From “US: The Resurrection of American Terror” by Rev. Kenneth W. Wheeler
I believe that there is hope for white people. But there has to be a willingness on their part to move from a place of arrogance to a place of humility. Humility allows for empathy. It allows white people to see their own humanity but it also allows for white people to see their own humanity in my Black body and in other Black bodies that they have rejected, devalued, and despised. We need more than sadness, sorrow, or pity from white people when we are the victims of institutional racism. White sorrow minus any action to change the cause of the hurt makes the hurt even more painful.
There are many times when I feel the conversations we have on race, whether in the larger society or in the Church, are one-sided. To people of color, these are more than just conversations. We do not have the luxury of being unaffected by these issues on a personal level. People of color wrestle with these conversations about race every day of our lives. We are speaking about something that is deeply personal, real, and pernicious. We are speaking about issues that could result in our W.E.B. DuBois means when he uses the term Double Consciousness. People of color are forced to live in a state of abnormality, pretending on the one hand that things are “normal” when the reality is just the opposite. This gaslighting within one’s very own consciousness creates a daily mental anguish that is debilitating. Our wrestling over the sin of white supremacy leaves us exhausted and diminished, while white people are left untouched and unmoved. We need you to care, white siblings. We need you to be honest, transparent, and humble. We need you to replace your stringent defensiveness and incomprehensible denial with humility. You can make some decisions and some choices that will enlarge your own humanity. You have both the power and the freedom to make some choices that can expand and enrich the words of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, that can make them become real for all Americans.