whites.
In order for black people to mediate grace to whites who have been paralyzed by guilt, whites must first face the truth about the past and present. Not all are willing to do so. But for those who have some sensitivity about their own involvement in the nation's besetting sin of racism, guilt is not only personally distressing but socially counterproductive.
Without fully understanding Clark's statement, I agree that "white people need black people to free them from their guilt." Guilt is not a helpful motive for those wanting to be involved in the struggle for social justice.
The truth of this came to me one Sunday morning in September, 1980. I was invited to attend an ecumenical worship service, the concluding event for the 10th legislative session of the Congressional Black Caucus. The simple service included gospel singing in the black tradition, with which I have become acquainted and which I thorougly enjoy.
D.C. Delegate Walter Fauntroy delivered an address in which he traced the struggle of black Americans, beginning with the slave traders on the West African coast. He reconstructed the story of what it must have been like as men and women were separated from their families and tribes, chained to one another, placed in groups where language barriers prevented communication, and then thrown into ships for the three-month passage across the Atlantic, during which five out of six died. Fauntroy repeatedly asked us to think about what the first Afro-Americans must have thought as they experienced the most brutal slavery in the history of humankind. It was a form of servitude which consistently attempted to destroy families and relationships.
When Fauntroy concluded, evangelist Tom Skinner continued with an appeal to the black community to come together around the moral values which sustained blacks during the darkest days of slavery and discrimination. He used the gospel notion of the kingdom of God, in which Jesus commands his disciples to love one another regardless of their feelings or prejudices.
I found myself saying amen, for he was quoting from familiar chapters. But just when I began to feel a part of the family of faith he was describing, Skinner elaborated on how it all applied to the needs of blacks in the '80s. I wondered how that could include me.
The guilt returned. I was listening to the gospel, affirming its truth; but again I was caught in an inter-racial experience, unable to get beyond the history just recounted, that some of my fore-bearers were slave owners. And I was reminded in that moment that I still enjoy advantages denied many people of color in our country.
The service concluded with about 200 people forming a large circle around that hotel banquet room, joining hands and singing "We Shall Overcome." I found my place in the circle, feeling uncomfortable but wanting somehow to be included among those who had invited me. And then I looked up. I was the only white person there.
I was overcome with it all: the recounting of slavery, the reminder of the present struggle, and the call to join together for the future. I bowed my head as we sang and then began shaking and crying. The woman to my left whom I had met earlier in the week as we talked about feeding the hungry in the city sensed my feelings and grasped my hand tight as if to say, "It's OK, you're accepted."
Following the benediction I went to the friend who had invited me. He said something about hoping I felt a part of the family. I answered, "I'm trying." He put his arms around me, saying, "You don't have to try, brother, you are accepted, you are part of the family."
At that moment I heard something; I received something. It was grace. We had both listened to the same words and knew we were bound together with the same past. He was telling me that I did not have to feel guilty any longer. We were brothers.
There is much that the black community has to teach and share with white America. The greatest gift came to me in that moment. Black people alone can free whites from the unbearable guilt of the unspeakable sins of racism.
My theology tells me that grace is from God. I have also learned that God comes to me with forgiveness and grace through other people. The disciples were given the awesome power of being able to extend or refuse forgiveness to others. In the Christian community we may talk about being forgiven, but forgiveness remains an abstraction unless we are accepted within the family of God. And I may talk of being forgiven, but if I refuse to forgive and offer grace to others, I remain estranged from God and other people.
When it comes to the sin of racism, both my own personal racism and the collective sins which have been passed from one generation to the next, I cannot forgive myself. I believe God forgives, but in the give and take of inter-racial awareness the guilt has remained and even intensified as my eyes have been opened.
My guilt has formed a barrier around me. I've found it impossible to believe that a black person could ever love white people in general or me in particular. Conversely, I have found myself holding back my love, wanting desperately to reach out but certain that my overtures would surely be cause for suspicion. I have found it difficult, almost impossible, to accept the grace which others have to offer, or rather, the grace that God has had to offer me through my black brothers and sisters.
I'm still troubled. I want to be cautious and sensitive and not presume that I have reached some final solution in my life. But I also want to celebrate the joy that comes when one is freed from guilt. And I want to say to my black friends that we really do need each other, and that they have something to offer me which God wants me to have.
I know I can only receive grace as I am willing to face the guilt. Grace without the pain of guilt is, in Bonhoeffer's words, "cheap grace." My freedom must come from my struggle, my joy from my tears.
But the grace which I believe comes from God, comes through others to me. If I remain separated, if I keep my distance, grace becomes an abstraction, hollow and unsatisfying. But in accepting the invitation to join a family of those whose faith has been hammered out on the anvil of suffering and struggle, I have found a freedom which is denied me as long as I remain in my guilt, refusing grace.
During the past generation, we have seen the development of black studies curriculum in the schools. Awareness of the African heritage in U.S. society has been almost totally lacking. But in reality there is no black history any more than there is a white history. We can tell history from a particular point of view, but we cannot separate ourselves from one another in the past anymore than in the present. There is only one history, the history of black and white people together. We must tell it accurately so that all are included. We must rewrite the books and correct the errors. But finally we must come to understand that black people, white people, and all others are part of the whole. Black history is then my history, too. I must affirm my need of my black brothers and sisters if I am to be whole.
With grace comes responsibility. First, to simply respond and be open to God's gift through others. Then to be faithful to the reconciliation which comes through grace. As all white people do not want reconciliation, neither are all blacks willing to offer grace. I understand that. The battle goes on and will still be fought long after my generation passes on.
Nevertheless, reconciliation is possible. In Scripture, John tells us that perfect love casts out fear. Likewise, if I can apply John's words to my own experience with racism and reconciliation, I have come to experience the fullness of God from my black brothers and sisters, which John describes as "grace upon grace."
Tom Nees was a pastor of the Community of Hope, Church of the Nazarene, in Washington, D.C. when this article appeared.
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