RACE RELATIONS

In this blog I want to quote some excepts from the book "Black and Free" by Tom Skinner. I think this sheds some light on the race relations topic. This is a topic that many of us white people don't want to talk about because we think it should be "fixed" by now. But it's not and we do still need to talk about it. This book is very thought provoking, and it shows the vunerability of the African American culture, and how we as the church need to be sensitive to the painful vulnerabilty here, as there are many wounds among the African American culture that need tending to in the area of race relations.

"Why do they fight? Most of them really know the answer. It's the ghetto. And to understand better the frustration and bitterness that fosters gang war and riots, we have to look beyond the slums themselves. In face, we need to go back some three hundred years - to when the first slaves were brought to the US....These unsuspecting and unprotected Africans were captured and snatched away from their country and culture...They were packed - often as many as a hundred - in a small hold of the slave ship....To the planter, a black person was just another animal to be used on his farm or plantation. They were bred at the whims of their master. Whenever their master felt there was a need for additional slaves, he merely selected a healthy male and a healthy female and he had them cohabit until a child was conceived. When the woman was pregnant the man was moved on to other quarters to impregnate other women. On and on went the pattern, so that within ten years a slave male could have sired more than a hundred sons and daughters, but never really having the privelege of fathering them. It was in this climate that the slave was looked upon as subhuman....There was no family life, there was no culture, no discipline set up as far as a home was concened during all the three hundred years that black people were enslaved in North America....After the Civil War, President Lincoln issued the famous Emancipation Proclamation and the slaves were set free. After three hundred years of captivity the black man was suddenly a free individual. He was told, 'Now that you have your freedom, now that you have been emancipated, you must assume responsibility as a human being. You must now become a responsible citizen.' They turned to the man who was bred like cattle, who perhaps did not even know his children, and asked himm to raise his family! Three hundred years separated the black man from life in a family culture. He had never been shown or taught what it was to have family responsibility, to be the head of his own homne. Overnight, thje black man was told now that he was a free man he must live according to the culture he served and by their standards. Suddenly, he was taught that he must live with one wife and raise and teach his children. Children who never knew what it was to have a father were suddenly told they must honor, obey, and respect their parents."
He goes on to discuss how the black man began to overcome these odds to make strides toward purchasing their own homes, owning their own land, taking cae of their families, becoming lawyers, politicians, senators, educators, and so on. But then the black man became a threat to the whites. particularly the poor whites who until then had not been the bottom of society, becaue they could always look down on the blacks. This is when oppression and persecution began. Lynchings occurred and Jim Crow laws were created. Skinner says,
"And yet with all this persecution, people kept wondering why the black man didn't change. Why didn't he become any better? Why didn't he move to a nicer ploace? Why didn't he keep up his home? Why didn't he get a better job? Why wasn't he better educated, more cultured, more refined?"



Although I realize that this is 1 man's interpretation of history, I also see where this helps me to further understand some of the social policies and ways tnat have disadvantaged black brothers and sisters to begin with. I believe that it is immportant that we dialogue about these things, because as one Body we need to all seek to work togher, and poor race relations prevents us from doing so.