Racial Reconciliation: The Power of Words and Education
Approaching racial reconciliation from a complete position of weakness, I recognize my own ignorance and narrow worldview to understand the necessity and complexity of racial reconciliation in our communities and churches. Therefore I knew, the Race and Ethnic Relations class I would take this Fall would be eye-opening. What I did not expect, however, was the complexity of the change it would initiate in my heart.
A class with Dr. Johnson last year, taught me the power of words and the definitions behind them. As we read a book, The Rich Get Richer While the Poor Get Prison, my eyes were opened to the reality that even the words I use, when defined by those with certain agendas or power stakes, can hold vastly different meanings. In the book, these words had to do with crime and how the system preyed on the poor through the way crime was defined; for my class, the words used to define and describe racism and racial/ethnic relations took on new meaning. I began to see that, first and foremost, race was a social construction to group and maintain power systems within nations. The reality became that a “fact” I had lived by for so long was by no means fact, and in every way enforcing bad systems and thinking. Words like prejudice, discrimination, racism, and privilege suddenly took on new meaning as I began to understand the interrelationship between these words, the power behind the connotation they hold within different racial groups, and the realities of the power each word held based on whether you were the one oppressing or being oppressed. I began to see that racism was not just another word for discrimination specific to race, but included with it the systems of power necessary to enforce that kind of discrimination on groups of people and societies. I began to see how within my friend group those who were white assigned different value to prejudice and discrimination than those of other cultures and races. I began to see that privilege did not necessarily mean something earned, but could be given purely based on assigned worth and place in a society. Most importantly though, I saw how easily each word when spoken in a city blind to its racial tensions can go in one ear and out the other without any worth or frame of reference to anchor it to.
As I began to explore with my class the deeper roots of racism, especially in its origins, I began to see how one-sided and shaded education systems are in teaching true history and culture. Having studied peace education efforts in areas of ethnic conflict in my undergraduate work, I knew that in some areas entire curriculums were slanted to paint victors in a good light and those considered the Other in a negative light. I knew that in some countries entire parts of national history were just left out in order to “erase” abuses of power. What I never imagined was how pervasive that same kind of “historical cleansing” was within the United States. As I read through account after account of the history of different immigrant groups coming to America that I had never heard before, I began to re-imagine my idea of how our country was built, who shared in the founding of our nation, and the true meaning of citizenship in the United States. My worldview shifted and I began to understand how deep seeded my ignorance was, how necessary true education is, and that racial reconciliation was far more than making friends with people of other races. Racial Reconciliation requires a systemic change, within our nation and others, in not only the way we understand and talk about race, but also the education systems that continue to reinforce a distorted picture of history, culture, and societal systems. Racial Reconciliation involves actively awakening to the realities of race and ethnic relations around me and walking against the status quo that quietly reinforces deep seeded divisions and unjust systems.
