Flashes of Truth (Trinitarian article)

Flashes of Truth

Fr. Tony’s Letter to the Trinitarians

July-August 2020

“From that time on, Jesus began to preach, ‘Change your minds; God’s Reign is already in your midst.’”  Matt. 4:17

When I was first working on my dissertation, I earned my living as an adjunct lecturer at Montgomery College in Gaithersburg Maryland.  The second year I was there, we were all required to take anti-racism training: two days of intense conversation that most of my (white) colleagues warned me quietly were “a big waste of time.”   I thought of myself as on the side of the civil rights marchers and believed that I had gotten rid of the quiet prejudice of the 1950-60s Pacific Northwest where I grew up, and that by and large, racism was in the U.S., aside from the South and a few urban areas, a thing of the past.  I found most of the training helpful and reassuring.  I learned that subtle tricks of language still expressed racist prejudice without ever mentioning color: using the expression “you people,” talking about criminality and underachievement as if they were the special preserve of certain groups, simply not believing people of color when they told their stories, or even always wanting to give my take on the issue, as if it had equal or more standing than the stories thus disbelieved.   I also learned that the idea of “reverse racism” was a profound misunderstanding of the power dynamics at issue:  the trainer told me convincingly that kicking someone on the ground to the point of death is a very different act from being on the ground and kicking back to defend yourself. 

But then, on the second day, we got into the meat of the discussion, when people of color taking the training got a chance to tell their stories of suffering from the prejudice of others, white people like myself.   I thought to myself, “well this does not tally with what I know and believe about my country,” and (I hate to admit it) “these people (!) are overly sensitive: when they suffer a slight that could’ve happened to me or anyone, they chalk it up to racial prejudice.”  “What did that jerk actually say?”  “Did he use the N word?”  “Why do you think this was about your complexion or hair texture and not about the fact that you were annoying him by not giving him what he wanted?”  The reaction was swift and united:  “I know it was about race!  I can’t point to any specific word or action.  But I’ve seen it so many times with those clear indications, and the feel, the taste, the smell—it’s the same whether there’s tell-tale clues or not.  Don’t tell me what I experienced!  I was there, and I KNOW!”  So I went out of that training with one big take-away: listen to other people and don’t jump to conclusions.   And I told others when their turn came, the training was good and necessary. 

Fast forward about 10 years:  I was in China with my family on assignment from the U.S. Foreign Service.  Living in Beijing and speaking Chinese, I tried to go out and connect to local culture and history as much as I could.  One weekend, at a history museum, I noted that the fee for entry was 5 yuan (about $1) for “regular people,” and 50 yuan each ($10) for “foreigners.”  Having six in my family, it was a bit spendy, and I complained to the ticket taker.  She referred me to her boss, and I found myself in the grungy office of a minor cadre of the Chinese Communist Party.  I explained my objection: how it was unfair to charge me more, simply because of who I was.  It was a violation of basic Communist Party principles of equality and international solidarity.  He smiled, offered me jasmine tea in a mason jar, and said that I would have to pay the full price for foreigners. 

Everything he said and did was correct.  But it was clear to me from the moment I entered the room that he considered me not fully human, perhaps slightly above a chimpanzee in the order of the universe.  I could not point to any specific word or action, but everything he said and did was clearly rooted in his belief that I was a foreign devil (“yanggui”) whose only role was to submit to his enlightened Han Chinese rule. 

I paid the full foreigner’s price of admittance.  But I went away with a clear understanding of that scene that had played out at Montgomery College Anti-Racism Training a decade before.  I knew that man was a bigot.  And my trainers and POC fellow trainees knew that they had run into bigots like him, and like me, all their lives.

Years later I was surprised to hear at an academic conference that education, while often a first step out of oppression and degradation, was for many people also a screen, a barrier, that kept the rulers in charge and allowed only those who submitted into its acceptance.  This would have made no sense to me before.  But now?

It is hard to dismantle deep, imbedded racism.  It is hard to admit that one’s own take on the world, given to us by those we honor, respect, and love,  is in fact part of a system of oppression. 

When Jesus called people to repentance he called them to turn back on all that is past.  The Greek expresses this as metanoia—a change of one’s mind.  That’s why I translate “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand” by “Change your minds; God’s Reign is already in your midst.” 

We are at a pivotal point in our nation’s history.  We can confess the sin of slavery, the sin of racism, and make amends, or we can  hunker down and say there is no problem, that racism is gone, and that “colored people” are overly sensitive.

Jesus calls us to change our minds, and accept God’s Reign.