Racism in America
Recently, our family movie night pick was the movie Glory Road. If you don’t know this movie, it’s the true story of the 1966 college basketball team from Texas Western. The coach was given limited recruiting funds and told to build a team. In an unprecedented move, he recruited seven black basketball players. “I don’t see color,” he tells dissenters, “I see quick, I see skill … and that’s what I’m putting on the court.” In the final game of the NCAA championship, the coach puts all seven black players on the court – and plays only them. They beat Kentucky for the national championship in what was called “the greatest upset in NCAA history.” He did it to change the hearts and minds of a country so bent on racism that they could not see past the ends of their own noses.
I loved this movie. I’m a sucker for a Jerry Bruckeimer film on a bad day. So, a basketball movie made by Jerry Bruckheimer about persevering through ignorance and prejudice is just my kind of movie. Knowing the energy of the film and how much of a basketball fan my daughter is, I just knew she’d love it, too. What I didn’t realize, though, was how much we’d sheltered her from the harsh realities of racism in America.
We believe, that as Christian parents, it’s our duty to teach our children to understand and defend the dignity and the worth of every human being. It’s core to the Christian culture, even though it isn’t always practiced due to the makeup of our culture by sinful man.
It has always been our goal to raise our children not to see color, and is exactly how I was raised. We’ve never distinguished between the races. We don’t classify people by race. We don’t encourage Kaylee to elaborate on the races of her friends. It is simply something we do not care about. A bit.
You always wonder, though, if your message is getting through to your children. Despite the shelter of our home and the race-free intent, there is still a sinful, nasty, prejudiced and racist culture beyond our four walls. Kaylee, especially, attends a school in small town Kentucky – where race is almost as much an issue as when the Kentucky fans waved the Confederate Battle Flag at that notorious NCAA basketball tournament in 1966.
Occasionally, though, your children throw you little bones to affirm that you’re doing a good job. We have a family at church who have a daughter named Addy, whom they adopted from China. Addy is clearly Chinese – dark skinned, eye shape, straight black hair. Kaylee loves Addy, and the feelings are mutual. My friend often picks Kaylee up for a youth event, and Addy gets so excited when Kaylee gets to ride with them.
This same family have sons in Kaylee’s youth group. One evening at church, the youth were talking about where they’ve been in the world. Addy’s oldest brother said, “I’ve been to China.”
Kaylee said, “When were you in China?”
He said, with a tone that implied, duh, “To get Addy.”
Kaylee said, “Why was she in China?”
Flabbergasted, he said, “Because she’s Chinese. That’s where we adopted her.”
Kaylee said, confused, “Addy’s Chinese?”
She was being sincere. Race is so removed from being important in her mind that she never considered it when thinking of this little girl. It really encouraged us in our attempts to raise her to see humans as human beings, made in God’s image, rather than any other way.
So, to get back to this movie. It dramatically and emotionally highlighted the racism that this team faced traveling the country and working its way up the NCAA ranks. By the end of the movie, Kaylee was MAD. She intellectually kind of knew about the general racist atmosphere of this country that sparked the era of the 1960’s. She could spout off encyclopedia facts about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She might be able to give you the names of some prominent black historical figures due to learning about Black History Month in her 9 years of school. But she’s never experienced and emotional tie to it like this movie did to her (and it probably helps that she finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird the same weekend we watched this movie). It drew her into the time, into the hate, and she came out of it with such righteous indignation that if there were still racial equality marches happening, she’d be out there leading the throng.
Then something occurred to her. Many of the people who felt such hate against this team of talented young men are still alive today. They’ve raised children, who have raised children. And, as we talked to her about it, it occurred to her that the hate is still out there today. Still very real. Still very much a part of the culture.
You can’t battle that kind of ignorance, that depth of hate. Not really. People can mask it, but it comes from a pit of evil, from the lies and seduction of Satan himself that without the power of God, there is no overcoming it.
Kaylee said, “What can we do?”
Our answer was unpracticed, not thought about, unprepared. All we could come up with was, “Teach your children as we’ve taught you. See people as God’s creation, and not with color. Love your friends as Jesus commanded us. And don’t tolerate hate in your presence. Make people accountable for what they say.”
It’s what we do. It’s all we have. But, we’ve made the difference with the three children we’re raising. And they’ll make a difference with the children God will entrust to them. And you can make a difference with your children.
Our prayer is that such ignoramus thinking will one day be a thing of the past. That color won’t matter – that the heart of man is what we see rather than the pigmentation of skin or the slanting of eyes. That loving our neighbor means loving our neighbor and not just the neighbor who shares a cultural tie to us.
Hallee
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Hallee I have not seen the movie but in my household we don’t bring up race, I have a friend who has a granddaughter that is 2 and when she sees blacks she calls them the N word.. when we were growing up N was NOT allowed in our home, I recently split from Richard and I am seeing someone new and he uses racial words but I told him when I decide to introduce him to my daughters he couldn’t speak like that in front of them because my girls don’t know skin color matters to some people. Racism is so big in this world still it is sad.. i know when i am at work if i don’t let someone on the bus or even if i am not speaking to some passengers I get told I am doing it because they are black.. or im a WHITE B.. i feel if you are going to insult me at lease get my ethnic background right.. I hear alot of this type of stuff at work still I finally had to tell a co worker as the only non black in this room right now I am beginning to get offended.. I just feel it works both ways. We haven’t come far enough yet.
WOnderful message Hallee. Thanks once again for your special insight and touching story. I loved these lines “And don’t tolerate hate in your presence. Make people accountable for what they say”. Amen.
This is so beautifully written! We have a family of friends who has a different ethnic background than we do and my kids never noticed … the mom asked me how they could be so color blind. I asked what she meant and she said that where we live this is just not normal. My heart literally broke for the amount of pain that must have caused them time and again; after all, who should be surprised that children like each other? Why should it be abnormal for families who share the same God to worship alongside one another?
As we grow our family through adoption, we will begin to look different. I’m excited! God draws His children from every corner of the world and gathers them to His heart; why shouldn’t we walk in that same pattern? But we’ve already faced narrow minded comments (and from those closest to us, no less!). I am pleased to say my children have responded with dignity and truth each time. It is our job to teach them this.
There is a sermon by Voddie Baucham titled, I believe, Table of Nations. He addresses the myth of races. The Bible doesn’t even teach races, it teaches nations. When God isolated the Israelites it had to do with them not interacting and adopting a nation’s false worship. Absolutely nothing to do with the color of their skin. That is why other nations could come into their nations if they believed in the one true God. Look at Rahab, Ruth and the whole incidence with Moses’ wife.
Races actually came from Darwin that believed blacks, whites and asians all evolved from different monkeys and white evolved from the smartest. This instigated the thinking in this area, still held by some, that blacks don’t have souls.
Well, written blog. Thank you. The power of God alone can set of free. I am eternally grateful that He chose to do that to me :)
We change the world one child at a time.
Glory Road is one of my all time favorite movies. Love it. I was just commenting to my husband yesterday that it is about time for a viewing of it, in light of March Madness coming up. We don’t see color in our home either. We see people who need grace as much as we do. We see people in as much need of a Savior as we do. Hopefully we can raise a generation that will change the course of history, and lose the color and find the treasure in everyone.
We do the same – raise our children to just not see color. Our girls have baby dolls of all colors. When the oldest was a preschooler, and got one of her dark-skinned babies for Christmas, she thrilled my heart (and tickled my funny bone) by gleefully exclaiming, “Oh! A baby with BROWN eyes!” (That the whole doll was brown utterly escaped her notice.)
I love that.