Walking as Jesus Walked-In Our Neighbor`s Shoes
By Bill Jones, Lay Leader
Hunters` Glen Baptist Church, Plano, Texas
I recently watched two movies that I hadn`t seen in several years. One was an Oscar winner-Driving Miss Daisy. The other was a lesser-known, but no less powerful film, titled The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter.
Driving Miss Daisy, you may recall, tells of the unlikely friendship that develops between an elderly white Southern woman and Hoke, the black man that her son employs to drive her wherever she needs to go-especially to the church and the sto` (as Hoke pronounces it).
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, on the other hand, focuses on the life of a deaf mute-played by Alan Arkin-as he "listens" to others` hurts and tries to heal them, yet is unable to communicate his own deep sense of loneliness. This film also takes place in the South.
Each film contains scenes graphically depicting the inhumanity that some people have routinely visited upon others whom they perversely consider to be "beneath" them. Two scenes, in particular, moved my soul simultaneously to compassion and guilt.
In Driving Miss Daisy, the aging black man and the elderly genteel Southern white woman are stopped by Georgia state troopers who are suspicious of such a couple. They first question Hoke, whom they address as "boy." Then they ask Miss Daisy (who is Jewish) about her last name, Werthan, which she explains as being "of German derivation." Satisfied, they permit the pair to continue their journey. As the troopers return to their patrol car, watching Hoke and Miss Daisy drive away, one says to the other, "an ol` nigger and an ol` Jew-woman takin` off down the road together. That is one sorry sight!"
In The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Portia, the daughter of a local black doctor, and her husband Willie, board a carousel at a local carnival. As the carousel begins to turn, Willie reaches out to break the fall of a white woman who has lost her balance. After the ride, as Willie and Portia are making their way down the midway, the white woman`s husband shoves Portia to the ground in retaliation for Willie "grabbing" his wife. Then he and a couple of friends attack Willie. One of them pulls a knife. In the ensuing scuffle, Willie takes the knife away and seriously wounds one of his attackers. Willie is then arrested for attacking him. While in jail, Willie is placed in leg irons, one of which is so tight that it causes his leg to contract gangrene, requiring amputation.
When Portia`s father goes to the courthouse to protest his son-in-law`s inhumane treatment, an officer advises him to wait until the judge can see him. The doctor waits in the courthouse lobby throughout the morning and most of the afternoon. Finally, he asks the officer when the judge will be able to see him. The smirking officer informs him that the judge left several hours earlier. Then the officer and his friends laugh derisively as the doctor leaves, his protest unheard.
In December 2002, Washington was transfixed by the spectacle surrounding Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), who was ultimately deposed as Senate Republican Leader. During a 100th-birthday celebration for Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), Lott gushed that he was proud of his state`s support of Thurmond`s presidential candidacy on the Dixiecrat ticket in 1948, saying that the country wouldn`t have had "all these problems" if Thurmond had been elected. After a furor developed over his comments, he tried to explain them away as a mere slip of the tongue. However, his "apology" was belied by a history of such comments, appearances before groups notorious for discriminating against blacks, and his oft-stated admiration of Jefferson Davis. Besides, segregation was the sole reason for the existence of the Dixiecrats in 1948. There could have been no reason, other than support for segregation, for Lott`s continued support of that ticket.
However, by focusing on Trent Lott, we have missed the point. By the same token, if we focus on specific political stances, such as segregation (or "states` rights," its euphemistic substitute), we have likewise missed the point. Finally, if we focus on an emotionally-charged word such as "racism," we have certainly missed the salient point.
In the 21st century, few will admit to being racist. When incidents such as this occur, civil rights apologists trot out that word accusingly against all who support the perpetrator. The offender`s supporters are just as quick to deny such charges.
In other words, "racist" is a label that has lost its power. Labels tend to lose power over time, because they take complex issues and try to simplify them, and even trivialize them, if truth be told.
