Let’s Talk About Race | What you can do about it, how you can address it, and easy steps to talk to your kids about race

I was left wondering a couple days ago, “What do I do? What can I actually do to change things? What change can be done from me to help? How can I help eradicate racism?” Well, let’s talk about race.

Over the years, I have wondered about my son entering the teen years. I’ve read the media reports, the first hand accounts, the fearful preparation that some parents blast their kids with.

What I don’t want? I don’t want my African American son (and Caucasian children for that matter) to blanket an entire race with a prejudice, nor an entire profession. God has made it clear both are wrong, so how do we do just that?

Get comfy, set out some food, and settle in.

Biblical Lens…

Start at the beginning and work it through God’s perspective. First, encourage your kids to view people as God does. Also, to frame their encounters through a Biblical lens; teach them to challenge what they hear, see, experience, etc. to run it through God’s Word first in order to determine their next steps.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:13-14, ESV

He intricately made you exactly who you are. Every part of you. We NEED to start there, to understand that every life is a miracle. We are precious to Him. I like to engage my kids to draw them in so I’m not just lecturing, it’s a good time to ask, “Does God feel that way about everyone He made? Why or why not? Does He think some people are better than others because of how He made them?”

Furthermore, the Bible never actually says slavery is wrong. Is it? Absolutely! However, even though it can be a hard concept to grasp, as Christians we cannot deny parts of the Bible so it is a matter that needs to be addressed. What the Bible does say is that there can be a reasoning behind it: should you owe someone money and can’t pay, then you can become their slave to work it off. Joseph himself was a slave and his brothers were wracked with guilt for selling him as one and treating him that way. After Joseph died and his brothers and families came, a future Pharoah was scared of the size of the Israelite people group and made them all slaves. In the New Testament, we read the letter to Philemon to accept his runaway slave back and to treat him with love and respect, as a brother in Christ. What we see is when the Bible does mention it, slaves are told to act rightly and slave owners are to treat everyone humanely. Much like employers and employees, but usually a debt was involved. Like everything in life, an ok thing was twisted and turned into an evil act because of sinful nature.

The Israelites…

God, Himself, identifies groups of people but usually with the purpose to identify them, and not for salvation. Take the Israelites for example, they were His people and identified as a group, but they were individually responsible for their own actions, grumblings, sins, etc. We read that all throughout the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible).

Weaving in a historical Bible lesson right now fits in well. When the nation of Israel split, the tribe of Judah (Jesus’ line) was separated out among the Israelite nation, the Southern Kingdom, holding Jerusalem as their capital while the Northern Kingdom, still referred to as Israel, whose capital was the city of Samaria. The two ‘nations’ rarely got along and for the most part were separated with irreconcilable differences, even warring against each other at times. Enter into the New Testament, after YEARS of division, and we can understand the hesitation and cautious questioning of the woman at the well in John 4. What was so remarkable was that He saw her as a person, not a Samaritan. The gift of salvation was offered to those of the Northern Kingdom. They were included as well as those in the line of Jesus. He saw that woman and counted her worthy, just as He does with every single person He met.

Communication is key…

Open up the lines of communication and get your baseline. If you can understand what your kids have heard and know so far, you’ll better be able to teach and respond to their level of knowledge and know where corrections need to be made. Some questions would include, “What do you know about racism?” “Do you think you have ever experienced or witnessed racism?” “Have you stood up for someone who made a racist joke?” “Have you heard of the term, ‘white privilege’?” “Have you ever been guilty of racism?”

Let’s talk about race. Get into it. Dig deep into those hard conversations.

Hearing their answers should help you lay out the foundation for your talks. If they have heard something incorrect, please correct that line of reasoning without shaming and guide them toward a Biblical framework. With our kids, I have been relatively cautious on what we have and have not shared about racism. I refuse to let my son grow up fearful of everyone or my daughter with an undercurrent of superiority. (For background information, we have four kids, adopted our oldest son from Ethiopia at the same time we birthed our daughter and they have essentially been raised as twins.) I think it is incredibly harmful to teach your children that any slight or sin should be taken personally and attributed to race. Can it be? Oh, absolutely. But is it always? Nope.

