I marvel at the longsuffering tenacity, enduring strength and peaceful patience of my black sisters and brothers. From slavery to Jim Crow to separate-but-equal to all the insults of prejudice, the slights and jokes, and the injustices large and small that continue under the blind eye of a nation’s legislated “equality.” It started before the nation was even born. The first slaves were brought to these shores in 1619, more than 400 years ago. Four. Hundred. Years.
I can’t imagine that kind of patience.
Most white people don’t understand – don’t particularly want to understand – so our black sisters and brothers bear their burden while many of their white friends, neighbors, co-workers and community leaders condescend politely with a quiet indignation. Like, “I’m not a member of the KKK, how can I be racist?” Or, “Slavery is past history. Get over it.” Most white folks would never say those things out loud, of course, especially in the South. The patina of patronizing privilege is our native language. (“Bless her heart.…”)
I can’t imagine that kind of patience.
It’s not ancient history. A Jewish friend once reminded me that Jews still say, “We were slaves in Egypt.” Like a scar that never quite hides a jagged wound, slavery is apparently a pain that never heals. There is nothing ancient about that history.
While Emancipation may sound ancient, the 150 years that have passed represent only three generations. A friend’s father remembers his own grandfather talking about his childhood – during the Civil War. Do you know when the last recipient of a Civil War pension died? Last week! Really.
“I hope I have the courage and commitment to be impatient, too.”
My generation enjoys the financial and social/cultural benefits that come from the hard work and the education and success and wealth that was afforded to our great grandparents. I have fond memories of my Great-Granddaddy Huggins who was born about 1880. And our black friends mostly remain silent as we diminish their pain by prattling on about “ancient history.”
I can’t imagine that kind of patience.
More tangibly, many of our parents have enjoyed wealth that finds its basis in the benefits that followed World War II, the GI Bill and other benefits that were largely denied to black soldiers. That wealth-crushing discrimination continued through the second half of the 20th century through red-lining and mortgage and loan practices that excluded blacks from amassing wealth through equity and business opportunity. And the legacy of “Urban Renewal” (known to many of our black neighbors as “Negro Removal”) continues as black communities are decimated through the gentrification of many black neighborhoods. All in the name of economic “development.”
We pride ourselves in the great character of that Greatest Generation and the financial success they created and have passed on to their children. That wealth disparity hangs like a weight around their necks, but our black friends mostly sit by, working for change and waiting for us to do so.
I can’t imagine that kind of patience.
So, when an unarmed black man is killed again and again and again at the hands of law enforcement, I can at least begin to understand the anger that finally explodes into the streets. I don’t condone or celebrate looting or setting businesses afire, any more than the vast majority of peaceful protesters, but I can begin to understand how the fire of that anger accelerates from a smoldering protest into a raging torrent of destruction.
The protests and demonstrations this time are different. They may be a sign that something really is changing, even with the longsuffering patience of the black community. At least I pray that is so.
In a meeting last weekend with clergy and our city’s mayor, two black pastors spoke about some of the younger generation, including some of the black millennials who have been gathering in our streets each night. The mayor had just told us how much difference our presence had made in the streets during the Uprising in 2016, to which one of the pastors said, “We don’t know these people – and they don’t give a damn about clergy.” Another echoed the comment and went further, “They don’t know Martin King, don’t care about him, don’t know what he said. We have followed Dr. King. We’ve had patience. They don’t.”
I can’t imagine the kind of patience my black friends and colleagues have displayed over the decades of my life. I’m grateful. And I’m sorry.
I don’t want to imagine more than we’re seeing now of what black impatience looks like, But it’s past time, and it’s not my imagination. Something is changing. I hope I have the courage and commitment to be impatient, too.
Related opinion:
Darrell Hamilton II | We can’t talk about racial justice without addressing the ‘value gap’
Kristopher Norris | Could the righteous, riotous fire of Pentecost be burning in the protests for racial justice?
Wendell Griffen | Justice for George Floyd: what went wrong and how to make it right
Andrew Manis | George Floyd and the silence of white evangelical America
Kris Aaron | Will we white Christians continue to ignore the pleas of our black brothers and sisters?
Susan M. Shaw | ‘I can’t breathe’: three words that capture the crushing weight of systemic racism in America
Cody J. Sanders | ‘We can’t breathe’: an apt Pentecost prayer for white Christians
Timothy Peoples | Ahmaud, Breonna, Christian, George, and The Talk every black boy receives
