As a freelance missionary, a social critic, and (I should
add) a self-professed moral failure; I watched Obama's
speech this morning with great interest. I couldn't help
but thinking to myself that I was witnessing a profound
moment in history, something that would have been
unthinkable 40, 30, or even 20 years ago. I've never
publicly endorsed a political candidate and I don't plan on
doing so here (to be quite frank, I have some serious
disagreements with the Senator on a variety of issues), but
what I heard in the Senator's speech this morning was a man
who is both Caucasian and African-American (howbeit
African-American in a non-traditional sense) pleading with
members of both races to look past their prejudices,
abandon the politics of discontentment, and unite under a
common vision for the good of all.
As a white American evangelical, I've clearly grown up on
one side of the discontentment divide. My politically
conservative Christian background has taught met to
emphasize personal responsibility in the political sphere,
but eschew racism in the private sphere. The way this
usually translates on the white side of the discontentment
divide goes something like this: "I'm sick and tired of
black people (and other minorities) getting special
treatment just because of what my ancestors did. If there
are racial inequalities in our country between black people
and white people, then it's their own damn fault and-for
the love of God-I'm sick and tired of being called a
racist!"
Given my racial and socio-economic status, I can understand
this sentiment very well and, ironically, Obama seems to
understand it too, which is why he didn't condemn this type
of thinking outright in his speech. Rather than pointing
his finger at white discontentment as an example of
systemic racism, Obama put the blame on special interest
groups and corporate greed. While one can easily disagree
with this analysis, depending on whatever side of the
political divide you find yourself on, it's not so easy to
dismiss the fact that, for the first time that I can think
of, a formidable black candidate for the President of the
United States has officially given voice to white
discontentment-without using the wrath provoking word
"racist."
To further drive home the point, Obama spoke of his white
grandmother who loved him, cared for him, played a
significant role in raising him, and occasionally gave
voice to racially insensitive stereotypes. Obama's point,
which was in no uncertain terms relevant to the current
Jeremiah Wright debacle, is simply this: people are more
complex than than the sum of their racial discontentment.
The hallmark of the speech for me was when Obama addressed
the history behind the current economic and achievement
divide between black people and white people in the U.S.A.
I've known for a while that the violence in the ghettos,
the breakdown of the black family, and whatever other
deficiencies currently present in black culture aren't
simply a matter of black inferiority verses white
superiority, but there are historical factors that have
produced the situation today. The problem has been that
I've never been able to explain these historical factors to
the average discontented white male (including myself).
This is where the speech struck the deepest note in me:
"Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we
arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, 'the
past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past.'
We do not need to recite here the history of racial
injustices in this country, but we do need to remind
ourelves that so many of the disparities that exist between
the African American community and the larger American
community today can be traced directly to inequalities
passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under
the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were and are inferior schools. We still
haven't fixed them 50 years after Brown Vs Board of
Education and the inferior education they provided, then
and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap
between today's black and white students. Legalized
discrimination, where blacks were prevented often through
violence from owning property, where loans were not granted
to African American business owners, where black home
owners could not access FHA mortgages, where blacks were
excluded from unions, or the police force, or the fire
department, meant that black families could not amass any
meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That
history helps to explain the wealth and income gap between
blacks and whites and the concentrated pockets of poverty
that persists in so many of today's urban and rural
communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men and the
shame and frustration that came from not being able to
provide for one's family contributed to the erosion of
black families, a problem that welfare policies for many
years may have worsened. And the lack of basic service in
so many urban black neighborhoods, parks for kids to play
in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick up,
building code enforcement, all helped create a cycle of
violence, blight, and neglect that continues to haunt us."
In sum, I didn't agree with everything that Obama had to
say in his speech (especially when it came to his one-
sided statement putting the blame solely on radical Islam
and none on Israel for the current problems in the Middle
East), but, on the whole, I think it was an important
speech that everyone in our nation needs to hear. Rather
than just playing to one side of the racial divide, Obama
challenged white people to understand the roots of black
anger and black people to get past their anger and take
personal responsibility for their lives. Perhaps there
really is something to this "removing the plank from your
own eye" business a humble carpenter from Nazareth stated
so beautifully 2,000 years ago.
----------------------------------------------------
Aaron Taylor is the founder of Great Commission Society, a
missionary organization dedicated to serving indigenous
ministries working in the least evangelized areas of the
world.
http://www.greatcommissionsociety.com-Website
http://www.aarondtaylor.blogspot.com-Blog
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