So what is the issue here if it isn`t racism? The real issue is love-agape love, the quality of love that Christ taught and exemplified. Christ loved us by living among us and identifying with us. He loved us by living as one of us and understanding the trials that we experience. He loved us by being sensitive to our hurts and our needs, and then taking action to meet those needs and make us whole.
Do we white folks really understand what black folks have experienced? Have we truly identified with them? Do we honestly care about making them whole?
When threatened with the loss of his job, Trent Lott ostensibly underwent a remarkable conversion. A senator who has consistently voted against affirmative action, he suddenly went before a largely black television audience and proclaimed his support for such programs. However, Christ went before hostile crowds and challenged them for lacking justice and mercy. Christ, as a Jewish man, dared to speak and minister to a Samaritan woman in love and concern for her needs. His actions defied the mutual hatred practiced by Jews and Samaritans of his day. Jesus also commanded his followers, if they owned much, to share with those who had little. Christ insisted on justice for all, especially the poor and otherwise disenfranchised, long before the U.S. Constitution. However, unlike the Constitution, he regarded all people-those of color like himself and those at the margins of society-as fully human persons, entitled to a full measure of dignity and justice.
Why? Christ fully understood the worth of every person to the Father, and he insisted that his children treat all people as possessing equal worth and dignity.
I`ll grant that most white folks today, even in the South, have accepted black folks as friends and co-workers. However, those black friends and co-workers know better than to dredge up the stories of segregation, lynchings, and cross-burnings. Many Anglos insist that such indignities and suffering are of another era; therefore, they aren`t personally responsible. From their perspective, these horrific stories are irrelevant to the present.
But the past is never irrelevant, especially to the victim. If we ignore our history, we risk perpetuating indignities in other forms, such as fewer and inferior job opportunities, and inferior pay for equal work. It is easy for white persons to now insist on a "color-blind society" while they still have blacks at a disadvantage. At this point, "color-blind" college admissions and employment opportunities merely harden the cement that encases minorities on the bottom rungs of the ladder.
No, we of European ancestry don`t understand what African-Americans have experienced, but we should make every effort to do so. These two movies are a good start. To Kill A Mockingbird is another excellent example of both a novel and a movie that graphically depict the sufferings and indignities that descendants of slaves have experienced at the hands of descendants of slave owners. Perhaps we can`t all do as John Howard Griffin did, in researching his classic book, Black Like Me, physically walking in their shoes and their skin-experiencing firsthand the sufferings and indignities. But we can certainly strive to learn about the history of African slaves in America so that we can better understand their pain.
We need to understand that we still have a responsibility to redress the wrongs of the past and ensure that they never happen again. We must realize that the wrongs of the past have not been fully overcome in the present. As long as there are Trent Lotts who long for the days of the Dixiecrats, there will still be white persons who consider blacks to be inferior, uppity, dangerous, unclean, lazy . . . and other such stereotypes.
Yes, there are still many who are either ignorant of, or refuse to be moved by, stories of "Bull" Connor unleashing his police dogs on black marchers; state troopers brutally killing three civil rights workers in Mississippi; white supremacists bombing a black church in Birmingham, killing three little girls; and random lynchings of blacks too numerous to count. Whites kept blacks out of hotels, restaurants, and even churches; restricted them to separate restrooms and water fountains; and relegated them to the back of the bus. These are all remnants of the segregation for which Trent Lott so publicly pined.
After Trent Lott`s "apology" and subsequent forced resignation as Senate Republican Leader, he blamed his "enemies" for his fate. According to him, they had "trapped" him, because they don`t like Christians. In the end, Lott used Christ to excuse his unholy attitudes. His "apology" rang false, because he ultimately cloaked himself in the name of Christ and dragged that holy name through the mud of his unholy behavior.
But Trent Lott is not alone. We in the majority are all in need of a deeper understanding of the hurts of our black brothers and sisters. We Christians are all in need of a deeper understanding of the love that our Lord has given us and demanded of us. Let us seek to understand the hurts and indignities suffered by blacks at the hands of our white forebears and then, in the spirit of Christ, act to heal them and make them whole.
