How Then Shall We Live?
Five practical ways we can pursue racial reconciliation and societal justice
Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash
(An eight-minute read.)
For Black History Month, I’ve been exploring various facets of the Black struggle—sharing stories, reviewing history, and asking questions.
I first asked whether Christians should be “woke” (my answer was “kind of . . . ?”).
I next discussed a period in my own denomination’s history when we (Seventh-day Adventists) seemingly took this posture.
I then highlighted a number of Black Adventists who’ve changed the world in general and a few others who’ve changed my world specifically.
As I wrap up this mini-series for my newsletter, I wanted to end by asking a very practical question: how then shall we live?
By “we,” I mostly mean White people who feel the call to advocate for positive change, pursuing racial reconciliation and societal justice.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on this topic at all.
But what I do claim to be is an imperfect religious leader who’s trying to learn to love my Black brothers and sisters better—and to lead others to do the same.
So here are five practical steps I’ve committed myself to as I recognize the blind-spots in my own thinking and living (there are many, many more I could include, of course).
1. Listen
This may seem like a very insignificant action—and that it accomplishes nothing. But I can honestly say that this is the single most important thing I’ve done to help me recognize my own biases, misunderstandings, and lack of racial safety.
When I say “listen,” I mean seeking to hear the stories, experiences, and pains of people of color.
And listen with the intent to truly understand and empathize with their struggles.
That means we must do something that’s very hard for us to do as human beings: avoid trying to delegitimize, deny, or explain away the experiences of others.
That used to be my greatest temptation. Every time I heard a Black person tell me a traumatic story—say, a young Black man was pulled over by the police because he felt he was being racially profiled—I always used to want to say, “Yeah, but . . . ” and come up with some other explanation (other than the color of his skin) as to why he was really pulled over.
I realized I needed to stop doing that. Delegitimizing and explaining away another person’s story not only dehumanizes that person, it’s also extremely counterproductive.
So I decided I just needed shut my mouth, listen, and try to honestly and genuinely learn.
This means, by the way, that we need to not only listen when people of color speak; we need to actively invite them to speak. We need to humbly and graciously pursue the stories of Black people, asking them to share their experiences with us.
This means, of course, that we need to demonstrate a level of safety. It’s a sacred trust for someone to share their story with us. So we must prove ourselves worthy of such a gift.
2. Educate yourself
But also, we need to educate ourselves.
We White people shouldn’t leave it up to Black people to constantly educate us on their struggles. That can be very tiring and exhausting—and sometimes re-traumatizing.
So we should take it upon ourselves to do the work—reading books, watching videos, listening to podcasts.
The resources are endless, but here’s just a few I’d suggest:
Reading While Black, by Esau McCaulley
Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson
The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein
The History of White People, by Nell Irvin Painter
Stamped From the Beginning, by Ibram X. Kendi
13th (documentary)
12 Years a Slave (film)
“Critical Race Theory with Nathan Cartagena” (four-part podcast series—available here, here, here, and here)
3. Stop being “colorblind”
I totally understand why people say they’re “colorblind.” I used to say it myself.
What we’re trying to communicate is that we don’t discriminate against people because of their skin color. We’re essentially trying to live the way Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged us to live—judging people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
That’s a wonderful and admirable goal.
But, as I’ve learned, it’s problematic for two reasons.
For one, it’s nearly impossible for any of us to truly be “colorblind.” Try as we might, we all see color; we all have implicit biases.
And so there’s no point in pretending we don’t.
Acknowledging that we do see color helps us to better manage our racial biases. Indeed, to borrow what Mr. Rogers said in a different context: “Anything that is mentionable can be more manageable.”
Secondly, when a White person says, “I’m colorblind,” what a Black person actually often hears is, “I don’t see or acknowledge that you’ve had a unique journey because of the color of your skin.”
When we pretend race doesn’t exist, we implicitly deny both the challenges that being a person of color brings, as well as the ways such an identity can be celebrated.
So, yes, we should try to keep our implicit biases in check, and not discriminate against people because of their race or skin color.
But we shouldn’t claim to be “colorblind” or act and talk as though race doesn’t exist.
4. Notice who is or isn’t at your “table”
My friend Judi, whom I mentioned last week, has put it this way: notice who isn’t at your “table” and then ask why they’re not. This applies not only to matters of race, of course, but to all areas of life.
I think it’s a powerful question. I’m prone to celebrate the people who show up to my “table,” but I don’t always notice who isn’t—or the types of people who aren’t—there.
This applies to many different “tables,” including our literal tables.
But when I put on an event, or I start an organization, does everyone look alike who shows up?
Is everyone White?
Is everyone the same gender?
Does everyone speak the same language?
Does everyone have the same, exact religious beliefs?
If my answer is “yes” to these questions, I should be greatly troubled—and I should try to figure out why there’s so much homogeneity (sameness).
The fact is, as a White person—and someone who exists in and benefits from being a part of the dominant culture in America—I hardly think to ask this question. It seems completely “normal” to me to participate in an event, or to belong to an organization, where everyone is a White, English-speaking male.
But if this is the case, it means others are being left out—even if I’m not consciously intending to leave them out.
5. Do what it takes to get others to the “table”
This is where we need to roll up our sleeves and pursue the hard work of promoting systemic change.
We’re all a part of organizations, systems, and institutions—whether they’re religious, governmental, educational, or professional—that haven’t achieved complete equity, diversity, and inclusion. There are voices that haven’t been heard, people who haven’t been represented, demographics that haven’t benefited from the system (and just the opposite at times).
So when we become aware of this, and we recognize who isn’t at the table, we should do what’s within our power to try to promote systemic change.
I’ll give you one simple example.
This past fall, I served on the “Nominating Committee” for my local Seventh-day Adventist “Conference.” Within Adventism, a Conference is essentially a confederation of congregations within a specific territory who are organized together to make decisions for how the territory is administrated and run.
Every five years, my particular Conference—the Northern New England Conference (which includes the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont)—has a “Constituency Meeting,” where every congregation sends delegates to make decisions and elect officers and administrators for the Conference.
The way officers and administrators are appointed is through a “Nominating Committee,” which nominates the individuals, and then the delegates vote on those nominations.
When I attended the first Nominating Committee meeting, I noticed something interesting (and troubling): of the 17 persons who comprised the Executive Committee (which is essentially the Board for the Conference) the previous five years, only three of them were females, and only two of them were people of color.
So I decided I’d do whatever I could to help promote change, recognizing that important voices—from diverse backgrounds—weren’t being heard.
I’m not pretending to be some hero here. And what I did wasn’t all that remarkable.
But I resolved to speak up and point out the underrepresentation, and then nominated people accordingly.
And through those modest efforts, our Executive Committee went from having only three women to now having five women—and from having two persons of color to three persons of color.
These are very, very, very modest gains. But they’re at least something. And they’ll hopefully lead to more positive gains down the road.
Some reading this may interpret this step, and this example, as “wokeness” gone awry. It represents “identity politics” or “affirmative action,” which leads to “reverse racism” and dividing into subgroups.
There’s a lot I could say in response to those concerns (which I acknowledge), but I’m not necessarily addressing them in this piece (though it does strike me as interesting and ironic that there were a number of people on the Committee who wanted to make sure there was proportional representation from the different states in our Conference on the Executive Committee, but very few seemed too bothered by the fact that while roughly 50% of our membership is female, only 17% of our Executive Committee was).
I’m mostly seeking to suggest actions for people who’ve already moved beyond those objections and who want practical advice on how to pursue more just and equitable communities.
And thus, what I outlined above is merely one small example of what equity and inclusion can look like.
So what do you think? What are some other practical steps we can take in our pursuit of racial reconciliation and societal justice?
Leave a comment below or send me an email.
Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.
I very much agree with what you've written. I wonder, though, whether using the term "race" to identify people according to ethnicity is even right. I know we are so used to using it to identify a person's ethnicity, but maybe there's still an inherent (possibly unconscious) bias in using the term "race" to identify a person's ethnicity. After all, we are all part of the one human *race* (sons and daughters of Adam), the one blood line, rather than various "races" (blood lines?) of humans. It seems to me that suggesting there is more than one race of humans opens up the door to thinking of another race as inferior which has been promoted in the past (and even the present, sadly) by some. Not that we shouldn't recognise the difficult journey of those of non-white ethnicities (I believe we should), but do it in a way that humanises them (seeing them as part of the human race) rather than one that potentially de-humanises them (seeing them as a different "race" to whites).
I appreciate the steps that you have outlined here. I particularly want to emphasize that color-blindness can be dangerous. Knowing and seeing all of me, includes what I look like. Therefore to refuse to see that I am Black is to erase a part of me as well. In addition, we cannot ignore that there are situations that because of what I look like, certain places might not be safe. If you are committed to our relationship, you have to be committed to my safety. Therefore, you have to see all of me, and not just the parts that work for you so that you do not set me up, or include me in spaces and situations that put me in jeopardy.