Tag Archives: Race

Racial Isolation

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The other day I told you that my son, Joshua, was my hero because he went from having a racial identity crisis to understanding his identity in Christ and how he should behave because of it. Like all of us, this week Joshua’s identity was challenged.

“I’m not a Trader Joe’s kid because you have to be white to be a Trader Joe’s kid,” Joshua said with disdain after his bi-weekly trip to the moderately priced health-conscious grocery store. He was in the other room so I had him come to me and repeat what he said. As he looked at the white children on the ‘Trader Joe’s Kids’ stickers the store gives to children, he said, “I’m not a Trader Joe’s kid because I’m not white.” Initially, I wanted to tell him what he was saying was ridiculous and then affirm his blackness. Instead I asked him what made him say that Trader Joe’s kids have to be white. He told me that there were only a few black people in the store and that he was the only black kid. “There was no one but me. It was all white. And how come Ferndale is all white, too?” he asked, referencing a slightly integrated neighboring city where we shop at a health food store. Though Joshua has gone to Trader Joe’s and Ferndale for as long as he can remember, he had a moment of awakening that seemed to have him seeing more than him being the only black kid; he was getting the sense that he didn’t belong.

And I know that feeling all too well. Though I have full confidence in the abilities God has given me, I can sense when others don’t have that confidence, evoking the feeling that, to them, I don’t belong. I get it in retail shops, in the halls of academe, in a church I may visit on vacation, and on the streets of a neighboring suburb. And when people don’t have confidence in your ability to be intelligent, kind, hardworking or honest, to name a few, they make this clear with where they shop, work, play and live, and most times that’s away from you.

So I reminded Joshua that from the blood of one man God created all nations of men, but it is we who tend to live with those who only look like us. “We separate ourselves, Joshua. You have a right to be anywhere you want to be. You are a Trader Joe’s kid because you’re a kid who shops there all the time. Just because you’re the only black child does not mean you don’t belong, no matter what anyone says.” His face lit up, and I knew he believed me.

Joshua’s questioning whether or not he’s a Trader Joe’s kid is the reason discussions on blacks’ contribution to society and race relations can’t be limited to Black History Month. We must continuously discuss how exclusion and isolation breed alienation and how Christians can’t be party to such behavior, whatever race you are. Living in the Metropolitan Detroit area, which is reportedly the most racially segregated in the country, I know I have a lot of work to do. I hope Joshua never fails to share his feelings of isolation or even his prejudiced actions. This way we can check his feelings and actions against God’s word and affirm or correct where he is.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Identity Crisis

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A little more than a year ago my 7-year-old son, Joshua, had an identity crisis. He said the pretty ladies were white and he wanted to be white. Oh, you know my heart sunk. My son didn’t think his momma was pretty. He despised how his grandmothers, aunts and friends look. Blinking to hold back tears, catch my breath and move the lump from my throat, I asked him did he know what he was saying meant. I asked him did he know that he was saying that he didn’t think his momma was pretty. He thought for a second and then said, “Yes. The pretty ladies are white. You don’t have clothes like the ladies at the casino.”

Joshua, 7 years old

I couldn’t hear what Joshua was trying to say. I saw little children picking the white baby doll over the black baby doll. I thought, “How could this happen? He has an Afrocentric mother, parents who love him and affirm his blackness. He’s around positive and progressive black people. He owns and reads books with black images. And he doesn’t watch that much TV. How could a baby like mine say he wanted to be white?” And I felt like a failure. I hadn’t instilled cultural pride into my child and now he was telling me so. After the nanosecond of these thoughts flooding my mind I thought to ask him WHY he wanted to be white. He reasoned: “All the white people wear nice clothes. The black children on TV don’t have food and clothes and hell is dark. I want us to be white.”

With his one hour of television a week, which included pleas to help poor children in Africa, casino billboards with fancy dressed white people, and lessons on salvation, Joshua had ascertained that all things white must be good and all things black must be bad, and he didn’t want any of us to have any part of anything bad. And though what he was saying revealed a bad situation, I was relieved. At 6, my son was a critical thinker and he wanted what he perceived to be the best for him and his family. Now the task was to teach him about propaganda meant to entice and make him feel less than others.

I thought I would deluge him with the history of black oppression at the hands of whites, saturate my home with more Afrocentric images, become involved in former activities where he would see me dressed in formal clothes and be around those I knew who flaunted their money and status. But as a strong black woman in recovery who is healing from racial and social pride, I knew these were bad ideas. They would perpetuate in Joshua what I was trying to get rid of in me. So I did what I should have done in the first place: pray.

In the middle of the night, Proverbs 6:25 came to my mind and I knew God was giving me the answer to help my son and others who may be competitive to the point of being covetous. “Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.” This ‘her’ was the ‘strange woman’ in verse 24 and though the strange woman here is interpreted whore, the Hebrew word also means “foreign; someone not like you.” And the word lust is the same Hebrew word for covet. Joshua loves the Bible and constantly looks for applications in his life. I knew we needed to revisit The 10 Commandments, specifically “Thou shalt not covet” because God was saying at the root of Joshua’s identity crisis was an issue with covetousness. Joshua was coveting his neighbor’s skin color and possessions, and I was convinced that Joshua would get this. He did.

