Ramblings of a White mom with Black kids

(One of my friend groups in 6th grade)

My first encounter with my whiteness occurred my 6th grade year. We lived in Tampa and they were trying to integrate the schools (click the link for a great video explanation of redlining and current day segregation) so they were bussing our suburban neighborhood into the inner city. My mom gave me the choice if I wanted to switch to private school that year and I chose public. The first day of school was the first day I ever was the minority. It was a predominantly black school situated across from the housing projects of inner city Tampa. I remember not feeling afraid, just aware. I remember that year noticing the different ways teachers treated kids of different races. I was given the benefit of the doubt, they typically weren't. I could get away with talking in class, they got a consequence. Most of my friends were black. That year changed a lot in my heart. We got out of school frequently for shootings, the projects being on fire, etc. I remember thinking, this isn't fair.

Fast forward a few years, God set something deep in my heart for reconciliation. I remember strangely having a heart set for Africa. I wanted to move there, I wanted to adopt. In my sophomore year of college, I met my future husband John. He was the punter on the Auburn football team. His best friends were mostly black. His roommate was black. He grew up in Brazil and had a perspective on the world I found wildly interesting. I told him "Don't ask me to marry you if you don't want a multi-racial family"... we were engaged a few months later. Our first neighbors were black. I would have afternoon conversations with her that opened my eyes more to the black experience as an adult. She would tell me about bias in her job, bias she experienced while shopping or dating. I was shocked, and it hurt my heart for what she had experienced.

Fast forward a few years into our marriage, we had a 3 and 4 year old, lived in a suburb of Raleigh, and were looking at schools for our kids. We decided then that public was the route for us. We wanted our kids to see the world and all the differences in it. We wanted our school to be a place that represented the diversity of the world. We soon journeyed into international adoption from a Central African country. Bringing these two beautiful children into our family stretched me more than ever before. I educated myself on everything from moisturizer, to hair care, to adoption issues, poverty, struggles of a transracial adoptee, and raising children with trauma in their history. I pressed deeper into the black community for wisdom and advice. I intentionally expanded my community to embrace and authentically love people of color. I wanted our children to grow up with role models who looked like them. My own inadequacy grew as I am a white mom raising two black children. I don't know what it's like to be black, yet I am raising two black children.

As my kids got older, and I listened more to the black experience of society, it was no longer an "out there problem". It was my problem. It was my son who could've been shot while ringing a doorbell looking for directions. It was my son who could have been shot while being pulled over and reaching for his license. It was my daughter I would have to tell to be more cautious walking through a store. I grieved and feared as I realized I would have to raise my black son to be more careful in neighborhoods, driving, stores, etc. I realized my black son would most likely receive less of a second chance, more of a "guilty until proven innocent" mindset where my white son would most likely be given the benefit of the doubt and assumed "innocent until proven otherwise". My fear escalated and I reached out to moms of color and asked for wisdom. I didn't want to parent out of fear of who society would see my son to be, but yet the racial climate in society is clearly tense. How do I not teach my son to live afraid but at the same time realize he has to be more careful than his siblings when sitting down at a coffee shop or while driving a car? It honestly makes me sick, my heart truly laments what I have to tell my children as far as history of the black experience and the current status of race in America. It should make us all sick. This is not a "black people problem" it is all of our problem.
We have grown up hearing a narrative about race. We need to dig deep and explore the narrative we believe. We need to have ears to hear hard things. We need to repent of our own prejudiced hearts. We need to examine our thoughts and fears when it comes to people of a different skin tone. We need to build geniune relationships outside of people who only look like and think like us. 

The same evil that fueled the Holocaust is the same evil behind slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow laws: the essence that you take someone's humanness away, rejecting that they were equally made in the image of God as an expression of His beauty, and treat them as lower than an animal. There were centuries of oppression, injustice, murder, hatred. How do we think so wrongly that 60 years of "progress" in this racial injustice has changed centuries of hate? 

When a murder happens like Stephon Clark, Eric Garner, Charles Kinsey, why does the white community so often respond with questions about circumstance instead of empathy? Shouldn't loss of life be worth mourning no matter the circumstance? Shouldn't we take the time to listen why these instances spark fear in the heart of our black neighbors? Aren't we supposed to love our neighbor as ourself? The problem is our neighbors look a lot like us, only like us, and we have redefined neighbor to sameness. We are not reaching across our differences and asking questions, leaning in, listening, mourning with those who mourn. 

Explore the narrative you have lived and heard your whole life, where has it taken root in lies? Examine your community. A pastor at our church so wisely said, 'Uniformity is not unity'. The root of surrounding people who only look and think like you is self-love and selfishness. Lean into the discomfort. Fight for reconciliation. Explain race in a gospel centered way to your children, color-blindness is just another form of racism. They see color just like we do, so showcase it in all of the beauty God intended. Diversify your dolls, your bookcases, your discussions around the dinner table.

Is the ground level at the cross? Yes. Did Jesus die for this reconciliation? Yes. Is his blood enough to break down this racial hostility? Yes. Does he already have victory over the evil and hate that divide us? Yes. But we are still living in the in-between. The not yet. I feel like the disciples on Good Friday. That did not look or feel like victory to lose your savior who was supposed to bring peace and have victory over evil. That looked like defeat. 'Surely this isn't how it is supposed to end' they must've thought. 'You can't leave us like this Jesus', they must've felt. I thought you came for peace, I thought love covers a multitude of sins? Yes. It does. But his kingdom isn't on earth yet in its fullness. It isn't on earth as it is in heaven. Yet. So until that day comes I will keep raising my voice, using my privilege, against hate and injustice. I will fight for reconciliation, until Jesus brings it to completion, and thank God he will. But I have a role to play, and I will play my part no matter how I fumble through it, mess up, and move forward and then back again. My kids deserve it, the world desparately needs it.

Please look into these books and resources as you lean in to this topic.

A 3 part series on Race in America our church did: 

http://summitrduinstitute.com/classes/race-america-week-1-3/

http://summitrduinstitute.com/classes/7156/ 

http://summitrduinstitute.com/classes/7156-copy/

Books:

Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson

White Awake, by Daniel Hill

Under our Skin, Benjamin Watson
Oneness Embraced, Tony Evans
I'm Still here, Austin Channing Brown

Blog post on White Privilege