This is where Biblical logic plays in. In our dealings in the past, we have been on the receiving end of some narcissists. One of their tactics is to present one portion of an issue without presenting the whole idea so they can still claim they were telling the truth even though the purpose of the half-truth is to further an agenda. For example, if I say to someone, “I’m not okay putting my kids around your kids who were just sick and throwing up. We’ll stay home since your plans haven’t changed and you still want to go to the party.” But the message is conveyed that “I’m not okay putting my kids around your kids”, there is something seriously wrong with that. We can easily liken that same set of concepts to the media or pictures that chop out the rest of the story and it starts to make sense with the narrative they intend to portray.

Our kids need the whole picture. You can’t understand your need for a Savior unless you understand your sinful nature. You can’t understand why sin is a big deal until you understand just how HOLY God really is.

America’s historical foundations…

Our nation was not founded with all of the ideals that Christians should strive for, that every human and every life is valuable. When America was first ‘founded’, there was already a people group who lived here. In history classes, we learn how language and cultural differences played a part in how the Native Americans were treated, and it was not kind and gentle. We saw how the Europeans moved over with their slaves, and they were not treated well. It is horrific to read about the treatment of most slaves, to the point it could make you physically sick to read about the inhumanity. Let’s now add in the Civil War to our historical, whole picture narrative. Understanding history helps us understand how to change the future.

There were those who fought for the civil treatment of all men, no matter your race. How admirable! And yet, so stinking obvious. To further this lesson, haul out your Bible, open up a page, pick out a person on that page, and ask your kids to describe what they think he looks like. We’ll touch more on this later, but most American children will automatically picture them with the same characteristics as themselves, not realizing the Bible is based in another nation that has distinct characteristic differences to Caucasians. Did Jesus come for only Caucasians? Every human being was knit together perfectly. We need those points enforced with our children. To see the world as a whole picture of beautiful races, not just your own.

Historical atrocities…

Not limited to America with Native Americans, Caucasians, and African Americans, history soon repeats itself on a different level and scale. A charismatic man rises to power, voted Time’s Person of the Year. Likely the most widely known example of racism, he determined people’s worth based on their physical features. The ‘master race’ had blond hair and blue eyes. If you weren’t born with that coloring, you were subject to cruelty. Adolf Hitler did not rise as evil, he stepped the people into it slowly and furthered his agenda in stages. It is of particular note today to imagine you lived in Germany at that time, to picture how you might respond to the new laws and dictates as they came out.

• Oh, Jews need to have proper papers, are you loyal to the government by reporting them? Is that the right thing to do?
• Oh, there’s a master race, anyone who doesn’t match that can be treated like garbage. Does that makes sense?
• Oh, we will secretly house these people who are trying to spare their lives. Is that okay to go against the government when it’s protecting people?

Which camp would you be in? This was their normal. When people today are referencing Hitler, it’s with the mindset of the people and his rise to power. It’s an opportunity to wake up out of our comfort bubble and recognize the steps leading to and/or acknowledging the inhumane treatment of people. A lot of Germans were not actually aware what happened to the Jews when they were taken away, they found out later about the realities of the concentration camps and gas chambers.

As an aside and often not talked about, were the kidnappings of women and children who matched Hitler’s description of superiority to continue breeding the superior race; the trauma and prejudices they grew up with were also profound and terrifying. Does addressing WWII from a Jews’ perspective negate that this aspect happened and was hard for them, no. But it’s not the point that is being portrayed for awareness and change to effectively occur.

But just because we may not be aware of the final outcome, doesn’t mean we can’t see the treatment leading up to it is not Biblical. Open your eyes to the truth around you of what is happening. Not what the media is telling you, but what the individual is saying. African Americans in the United States are (now) not-so-silently screaming that racism isn’t over and that there are deep-seated fears with the way things are currently run. How do you help? Listen. Listen to the stories of people not feeling comfortable to walk down their own street. Listen to the stories that a teenager can’t wear a hoodie without being eyed suspiciously. Listen to a child tell you he was called dumb and stupid because he’s black. Now again, is every slight or sin always a race issue when it involves a person of color? No. But it can be and that’s what is hard: to know the difference but yet to see the person behind it. We need to address it, so let’s talk about race.

United States’ culture…

When my son was born, I searched high and low to find an African American doll. It was HARD to find one. I wanted my kids to play with multi-racial toys and dolls. If you had looked around Walmart some 10 plus years ago, I’m not even sure the racks would host even one AA doll on their shelves. How are we to teach our kids diversity, if we teach them to only play with dolls that look like them? Is it fun to have a doll that does? Sure! Is there anything wrong with that? No! But we can do better and help set them up with a solid foundation of seeing people as individuals simply by adding in more with color. Let their childhood swarm with play times embracing all races to mimic what the adults in their lives should be portraying.

Quite a few years ago now, my son flat out refused to participate in a school dress up day; the idea was to dress up as a character from a book. It took some talking about before he revealed that he didn’t want to because he didn’t know any black characters. My heart dropped. It was a time of deep reflection for me as a parent. I felt like I had failed him by not providing a well-rounded option of books or promoting enough black characters and heroes in our home. I have an African American son and had completely missed that mark so please learn from my mistakes! (He ended up dressing up as Isaiah from the Bible and was really excited.)

In America, we often don’t realize the systemic racial inadequacies until we legitimately break them down. Think about the movies you watch, we all know there are three breeds of dogs that are overly represented as vicious guard dogs: dobermans, pitbulls, and rottweilers. Can these dogs be vicious? Yes. Can overtly watching these roles over time create a sense of fear within us anytime we see one of those dogs? Yes. For our family, we had a rottweiler and experienced people’s ingrained fear just by looking at our dog. Sometimes it was aggravating that they never gave him a chance to prove that he was a gentle, muscular giant. But on the flip side, I still am innately cautious and scared of pitbulls and really don’t want to give them a chance.

Now consider how Hollywood has generalized people groups in similar manners. Is it not easy to see now in the 90s and whatnot of how African Americans were represented on the big screen? Or other races. This is not limited to African Americans. Or how in music they’re treated as gangster rappers? Lecrae was immediately influential because when he stepped on the scene he was an African American Christian rapper portraying a definitive change to the inherent mindset of a ‘pitbull’ musician. He paved the way for people to step back from their default characterizations and to see him as an individual with a gift and a calling.

Let’s collectively open our eyes and see people as individuals. Buck the trend to blindly watch movies that further prejudices. Be cautious what you allow into your children’s lives. Our culture is created by what is taught to it. Don’t be a silent sheep, blindly following and never speaking up. One of the biggest missteps of the Israelites is that they failed to tell their children of the faithfulness of God. Learn from them, teach your children!

Today’s underhanded threat in America…

Our conversation started out with the foundation of individual worth. God created every single person, every person is unique and special. This is where there will likely be the most disagreement with how to present this. For our family, we strongly feel it is a necessary evil to present the facts as they are so our kids understand the whole picture.

There was a lady who thought similarly to Hitler, yet was (and still is) touted as ground-breaking in her policies and thoughts.

The intelligentsia of the day thought it was the socially responsible thing to do to encourage certain kinds of people to reproduce more, and others to reproduce less, or not at all. If Darwin’s theories applied to finches and dog breeds, it seemed downright irresponsible to neglect the obvious implications for humanity. … [She] believed that American society faced a rising number of ‘human weeds’ as a result of the wrong sort of person having too many offspring. And a major reason she promoted contraception was to try to convince these people to stop reproducing. … This policy of sterilizing anyone deemed unfit to reproduce dehumanized those people, just as abortion dehumanizes the unborn child. … She explicitly opposed charity because: ‘Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks [of people] that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant.’ Instead, she promoted birth control explicitly as: ‘facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, or preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defective.’

Margaret Sanger and the minority holocaust, Christianity Today

Margaret Sanger focused on sterilizing and preventing those in African American communities to cease producing. The world, she believed, was overpopulated as it was and she saw fit that only specific races and social statuses of peoples should continue populating the world. Planned Parenthood, her foundation, came into existence at the expense of the African American people and turned into the nation’s largest abortion provider. It was founded on racism, yet remains unaddressed by many Christians as inherently wrong. Again, filter everything through a Biblical lens. Every human has value. Poor or not. Colored or not.

How to change things…

What happened to George Floyd is appalling. It took me a great deal of time to prepare to even watch the video footage. No matter if you believe it’s conspiracy or not, a man died. He died. Sadly, it’s something we should either all watch or at the very least, strive to gain a true understanding of the tragedy of those series of events. To ignore it completely is not okay. Nor is not addressing it.

If things are going to change though, it has to be a joint effort on the part of each side to talk and listen. So let’s talk about race. Open up the lines of communication starting within your home first. Establish a Biblical framework. Should you judge an entire race based on the actions of a few? Should you judge an entire profession based on the actions of a few? The answer to both ought to be a resounding ‘NO!’. Read the stories of racism to understand. Try to understand. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes and imagine traveling a day through their world and their lens. Invite your kids to do the same. Gain compassion for individuals and the battles they face.

Verbiage can oftentimes be misconstrued or misinterpreted. Be cautious of how callous certain phrases can come across. Some, I was guilty of as well. Saying you don’t see color, overall, is nonsensical. Everyone sees color unless you’re color blind. Even then, they still see shades of color. That tree is dark green (or dark gray). The cup is pink (or light gray). It’s a common adjective to describe nouns. It’s normal. That’s okay. Another common phrase we hear is ‘All Lives Matter’. Do all lives matter? Yes. Do black lives matter? Yes. But switching the narrative to include all people essentially can give off the impression that it strips away the voice of those crying in the wind. The claim that black lives matter is okay, in and of the phrase itself, it is not negating the fact that all lives matter. (However, there is also a dangerous movement/group called “Black Lives Matter” that does not believe or adhere to what the phrase means so clarification or a different phrase is suggested.)

On the flip side, please be aware that just because I’m white, doesn’t mean I can’t understand or have an opinion. Have I experienced it directly? No. But I can logically comprehend and use that to discern between good and evil. Shutting someone down and claiming they have ‘white privilege’ should not intrinsically bar them from entering the conversation. How can we expect change as a nation, a state, a community, a family, if we segregate out from the conversation the very same people you desire change from?

So let’s talk about race. Let’s get our hands dirty and go to the hard places with our kids. It starts at home but shouldn’t be limited to just your house. That’s like calling yourself a Christian and cutting off all those around you and only evangelizing to your own kids. Start there. Gain your courage there. Then use that to branch out and get involved.

---

Anchored Truth Tuesdays

~It is appreciated but not required that you follow my social media accounts

~A new Anchored Abode podcast (iTunes) has been started, and I would love for subscribers and positive reviews (SoundCloud)

~I do ask that you use the Anchored Truth Tuesdays logo above on your site somewhere or on the post itself; if you click on the picture above a new window will open with html instructions

~ Family friendly posts only (I reserve the right to delete any that are deemed inappropriate); with a direct link to a specific blog post

~It is appreciated if you spread the blogging love to those around you in the Anchored community by visiting their sites, following them, or liking/sharing posts

~We have a Pinterest group board, Anchored Truth Tuesdays, where all who link up are welcome to also upload their content–you’ll just need to like Anchored Abode first, and then request to join

~By submitting a link, you are agreeing to be added to our email list as well as allowing the use of pictures/content as featured posts on our social media accounts