My daughter is black. She is loud, boisterous, opinionated, charismatic, stubborn, and lively. I love with her with the same ferocity with which she does life. It’d be easy for me to say, “I’m not a racist.” But I must admit: I have racist thoughts.
Here’s what I mean. I can remember a couple years back after a particularly difficult time of parenting that I wondered, “I wonder if my daughter is so loud and opinionated because she’s black?”
That’s a racist thought. Straight up.
It grieved me to see it in me.
That’s a racist thought. Straight up.
It grieved me to see it in me.
It’s a racist thought because it stems from a racial stereotype: the sassy black woman. That stereotype was handed to me by society—a society that used the stereotype to keep black women in their place—and then it wormed it’s way deep into my mind, only to come out as a parent.
Until we the subconscious biases and/or stereotypes we accept as true to be unveiled, we should accept that it’s likely we believe racist ideas—and that eventually they will come out. Doesn’t matter if you have friends of color. Unchallenged, those ideas will make an appearance.
The question, then, isn’t, “How do we keep them from coming out?” The question is, “How do I become the kind of person that, when those ideas comes out, I will be humble enough to own them and repent?”
It’s in repentance that the real work of disentangling ourselves the ideas that are hidden. Refusal to accept that we could harbor racist ideas is to believe the lie that we’ve been unaffected by our racialized society.
No one wants to be called a racist. But racism is worse. And it is perpetuated when we refuse to acknowledge and reflect on the possibility that we hold racist ideas. So please, friends, be humble. Accept your sinfulness. Let yourself be challenged. See the pain as a waking up.
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