As I began the journey of promoting my new book, Bridging the Rivers of Difference, A Proclamation of Unity In Resistance, I have encountered wonderful interviewers. Mostly they seem genuinely interested in the topic and have read the book well enough to pose good questions.
But I want to highlight one interview that demonstrated a troubling matter of significant importance to truth-telling conversations and racial healing work.
Catherine Meeks
The interviewer asked reasonably good questions throughout the session that allowed me to elaborate upon the major premise of my book — which is grounded in the historical record that helps us understand how the early expressions of racist oppression and its long-term wounding has kept racial and ethnic groups separate and competing with one another for scarce resources.
Then when we were almost at the end of the interview, I was asked about an incident that occurred a few years ago that illustrated the depths of the prejudice held by some Latinos toward African Americans. The comments were made on a hot mic and were clearly meant to stay private, but the microphone does not lie.
The interviewer wanted to know why African Americans should care about Latinos now when they are under siege or at any other time due to their apparent prejudice demonstrated through this unfortunate slander. Unfortunately, there were less than two minutes left in the interview time.
I made a small attempt to speak to the matter, but the question was simply reiterated after I finished, and it became clear to me in that moment that the best answer was not going to be related to the question as it was being stated. So, I said, “Each person has to decide what kind of human he or she wants to be.”
This is the truth, no matter what others say or do. At the end of it all, each person has to take a stand for the sake of their own integrity and decide when and how they will stand up for the truth as they see it.
But there is a much larger point that needs to be made regarding this matter. First the interviewer was apparently engaging in “gotcha” journalism with me. I had been allowed to make all my points to present my case, but then this one anecdotal instance was offered as a counterpoint to what I had said about the need for unity between minority groups.
“The anecdotal or personal lens is too small to encompass what needs to be acknowledged.”
Throughout my entire career of working with groups on racial healing, I have had to navigate this type of behavior from whites and often people of color as well. They will present one small personal example as evidence to support their effort to deconstruct a premise or set of facts regarding a collective cultural issue.
For instance, a white person, after hearing a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which racism has wounded people of color and whites, will share a story about how much he or she loved their maid or the person of color who cooked for their family as a counterpoint to the long historical record.
While those personal stories and anecdotal examples represent meaning for the person who experienced them, they are useless in helping to understand the major cultural issues being addressed. The anecdotal or personal lens is too small to encompass what needs to be acknowledged, which makes it necessary to enlarge the lens. The lenses through which we engage reality enlarge our capacity to develop a deeper consciousness about injustice and help create an internal moral compass that will help us seek healing.
So, one example or five examples cannot be enough to sum up a nation’s history and the paradigms that have been put in place to support all the citizens or to subject them to oppression and denigration. While this type of thinking is not helpful in a workshop setting, it is indefensible for journalists who are supposed to be seeking the truth and reporting on it or highlighting when they hear others attempting to tell the best truth possible.
The Holy Spirit helped me to have the best answer in that interview, and she will help us as individuals as we seek to enlarge our lenses and vacate the need to play “gotcha” or refuse to engage the truth. A wise teacher tells us, “You shall know the truth, and it will set you free.”
Catherine Meeks was given the President Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement and Service Award in August 2022; was listed by Georgia Trend Magazine as one of the 500 women to watch in Georgia in 2022; retired as the Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies at Mercer University; is a community and wellness activist and midwife to the soul; and the author of The Night Is Long, But Light Comes In The Morning, Meditations on Racial Healing, She previously served as founding executive director of Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing and currently serves as founder and executive director of the Turquoise and Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing. She lives in Atlanta.