The Healing of Racism

Last Saturday, a group of 45 ministry leaders, staff, and board members gathered for a six-hour workshop with facilitators from the Houston-based Center for the Healing of Racism. The workshop was made possible by One Love Ministries, MCC Austin's diversity ministry.

CFHR is unique among such organizations in that its emphasis is on healing. The CFHR trainers first educate about racism, then facilitate the process by which people can begin to counter the effects of racism on their lives and become empowered to interrupt the cycle of racist attitudes. We are all hurt by "isms," the trainers stress, whether we are the recipients of oppression or whether we perpetrate oppression on others OR ourselves.

It's not possible, nor is it permissible, for me to delve too deeply into the contents of our day together because the CFHR believes in creating a "relational space" in their workshops in which people can allow themselves to become vulnerable to sharing all the hurt oppression has brought them. Only then, after that personal and communal acknowledgment, can healing begin. But I can share a story from outside the workshop that might help bring into focus for you just how prevalent a hurt and a challenge racism in the U.S. still is.

Staceyann Chin grew up, as the title of her new memoir tells us, on The Other Side of Paradise. She grew up on the impoverished side of Jamaica opposite the beaches and resorts and paradise enjoyed by tourists. That in itself was enough to give Chin a difficult childhood, but to compound that, she was never claimed by her father and was neglected by her mother. And she was gay. To be gay in Jamaica is literally to be in fear for your life-to be verbally and physically abused relentlessly, even to face death at the hands of vigilante groups unhindered by police. Chin made the decision that she would live as an out lesbian, and the only way to guarantee that she would stay alive to do it, was to come to the U.S.

You might assume that with all our anti-LGBT laws and discriminatory practices, the U.S. still offered a much better life for Chin. You would be right. But here is the part of her story that issues a stinging wake-up call. In her own words, Chin found it "almost as problematic to be black in America as to be gay in Jamaica." Call her over- reactive. Divide her assessment by two. Remind me that we now have a black president. It's still appalling.

In closing, I want to answer a question I've been asked several times: "Why address racism in a church setting? There are plenty of other topics more suited to pursuing at church." I think it makes perfect sense that efforts at healing any kind of "ism" begin in the faith community. By beginning in the faith community, we begin with an absolutely necessary ingredient: the desire to love each other as Christ first loved us. Efforts at healing "isms" may find a start and even achieve some momentum within the realm of politics or society at large. But by placing this work in the church, we ground our human efforts in prayer, allow ourselves to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, and give our goals over to God who "is still doing great things"!

Always in Hope,