Overcoming Racism Through Conflict

I will begin my thoughts focusing on what I might call classical United States racism, or the tension between blacks and whites. My thoughts and studies on the problem of race have led me to believe that simply having good feelings toward someone of another race or even having an appreciation of another race is not the same thing as not being racist. The best way to describe my old views of racism is to say that I used to think of racist as a verb and non-racist as a noun. In other words, I always associated racists with acts of violence or hatred and non-racist by their lack of violent or hateful acts. This definition leads people to believe that so long as they don't lynch, burn crosses in people's yards, use the "N" or talk disparagingly of another race, they are not racist. The other implication of this line of thinking is that racism is the perversion or deviation from the natural state of equality. That is to say, we are naturally born non-racist and become racist only through learned behavior.

While the absence of violent and hateful acts is certainly preferable to their presence, their absence does not ensure the absence of racism. In today's racism, if it ever was any different, non-racism should be the verb as it is the "active" state and racism the default. This is because racism is not really about color - which can be overlooked - it really is about dealing with those who are different.

Those people who claim not to be racist because they love everything about another culture know very little about racism. It is not how you react to those you admire who are different than you but rather about how you react to those whose differences challenge you; your self image, your sense of order, justice or decency. Those who have learned how to live alongside people who are different, and different in challenging ways, while retaining their own cultures, have something to teach us about racism.

It is for this reason that I value the moments when we realize the differences that separate us. These moments of conflict create the opportunities necessary to overcome racism. Efforts to overcome racism should not seek to gloss over or eliminate these moments of conflict. If these moments cease to exist it means either we have become homogeneous or rudderless, without culture or norms. Neither of these results would be desirable, the first, possibly more dangerous than the second, results in a society devoid of variety and no closer to tolerance than when it began. The second state would be one that lacked any conviction or community.

Overcoming racism means looking squarely at the differences that challenge you, make you uncomfortable, offend your sense of justice, order or decency and learning to respect one another all the same.

Cumulative Decisions and the Problem of Agency

We often say that free agency is the freedom to make choices but not to choose the consequences of those choices. The problem with this concept of free agency is that there are really very few unique decisions. That is, there are few decisions that we make that are not, to a large extent, determined by previous decisions.

Life is a series of choices and our choice to follow after righteousness is a cumulative one. Consider the following, if sin does indeed make us dead to righteousness, or rather, if the consequences of one decision alters your nature such that all subsequent decisions are tainted by that experience (think of chemical dependence or decisions that jade or disillusion someone) then are we totally free only for as long as don't make any decisions? If free agency is only the ability to choose, but provides no protection from consequences then I would argue we are only really free once, on our first choice. Every choice thereafter is colored by the choices we made before so it would seem that the older we get, the more choices we make, the less freedom we actually have to choose.

Wordsworth wrote of this phenomenon when he wrote Ode to Intimations of Immortality, "There was a time...when every common sight to me did seem appareled in celestial light...It is not now as it has been of yore;...the things I which I have seen I now can see no more."

In religion we talk about it as the consequences of sin. Our sins make us dead to righteousness.

In every day talk, we call it jaded, cynical, discouragement, untrusting, a grudge, revenge, hate, misery, and the desire that all become as miserable as the you. All those feelings that separate you from feeling close to the divine.

It appears to me, the real gift of agency, comes not as a single premortal endowment or inherent gift to the individual but rather in its application to the day to day disillusionment that would otherwise sweep away any ability for us to choose righteousness.

In the secular world, I believe this is what is meant by living in the moment. The ability to act without the weight of past decisions depressing our spirits or clouding our future.

In the religious world we call this repentance and it is the great news of the gospel. We do not have to be captive to our past decisions. We can live above the reality we experience. And that truly is a gift.