If we want to confront the evils of racism, we must begin with ourselves. These testimonies reflect the efforts of the parishioners of Christ the King to recognize the reality of racism -- in its individual and systemic forms -- in our own personal histories. Stay tuned for more.

Growing up in a small white town in Indiana, I never saw any outright racism, probably because there weren’t any non-white folks to be racist against. I attended a private Christian college for undergrad, pretty much all white as well. My exposure to people who didn’t look like me was minimal, and I had never considered the effects of this on my understanding of the world and my place in it.
I spent the January term of my second year of college at an urban mission in Chicago. Touted as a “cross-cultural” experience for white evangelical students, the Olive Branch mission invited participants to live for a month in a rehabilitation center on the southwest side of Chicago. We spent our days learning about the racial and political histories of various Chicago neighborhoods and volunteering for local agencies. Our evenings were spent getting to know the center’s residents and processing what we had experienced that day. 

I had several eye-opening experiences during my time at the mission, but the one that most readily comes back to me almost twenty years later is our visit to the DuSable Museum of African American History. On arrival, our cohort of some 30 students had assembled in the museum’s auditorium for a talk with someone from the museum staff.

“Raise your hand if you have ever heard of Benjamin Banneker.” The question came without preamble from a Black man who had appeared on the stage. He glared out as no one raised a hand. “How about Mary McLeod Bethune?” Nothing. “W.E.B. DuBois.” No hands. “Sojourner Truth.” One hand. “George Washington Carver.” A few hands, finally. “Right. The peanut guy. Some of you know that one.” He nodded, unimpressed.

“Yours is a whitewashed history.” Simple words, a statement of fact. “Your history books are full of white people whose successes in this country were owed to them as part of Manifest Destiny. When a non-white person shows up in your history books, it is because he or she is part of the story of white people. You just can’t tell the story of how white people eliminated racism without Martin Luther King, Jr.” 
But, as the speaker went to explain, our history books could easily neglect mentioning Banneker, Dubois, and Bethune without apparent consequence. And even if these names had been included, we were given no reason to remember them. “Your whitewashed history is no accident. You are trapped in a story which you do not yet understand.”

It wasn’t an easy thing to listen to. Our speaker was not gentle. He didn’t coddle us as he went on to describe the effect on Black communities, Latino communities, Native communities of a whitewashed history. Some among us were visibly upset, angry, hurt. Some of us felt unjustly blamed for not knowing a history that wasn’t ours. “It’s not my fault. I’m not racist. I didn’t make any of these choices.” I wasn’t the only one working over these thoughts in my mind.

Suitably primed, we were admitted into the museum. Exhibit after exhibit revealed a world that I had never encountered. The Bronzeville exhibit, chronicling the rise and fall of a golden age of Black culture in Chicago. Slavery exhibits with chilling material history. Civil rights exhibits, going far beyond the simplistic Rosa Parks and MLK narrative that I had been fed in school. The Black Wall Street Massacre. Scientists, inventors, mathematicians, religious figures – all part of a story that I had never heard.

Was this someone else’s history, some other people’s story, or was it also my own? What must our story be, if this all is part of it? What’s missing in my story, if so much has been omitted? Whose people are these people around me? Are they my people? Are they part of my history? Am I a part of theirs?

I took public transit out for some errands later that evening. Looking around on the way back, riding through those south Chicago neighborhoods, I saw that mine was the only white face on the bus. 

As I watched the protests following the death of George Floyd, I found myself reminiscing about my own experiences of racism. During my childhood, it was not unusual to hear racial and ethnic slurs spoken by my parents, maternal grandparents or neighbors. I recall feelings of discomfort, even as a child, and struggled to understand why those terms were being used to label "difference." 

Two formative events stand out for me. The first occurred when I was about 12 and my parents announced a planned move to the suburbs. I recall my horror at the thought of my family joining “white flight”. My objections fell on deaf ears. I remember venting my outrage to school friends and even teachers. Later, when I was in high school, two girls from Little Rock arrived at my high school (which also housed “boarders”). They were sent to Saint Louis to escape the newly mandated integration. Once again, I realized something was dreadfully wrong. Those experiences awakened something in me.

That sense of dis-ease stayed with me and contributed to activities that were significant to my adult ministry: my husband to-be and I tutored in a downtown housing project in Saint Louis in the early 60’s; my commitment, as a chaplain, to facilitate the relevant rituals and customs of diverse ethnic groups as death approached and to assist staff in becoming more comfortable with often, unfamiliar activities, to support the dying and their families; and, in later years,  I provided diversity education for new hospital staff. 

