Excising the Pain of My Family`s Racism
By Kerry Smith
The magic number is now 28. Not days or anniversaries or any streak to champion. Instead, it is the number of surgeries and procedures that now have befallen me, the roots of which are found in a painful past.
The day was bright and sunny. The wind blew softly, and the sunlight shown through the leaves of a tall oak tree, causing the light to dance and move with each breeze. My grandfather had his feet propped up on that tree while sitting in one of those old aluminum folding lawn chairs as I played with his and my grandmother’s little cockapoo puppy. In his lap was a nickel-plated Colt 38 pistol with ivory handles. My grandmother’s beautiful orange day lilies danced from the warm summer breeze and the ground was filled with Camel cigarette butts, strewn all around from the smoking habit that had stained my grandfather’s fingers yellow. It was such a beautiful day that I remember it even though it has been 56 years ago when I was only three- years-old.
Out of that occasion, blue sky, leaves dancing on the ground, beautiful flowers and all, came the ring of my grandfather’s voice as he yelled, “Get your goddamned black ass on the other side of the street or I will blow it off!”
I was jolted from my innocent play and looked up to see an African American man hurriedly walking across the street to the other side curb that lined the opposite lane, where he stepped up to the sidewalk and rushed along to the little grocery store that was cattycorner to my grandparents’ home. He knew that in my small town in those days that “Mr. Gus” (my grandfather’s name) would do just exactly what he said he would do because of what he had already done in the name of hatred and racial cleansing.
Mr. Gus was as racist as anyone you could ever imagine. He was a third generation grand something or other in the Ku Klux Klan. My mom used to tell the story of his coming home from one of their rallies, wearing the white hood and garments associated with the Klan and how it had scared her to death. He would travel every weekend to somewhere in Georgia where he and others would conduct raids in order to beat and scare people of color and, in some instances, even conduct lynchings.
In later years, we would sometimes sit out in the backyard of his home as he told stories of how the Klan had carried out some of the most heinous activities the mind could imagine. He would relish the details, as if he championed their success, almost like the retelling of a scoring drive in the final two minutes of a football game. He would be gleefully laughing at the success of his violence as though it were a trophy displayed on the shelves of some sports-loving child.
Those stories are still there in my soul. They are still there because I was supposed to participate in these events along with one after another of we southern sons. If we didn’t, we were called “nigga lovas.” We all were expected to join in these activities. Our entire family held on to racism in the same way that, at family meals, we would pass the chicken, the chitlins, the butterbeans,and that pound cake. “Excuse me, PawPaw, can you pass that bowl of racism so I could get me a big ole’ spoonful!!!”
I attended Southern Seminary at a time when the mind, soul and heart were encouraged to meet in the middle for a healthy washing. One of the courses that had a profound impact on my life was a course in Black History and Christianity, taught by Dr. Immanuel McCall. I had left my home to follow the calling of God and, in doing so, I had lost my inheritance or what little there was left of it. First of all, you didn’t leave “the family” without repercussions and, second of all, if you were at an institution where you examined yourself in the light of scripture and spirit and had changed, your values would change and so would your commitments.
It was in that particular light that I corrected my grandfather’s son-in-law, my uncle, when within earshot of my children on one particular visit, he went on a tirade blaming the “niggahs” for everything wrong in our society. I could not sit by and allow this and I corrected him. And in one fell swoop, I lost any relationship with him and any inheritance I might have had. I had, as my aunt would tell me later, disavowed my heritage because of what I was doing in helping my children to live a life without racism.
But a childhood and adolescence filled with racism, pain and injustice does not simply go away without its tentacles reaching to pull you back into all of it. I think it is right here, at the crossroads of influence and intimidation and emotional and physical pain, where all of it comes together in a force so strong that it can cause intense physical issues all the way up until death, simply as the result of a childhood influenced by such an adverse experience.
If you want to understand the impact of living a life of pain and injustice, look up the acronym “ACEs: Adverse Childhood Experiences.” The book associated with this is called Childhood Disrupted: Adverse Childhood Experiences and if you believe that the kind of childhood I experienced or what others experience does not have enormous lasting effects, this book is worth a view. If ever there was a call to a children’s ministry that offers love and hope, freedom and the love of God, and bowlfuls of helpings of grace—real grace, God’s grace—with hugs so tight that one may feel faint, then it is right at this important developmental stage of childhood where the foundation of living life gracefully is laid.
So, it is number 28 and it will be number 29 in the Fall. These numbers represent the surgeries and procedures I have had done on my spine and my neck, having my lumbar spine fused, my cervical spine fused, and my hands, my precious hands that do art work and hold my children and wife. These are the hands that have helped me get beyond my very own ACEs through carving. They have been impacted by a dysfunctional past as well as having been operated on. If we want to work on ridding our nation of racism, I believe we should look at the way we do children’s ministry because, well, for some of us, the ACEs of racism have done awful damage to us at the age of our childhood. It does not however have to be the last word on our impact on our children. A word of grace should instead be the very first word, because some child somewhere has a grandfather who is spewing racism, and a little boy or girl is drinking it all in.
As I remember the pain of my childhood, I leave you with this passage found in Matthew 19:14 KJV: But Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
— Kerry Smith suffers from disabling physical pain which gives perspective to his understanding of other painful experiences.
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