Episcopal Press and News
Diversity Is More than Skin Deep
Episcopal News Service. June 12, 1991 [91145]
Presiding Bishop
I think one of the most important gifts Patti and I have been able to give our five children has been the opportunity to spend some of their formative growing-up time in a variety of cultures. From 1959 to 1971 we lived in Okinawa, and also spent two years at language school in Kobe, Japan. Patti and I studied hard to learn Japanese, while our children picked it up with ease. Often our family surprised people. Though we obviously weren't Japanese, we spoke the language and felt very much at home. Then, we moved to Germany. There we looked like everyone else, but in fact we were "different," separated by a language barrier. That dynamic was an interesting one, as the children learned that appearances can be deceiving.
When we came back to this country our youngest, John, was barely 7 years old and had never been to the United States. It was an adjustment for all of us, and we were lucky there were seven of us in the family to support one another through it. There were some laughs involved, and some deep learnings.
We all still remember the night that our son Peter came home after a rough day in junior high. At dinner he was telling us all about it, and John very sympathetically piped up: "Don't feel bad. They just don't like us because we are Japanese." Patti and I had some explaining to do.
This story says something wonderful to me about how people see themselves, their culture, and how their attitudes may be formed in a way that is quite unconscious to them.
I am reminded of all this as we approach the General Convention with the intention of keeping racism at the top of our agenda. From my point ofview, confronting racism starts within. It doesn't stop there, but it must start there for us to be empowered for the struggle.
At General Convention in July, we will look at racism by first looking at ourselves. We are going to be helped in this through participation in a survey of personal attitudes on race relations coordinated by the Executive Council Committee on Racism. Such a survey is commonly called a "racism audit." Many are familiar with an audit from having participated in one at a diocesan or parish level.
The root meaning of the word audit has to do with hearing, with listening, as in audio or auditory. It does not have to do with counting things, although its relationship with another word, auditor-- one who checks over your financial books and adds up all the numbers -- can give that misleading impression. We are going to be listening for something at General Convention -- something that resonates deep within each of us.
I anticipate the audit and the opportunity everyone at General Convention will have to sit quietly and ask themselves a series of questions designed to help us come in touch with how we feel about ourselves and our racial or ethnic identity, and to examine unspoken assumptions about the racism within our institutional structure. What we learn will challenge us to respond to that sin, not just at the General Convention but in the days ahead. We as a church are going to confront the evils of racism with energy and the power that comes from knowing we are Christ's agents on earth. You will be hearing more about this from me and others who will be part of General Convention.
I think it is a simple fact that this society is breaking down ever more along racial lines. Not only are we failing to progress, we seem to be slipping backward -- away from racial equality, making that dream ever more elusive. I don't know if it makes me feel better or worse when some assert that we are no more racist a society than we ever were: it is just that the stigma against open expression of racial prejudice has lessened. The horror in that thought.
The church can, and must, be at the forefront in the struggle for racial equality. Through our baptism we understand ourselves as marked as Christ's own forever. We are the sons and daughters of God and the sisters and brothers of one another. This is not just a nice thought or a pious sentiment. This is a description of our incarnational reality. How we respond to that reality surely will be part of God's judgment upon us.
Patti and I rejoice that our 7-year-old son could think he was Japanese. We rejoice that our children have a sense of being in a global family made up of all races and cultures. We don't feel this way because it makes them "better people," or "more open," or some other such way of putting it. We rejoice because it makes their lives immeasurably richer. They love and have been loved by people all around our global village. They have been warmed and changed by that love received and given. They have been blessed.
The opportunity to care for and about one another as sisters and brothers is here present for all of us. I pray that not one of us will miss out.