Slowly I started to see what I couldn’t before—a pervasive injustice all around.
“The world is wrong. You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you.” – Claudia Rankine
Slavery. Convict leasing. Over 4,000 lynchings. Jim Crow segregation. White flight and red-lining.
All of it is buried in us. All of it points to an appallingly racist past that has left a racist legacy that manifests itself in policies and systems that disadvantage and oppress specific people groups.
Like our education system, where black and brown students find themselves more segregated than they were in 1968—stuck in schools that are understaffed and under-resourced.
Or a criminal justice system that frisks 85% of blacks and Latinos stopped by police, but only 8% of whites. Those are just two examples of many—the tippity-top of a giant racial iceberg. Statistics I didn’t know until I started to listen.
I had no idea that Sunday remains the most segregated hour in America. I saw a handful of black people inside my church as proof that we were fine. I had no idea that many black evangelicals in predominately white churches report feeling unseen and unheard.
Why the Church Can’t Keep Turning Away From Our Race Issues: Why We Can’t Put the Past Behind Us — Because It’s Buried In Us https://t.co/WYzkPd2ohe
— Ann Voskamp (@AnnVoskamp) April 2, 2018