Racism and Children

Debra Van Ausdale’s provocative social scientific study entitled The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism militates against conventional perspectives on the unilinear transmission of racial prejudice from adult to child, as well as the ominous persistence of institutionalized racism in this country. By investigating the habitual behaviors and rhetoric of young children in a familiar environment without deliberate ethnographic intrusion, the author reveals a striking level of cognitive and emotional complexity in three-to-five year-old children, frequently ordered by relations of power and dominance.

In contrast with most fieldwork to date, Van Ausdale chooses to enter children’s ‘worlds of experience,’ in search of “how children themselves perpetuated racial and ethnic patterns, away from the prying eyes and controlling activities of adults” (2). She moves, thus, from an adultcentric worldview based on an ignorance-mimicry paradigm to a sociocentric perspective that stresses the centrality of the social-mind in the complex construction of Self through human interaction. Her observations illustrate the multiple ways in which children experiment with color and power. By reshaping, blending and synthesizing racial and ethnic information from multiple input sources, children begin to build a toolbox for making sense of and evaluating racial categories. Often dismissed as impossible on account of their immaturity and lack of cognitive development, children are shown to continually carry out complex performances of identity-roles based on power asymmetries. This imbalance fuels and is fueled by the pervasive specter of pejorative stereotyping. Van Ausdale shows how such conceptions are formed not in isolation, but rather in community with other children, which she labels the “process of self-other creation” (92). The text is littered with appalling vignettes of (proto?)racism at work: “only white Americans can pull this wagon” (37), or “I don’t want an African taking care of her [a doll]” (86). And yet, a handful of cases reveal a surprising fortitude and prowess in children’s ability to negotiate intricate multi- and bi-racial identities: four-year-old Corinne’s statement about having ‘two colors in my skin’ due to her parental racial identities, for example. Van Ausdale effectively evidences her suspicion that “the question of color is much more than a question of physical reality” (58).

Van Ausdale’s strategies for reconciliation and growth towards equality maintain that “the unyielding reality of racial segregation at home remains an important and conspicuous part of most children’s everyday lives…Children learn what they live.” (202). This recognition re-focuses the racial lens on the home, which is often neglected in chastising indictments of institutionalized racist settings. The author effectively highlights the web of social and institutional activities that collectively perpetuate solidified power inequalities and prejudice, ranging from the home to the school to employment to incarceration and beyond. The church, too, operates within this broader network, while simultaneously offering a venue for re-programming parental positions on race.

Hope, thus, is never fully lost. Even within a system that produces “privileged participants in a racially rigged game” (210), moments of subversion and resistance break through: “‘So what are you?’ Susan asks Kumar. ‘A person,’ he replies.” (81)

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Opening Words: Declaration

[The following is inspired by Rev. Rankin's Sunday morning prayer, "I declare a reign of holiness," printed in the Winter 2008 issue of UU World.]

I declare an openness to novelty – encountering difference with tenderness, discord with humanity, divergence with tolerance, distinction with warmth of heart.

You declare a willingness to engagement – meeting conviction with value, obstinacy with grace, argumentation with love, closed-mindedness with patience.

We declare a covenant of compassion – embracing each other in humble gratitude for the limitations of our own being.

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Privilege Beyond Single-Issue Oppressions

In confronting racial injustice and the authorizing discourses of white privilege, Peggy McIntosh openly admits that she was "taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group." Consequently, she assembled a popular list of the fifty odd ways in which white privilege saturates daily practices and language in our society. Her project, "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," comes to life in this video:



While we are slowly coming to terms with the realization that white people are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, just as males are taught not to recognize male privilege, we still struggle to acknowledge the multiple forms of heterosexual privilege and the oppressive dominance of heteronormativity. Johnny Durham poignantly illustrates this third manifestation of privilege, as Rev. Tittle points out, in his pseudo-spoof, "Are you straight?"



It is a useful exercise for all of us to spend time considering the multiple oppressions we suffer ourselves and create for others.

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A Prayer for Guidance

Mighty God,
We tremble in uncertainty,
Quiver in fear of the widening abyss.

Markets are drowning,
Missiles are assembling,
Homes are vacating,
Jobs are vanishing,
Militaristic rhetoric is flaring,
Cartoons are degrading,
Hope is sinking...

What can we do, oh God?

Our souls find rest in You alone,
Our salvation comes from You.

We pour out our hearts to You,
For You are our refuge.

And still it pains the heart.

Let us pray:
For love,
For trust,
For change,
For guidance.

Amen.

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Called to Life

Unlike the spiritually blind disciples who failed Jesus time and again, Bartimaeus could see with his heart. He refused silence, and shouted all the more. Remarkably, Jesus took notice of this defenseless blind man and called him to courage. Without hesitation, Bartimaeus leaped to his feet and begged the Rabbi for his sight. What followed was nothing less than a miracle. For it wasn’t the superpowers of a deity that healed the blind man, but the honest and genuine faith of BarTimaeus that nourished the beggar’s life. The text never speaks of a physical cure, because the grace of God does not come in tablet form.

If we are to follow Bartimaeus and Jesus down the road to Jerusalem, we must find the courage to find God. For it is precisely such moments of paralyzing vulnerability, that God works to renew our faith in life. Helplessness comes in many shapes and sizes, and the whirlwind of disappointment and distress eventually meets us all. But that’s not the end of the story. We are always, every single one of us, called to love life.

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The New Testament Canon

The New Testament is not: a deliberate or pre-conceived collection of writings that understands itself as scripture; a systematic theology unified by a common message; an archive of solely Christian texts that exist outside of or beyond the Jewish cultural and religious context; self-consciously inspired (with the exception of John's Revelation).

The New Testament could be understood as: a multiplicity of manuscripts (of which we have no original autographs) that offer a multi-vocal account of similar events in a non-monolithic way; twenty-seven books written in (often poor) Greek; a fluid collection of texts that are inscribed with revisions, commentaries on Jewish Scripture and self-critique.

For me, the New Testament represents a politically arranged and deliberately pluriform anthology of humanly-drafted texts that document mythopoetic narratives and 'ethical' declarations held as important by a particular social group. And yet, as Ricoeur suggests, their "extravagance" lies in the creative potential engendered by the relationship between content and form, such that the inter-textual interplay of genres reconfigures humanity and moves us towards a more socially just understanding of the self. They reach out and invite us into a world of divine creativity.

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Listening to God’s Promise

“A promise through the ages rings.” And what a promise it is! A promise of faith to trust in the workings of the world; a promise of love that casts out doubt, fear and despair; a promise of hope that shines in the dark abyss of broken hearts and shattered minds.

The greatest promise of all, the “universal song of life,” echoes throughout God’s beloved community. Far too commonly, however, God’s reign undergoes a destructive transformation. Hope is directed away from the present and into the distant future, reserved for the select few. I resist this ghettoization of hope!

For me, the scriptural promise of justice, equity and compassion overflows into the now, embodying not a place but an attitude – a disposition, a relationship, a way of life. Hope calls forth humility in the face of arrogance, confidence in the face of uncertainty, compassion in the face of hatred and injustice.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus of Nazareth metaphorically compares the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed, the smallest seed you plant in the ground (Mark 4:31). How can it be? The majesty of God’s presence downgraded to a single kernel? Precisely! I understand the parable as nothing less than a call to hope – a recasting of the Holy in the very promise of growth. To seek God is to locate the divine in small, daily actions. A single act of kindness moves us towards communion with the Spirit of Life. “From deep despair and perished things a green shoot always, always springs,/ And something always, always sings.” God sings hope to us in the minutia of the everyday; the question is whether we stop to listen.

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