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1. In my observation, many, if not most, white Christians understand the racial designation “white” as a narrow reference to skin color. Any critique of “whiteness” is therefore perceived and experienced as a condemnation of a God-given, unchangeable physical trait (Ps 139:14).
2. Add to that the unfortunate (particularly in this case) white cultural tendency to view things individualistically, it becomes difficult for such critiques not to be taken deeply personally—and offensively. Some respond with hurt, others malice, and still others with despair.
3. But what if “white” means something else? Indeed, a careful reading of history reveals that since before the founding of our nation, “white” was never simply a phenotypic label, an objective, amoral description of epidermal hue.
4. Rather, “white” essentially served as class and social status indicator, one that denoted decency, morality, nobility — indeed, social supremacy more than ethnicity — in contradistinction to all that was “black.”
5. After all, the variety of skin tones of people representing so many ethnicities and nationalities can be described collectively as “white” only in contrast to darker hues. Alas, contrast was always the point; “white” functioned as difference—indeed, as superiority.
6. Across many generations, economic, political, legal, and religious institutions and social systems were built on these self-promoting notions of whiteness and the systematic diminishment, disenfranchisement, and dehumanization of those regarded as “black.”
7. So, it is this sense of whiteness that is rightly condemned. It doesn’t refer to personhood, melanin levels, or God-given ethnicity but to a status-conferring fiction upon the basis of which our society has been built and very real evils have been heaped on those not “white.”
8. And this is why there can be no progress in “racial reconciliation” among Christians apart from a historically and biblically informed understanding of whiteness—one attained only by traversing valleys of discomfort and tears, yet free of shame and shaming.
9. Indeed, those most committed to “racial harmony” should be the most eager—or willing, at least—to discuss the truth about whiteness.