On his own, Joshua said, “I’m telling God, ‘I know you gave me this skin color, but I don’t want it. I want white skin.” Then he looked embarrassed and curious, like he had just been scolded and knew what the consequences would be if he didn’t stop coveting. Joshua learned the lesson immediately and there has been no more talk about wanting to be white. This lesson, along with teaching that God created ‘all nations of men,’ has helped Joshua understand that his being black was no accident but an intentional incident, and because of that he has no reason to covet. Joshua is my hero because he took the word of God and immediately applied it to his life. Also, Joshua now is quite proud to be black, constantly expressing awe and joy when discovering blacks’ accomplishments. I’m just working on his ability to love all the nations of people God has created and not seek to return hate for hate. As we reflect on the state of black people during this Black History Month, I think Joshua’s lessons are good for us all.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Let's Celebrate Black History

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Let’s Celebrate!

It’s Black History Month. I’m black and I want to celebrate that aspect of me. I try to do it all the time, not by being over the top about it but giving a proper due to those of my hue. Some Christians don’t think race should be an issue at all. They cite Galatians 3:28. This scripture doesn’t dismiss race but affirms that all races, genders and nationalities in Christ are equal. Even though some use this scripture to say we shouldn’t celebrate blacks’ contribution to society by noting their race, I use this scripture to say the opposite. Because blacks and their works have been consistently, systematically even, marginalized throughout the decades, and because God looks at Christians the same regardless of race, I believe I am obligated to highlight black Christians. But I won’t just celebrate them but also some of my heroes in the secular world because of their biblical ideas, even if they didn’t acknowledge the Bible; truth is truth and all comes from God. Won’t you celebrate with me?

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Deconstructing Kwanzaa

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    “[King Uzziah] set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper. . . . But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense” (2 Chronicles 26:5, 16).

About 10 years ago, I thought I had my career all figured out. I would be an acclaimed academician, teaching, writing books and papers, publishing them in journals and presenting them at conferences. I called myself a scholar and defined that that would mean always engaging students and writing papers that would give attention to African American issues. All this was to put my name on the map and to contribute to the exultation of African Americans. The plan was air tight but not right because I hadn’t sought the Lord’s direction. After accomplishing most of the plan, it fell apart because I fell apart, buckling under the weight of self-determination.

Self-determination: “[T]he ability or right to make your own decisions without interference from others” (Encarta Dictionary) or commonly defined during Kwanzaa “to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.” This is kujichagulia, the second principle of Kwanzaa. And though this is the fifth day of Kwanzaa, deconstructing self-determination is important to understand the overall danger of Kwanzaa for Christians.

1. Self, based on self, cannot be your focus. “None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). Understand that when you of your own power decide for yourself who you are and where you’re going, you will end up bankrupt every time. Christians are not meant to define themselves or their destiny. When we do, our lives fall short of what God intends; we are incapable of bringing forth good success.
2. It is always the job of the creator to name and define the creature. “You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’” (Isaiah 29:16)? If we decide apart from God who we are and where we are going, we are regarding God, the potter, as the clay, disregarding His authority in our lives to name and define us and tell us what to create and say on whoever’s behalf.
3. Definitions determine destiny. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits” Proverbs 18:21. What we speak (life-defeating or life-affirming words) will be our focus and we will receive the fruit (consequences) of what we speak. So we can either become what we say we are based upon our own notions or we can become who God says we are based on His notions. Our notions are always life-defeating; when we act on our own accord, we are following our old life, one that was without Jesus Christ. Once we accepted Jesus Christ as savior, we were given a new life so our notions must be His notions (2 Corinthians 5:17); He is the one who defines us and, thus, determines our destiny.

King Uzziah had a good destiny when he allowed God to define him and followed his God-given destiny. The minute he was self-determined and tried to move out of his God-determined place as king and act like a priest, he became weak; God struck him with leprosy and he died with it. He no longer ruled and lived alone until he died. Self-determination always has dire consequences.

No Christian should be in the business of naming or defining herself, and any creativity and speaking forth should be to develop Christ’s kingdom and not the kingdom of self, be it an individual self or a black collective self. Any movement apart from the direction of the Holy Spirit is self driven, flesh driven, and has no part in the kingdom of God.

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith

God's Priorities

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As I have discussed in previous entries, with any worldview there are extremists. There is the extreme feminist, even among Christians. The radical feminist theologian challenges the authority of the Bible by judging it from her point of view. She also considers the Bible just as inspired as other texts and uses them equally to inform her views.

The extreme Afrocentrist is a black supremacist. She believes that people of African descent are superior to those of other races in all ways, including intellect and culture. It is dangerous to align yourself with either theory because of the extremes. I took a leap and called myself, for the most part, an Afrocentrist, because of Dr. Asante’s emphasis to bring Afrocentrism to the table along with other views; this has been his original intent.

Some may say I should be brave and call myself a feminist. After all, “You do believe in women’s rights.” And even though it seems a newspaper first called women advocating women’s rights feminists (http://tinyurl.com/dc88a7) , and not the women themselves, I am still hesitant because I don’t agree with some major issues being advocated, such as all the tentacles placed under reproductive rights (like abortion rights and contraception as birth control). Must I use a term determined for me just because it seems accurate or do I determine the label based on my prescribed priorities?

I keep asking myself, “Why, Christian, do you look to the world to name and define you when God has already given you parameters in His holy word?” While I cannot deny the racial and gender experiences that I have had in this world, I must use as a starting point the book that has declared me a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). God has prescribed priorities for me, and these are where I need to get my labels. So as I continue to develop a new theory for the Christian who is female and black, I will base what my focus should be and how I should be treated based upon what God says about Christian women and blacks. The next few entries should be really interesting. In the meantime, check out some of the Scriptures that have helped to inform my view: Psalm 9:9, 10:18, 103:6; Isaiah 58:6; Acts 2:17-18, 10:38; Ezekiel 22:29-31; Titus 2:3-5; Jeremiah 9:17-21; Leviticus 19:15; Ephesians 4:11; Galatians 3:28).

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith