That Racist South

Racism and the South. To anyone from the North or West, the two are inextricably and exclusively linked. The brutal history of the South from slavery to the ostensible end of segregation is continually rubbed in the face of the Southerner. Most people who blast the South for its racism probably don’t know about events like the Newark, Chicago, Detroit, or Watts riots. That, or they might not care.

As much as I might seem like a critic of my birthplace, I do love the South. And for anyone from the South, it’s hard not to rant defensively about the various hypocrisies of the North or the West. It’s easy for us to point at the racial problems of other regions. I hope that no one thinks that I’m doing that.

When people bash a region for this or for that instance of racism, we show how insensitive we are to the real issues. When Northerners point out the horrible deaths of Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner, or the cowardly assassination of Medgar Evers, or the Anniston bus burning, they aren’t honoring the men who died for their beliefs. They are using those gruesome events as springboards for anti-Southern propaganda.

I don’t bring up the race riots of Newark or Watts without hesitation. Black men and women died at the hands of racist cops in the North and the West. Recently, police officers in Queens, New York shot and killed a groom for what might be call ambiguous circumstances. Rodney King was beaten to near-death in L.A. and portions of the city erupted in riots.

These events are just as horrendous as those in the South, but most Northerners or Westerners don’t seem to consider them in anti-Southern tirades.

The point is that racism is not a regional issue. Racism is a national problem that we haven’t begun to address. We don’t take seriously the truth that Christ breaks down barriers. Churches that are actually integrated across the black-white divide (should we even think about it as a divide?) are a rarity indeed.

What’s needed is not finger-pointing here or there. It does no good to point fingers and say “Well, you’re racist too!” It’s such a non-statement. We must continually preach to ourselves that all human beings, no matter their skin tone, or their economic situation, are made in the image of God.

Yet I am quick to point out that we can’t have a hope in what we can do. Nothing will be perfect until Christ returns to claim his Bride. Some might say that I’m giving Christians a great reason to be lazy about this issue and so many others.

God’s religion, to quote from Horatius Bonar, does not end in forgiveness. It begins with it. And I think that this is a similar situation. Christ’s resurrection and future return does not obscure the need to reach out to others regardless of so many differences. Rather, they establish our need and equip us with a well-founded assurance that one day, things will be different. Christ invites us to participate in establishing his kingdom, however insignificant it will seem compared to the full coming of it. It is a Christian duty, but more importantly, it is an invitation to be part of what can only be described as an adventure.