Racism, the unpardonable or unrepentant sin?

Recently, I came across a 2012 interview with John Tyler’s grandson as he toured his family’s Virginia plantation on YouTube. Tyler was the tenth U.S. president, born in 1790, yet he had a third-generation descendant alive in the 2010s. That means three generations of the Tylers’ lives spanned three centuries.
What amazed me even more was how casually his grandson explained how he came to own the large plantation: it was an inheritance. Sadly, if someone had pointed out that it was enslaved Africans who built the very structure he was living in, it would have been met with some form of “I don’t want to hear that.” None of us wants to, but I am afraid we must. Here is why.

Just before leaving office in 1845, President Tyler signed a bill that resulted in the annexation of my home state of Texas, adding it to the other slave states. But it was also said of him that he believed chattel slavery was a complex issue. Today, many argue that racism is a complex issue. I disagree, but in this case, that “complexity” resulted in his referring to slavery as an evil while at the same time benefiting from the very thing he verbally condemned. That is where we are today, only applying this double-mindedness to different subject matter. You see far too many verbally condemn racism while continuing to practice it.
Repenting of racism is a slow process that takes love and patience. People don’t always get on board right away. And the word “racism” itself is confusing, with different people using it in different ways. Racism is a matter of dehumanization that has one group of people assuming superiority over another. That means racism is actually the precursor to the racist behavior and activity we see. For example, White supremacist actions or activities are only the outcomes of a deeply embedded attitude of racial superiority.

In broader terms, American segregation, the Jewish Holocaust, South African Apartheid, and worldwide settler colonialism all happened due to an attitude of superiority that was then acted on. This is why targeting individual acts or isolated events is inadequate. That is because the underlying attitude of racial superiority guarantees that for every incident addressed, another is waiting in the wings to take its place.
We have recurring race issues today, and very little progress has resulted from responding to “events” followed by conversations about them. Part of the reason is that people are convinced racism is an identifiable behavior and not a state of mind. Consequently, many people in the majority culture like to think racism is just about actions. That makes it easy for them to say, “I’m not racist because I’ve never done X.” But the real story is in the stuff we don’t say, like the quick reactions, the tensions experienced, the quiet choices about who people welcome and who they don’t. That’s where the rubber meets the road, and the real work should begin.

That is why I believe a Christian ethical code, grounded in justice and responsibility, is the only viable path to repentance. John 3:16 is arguably the most famous verse in the Christian Scripture. Still, it has become so overfamiliar that it’s rarely explored in depth in sermons or daily conversations, often reduced to a slogan on signs at football games or on bumper stickers. However, what this verse actually reveals is the inclusive nature of God’s love and how it is entirely selfless and profoundly sacrificial. God’s willingness to offer His only Son for the whole world illustrates love in its truest form, not merely a feeling or an ideal. Now let me apply that to race.
People who continually look past racism as not all that important need to repent. They should become sensitive to the needs of today’s oppressed minority groups and then willingly offer something of themselves to assist them. However, for that to happen, they will need to overcome their double-mindedness. At that point, it will become possible to meet the needs of others not because they are “like us” but as a matter of principle.

Let me confess something to you that illustrates what I am saying about double-mindedness. I subscribe to a weekly online communication that contains stories of poverty, as well as other tragedies happening worldwide, such as war, natural disasters, and the displacement that results from these events. Naturally, it is heart-wrenching to read many of the stories, and I have been left in tears on more than one occasion. Here is the thing. I don’t get angry about them, I just feel sad and sympathetic.

In this blog, I use double-mindedness to acknowledge that I can be angry about a small injustice affecting me. But by contrast, horrendous events affecting others never elicit the same degree of concern. Okay, I hate to admit this, but I want you to know what can push my anger button. A driver cutting me off! Why do I not emote the same way to real tragedies in the lives of others? This selective outrage reveals that I can allow my own comfort to be of extreme importance while remaining callous to the suffering of others. That is just how we have permitted racism to carry on in our society and our churches for so long, and only biblical repentance can turn that around. Unpardonable? Yes! Repentable? Yes again, and repentance is the surest cure for indifference.