As a grandparent, over the past decade, I have celebrated the integrated education of my grandchildren on the edge of the city of Saint Louis, not far from my original home. I have watched them participate in school activities and sports and enjoy playdates with black and brown friends. 

However, over the past several years, the cumulative effect of repeated and violent deaths of primarily, young African American men and women, has challenged me to examine the rampant racism and the systemic injustice that discriminates and limits the potential of so many. I have been struck by the narratives of African-American parents (and those of other ethnic groups) describing the specific details of having the “talk” with their children in order to protect them from persecution and even death. I recall the words of one parent who described the called-for response as “humiliating etiquette”. These stories “hit home” for me, the mother of three grown sons. I realized that, for those parents, this ominous task was vital in order to mitigate the threat they bore given the color of their skin.  As if the “wooden beam” (Mt 7:5) has fallen from my eyes, I am becoming aware of the implications of the “white privilege” I have enjoyed and the cost of that privilege for so many.  
 
Story after story of racism, has shattered my complaisance and led to the realization that incremental change will not bring the needed transformation of unjust systems that continue to violate the human dignity of our brothers and sisters. Episodic efforts at inclusion are insufficient.  

This dawning awareness has shaped my commitment to join anti-racism efforts in order to confront the disparities and prejudices that defy the values Jesus lived and taught.  As a Catholic, I am grateful that my parish has provided an opportunity to explore, as well as to develop strategies to address, the inequities that perpetuate oppression and undermine the capacity to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39). 

As a teenager in the sixties in Philadelphia I wasn’t concerned or interested in the arguments that would ensue from family members over the Vietnam War and/or how these “colored people,” wanted Civil Rights. 

My father, who was a product of his own prejudicial upbringing, would make negative comments about these colored people and always warned us kids to stay away from their neighborhoods which were in the worst part of Philadelphia. 

Our neighborhood, however, was in one of the upper middle-class all white neighborhoods. A tight neighborhood with blocks of row homes that covered a three-mile span in all directions. With our homes being so close there wasn’t much that went un-noticed. I’ll never forget the day, after a neighbor put up a sales sign some neighbors saw a black couple enter their home. Within minutes of seeing the couple leave, other neighbors were knocking on their door, asking them if they were thinking of selling to a colored family?” Without even waiting for an answer, one guy said, “If you do, you and them will be sorry.” The crowd disbanded. The couple moved and a white family moved in.

As the years passed, I married and move to Eugene, Oregon, into another all white affluent neighborhood where whites felt the same about black folks as they did in Philadelphia. 

It wasn’t until 20+ years later did I become aware that I had become the prejudicial person my father was – unbeknown to me his stories now had become mine.  

At that time, I accepted a Contracting Officer’s (CO) position with the Department of Agriculture for whom I was working since my arrival in Eugene. My mentor was a bi-racial man and along with mentoring me in the field of Contracting, we soon became friends and often would have discussions about where I lived, how I was raised and/or him being bi-racial and married to a white woman. 

After one such discussion, he said to me, “Are you aware that you are a racist?” “What?,” I responded. Hell, I didn’t even know what a racist was! 

He told me and gave me a list of websites, suggesting that I check them out.  

Seeing and reading what Jerry’s people have been going through for so many years I was overwhelmed with grief and remorse. I was compelled to admit that I had known, I had heard, I had seen, I had denied it all!

Suddenly plagued with thoughts of the many negative racial jokes I had uttered over the years, the negative thoughts and feelings I experienced about these people and especially the time I played an influential part in stopping a low-income housing project in my Eugene neighborhood still causes me to hang my head in shame. This housing project would have afforded people of color a nice place to live – my justification was that it would reduce our property value. 

When Christ the King began the Antiracism Initiative, I knew I had to get involved. I was not surprised to learn that I still had racist beliefs. The only difference now is that I am not in denial of those beliefs and therefore, have made a promise to God that I will strive to learn and do all that I can to be an anti-racist treating all humans the way I want to be treated. With respect, dignity and equality.

In closing, my hope and prayer is for many of my white friends and neighbors to confront their own denial of their racist behavior and most importantly to not just say it but believe with all their hearts that we are indeed all God’s children, all being made in His image and likeness regardless of the color of our skin.