We are in the dreary doldrums of winter, the continuing protests are small and mostly beneath the media's radar, and the collective weariness of the American public is palpable. It is time to move on, isn't it? Haven't we made our point? And haven't the majority of Americans just as strongly pushed back, making clear they are not interested? Haven't we had our moment of catharsis? Isn't it time for regularly scheduled programming to resume?
Of course not.
Nothing of any substance has changed yet. We are still living in a country where Black life is devalued every day. Many Americans claim not to see it, but they see it clearly enough to know which neighborhoods to avoid. Funny how that works.
I grow weary of the debates about why things are the way they are. People will continue to debate the role of culture, discrimination, government programs, globalization and more. Most White Americans are likely to continue to place an overwhelming emphasis on culture. As a historian, I think that is terribly mistaken, and much of what passes for reasonable points in these discussions is often racist or irrelevant. But the debate is important, and it's one that I'm sure I will continue to engage in at the appropriate time.
But I grow tired of it, and here's why:
The Christian's responsibility is much the same regardless of what side you take in that debate. If we want to join our life to God's Kingdom work, we don't stand on the sidelines debating the causes of marginalized peoples' suffering. We go join them. Any attempt to grapple with the problems of the poor and the oppressed apart from our own personal engagement with them at the level of our spiritual poverty--recognizing the upside-down way God has ordered the world--is bound to be paternalistic at best, downright destructive at worst. God has chosen those who are poor to be rich in faith (James 2). I and most of my readers are winners in one of the most materialistic and prosperous societies in global history. As such, our impoverishment in the things that matter is profound.
Even more upsetting to the tiring debate about Black disadvantage is the fact that we serve a God who takes sides. Over and over again in scripture we see God identifying with the poor, the oppressed, the needy, the marginalized. It's not hard to figure out who these people are in our society. It's African Americans. It's Native Americans. It's illegal immigrants. It's poor Whites left behind in nowhereville Kentucky, with no jobs and no hope. These groups are not "those people" from whom we keep our distance. These groups are where God's attention is drawn in this society. They live in the places Jesus would be born if he came today instead of 2,000 years ago. They are loved by God. Not only that, they are identified with by God in an astonishing way. Their powerlessness is embodied in the powerlessness of Christ as a baby and their suffering is given its ultimate advocate in the figure of Christ on a cross.
Who do we identify with? The respectable. The educated. Business owners. Law enforcement. Celebrities. Religious leaders. People who look like us. People of our social class. And then, with this pattern firmly set in place, we claim to follow Jesus. Can't we see the contradiction? Amid our recent racial controversies, I've seen Christians firmly identify with White police officers while failing to muster even an expression of sympathy for the families of Black victims.
A consistent pattern of identification with our group at the expense of a marginalized group is evidence of a spiritual sickness. It is dangerous. God does not overlook it.
The poor are shunned even by their neighbors,
but the rich have many friends.
Proverbs 14:20
Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor
will also cry out and not be answered.
Proverbs 21:13
Adonai brings vindication and justice
to all who are oppressed.
Psalm 103:6
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Thoughts For Sunday
My experience as a pastor has been that those who are middle-class in spirit tend to be indifferent to the poor, but people who come to grasp the gospel of grace and become spiritually poor find their hearts gravitating toward the materially poor. To the degree that the gospel shapes your self-image, you will identify with those in need. You will see their tattered clothes and think: "All my righteousness is a filthy rag, but in Christ we can be clothed in his robes of righteousness." When you come upon those who are economically poor, you cannot say to them, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!" because you certainly did not do that spiritually. Jesus intervened for you. And you cannot say, "I won't help you because you got yourself into this mess," since God came to earth, moved into your spiritually poor neighborhood, as it were, and helped you even though your spiritual problems were your own fault. In other words, when Christians who understand the gospel see a poor person, they realize they are looking into a mirror. Their hearts must go out to him or her without an ounce of superiority or indifference.
Timothy Keller, Generous Justice
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Is Segregation in the Church A Serious Problem?
The American church is segregated by race. We have White churches and Black churches, Korean churches and Hispanic churches. In almost all churches, groups of other races are welcome, but a single group dominates the church, gives it its character, and makes it recognizably racialized.
There is no law requiring it. There is no church enforcing it. This has nothing to do with Jim Crow.
In fact, most churches are downright eager to become more diverse.
But the goal remains elusive.
Consider: even if we use a really broad definition of what constitutes a diverse church, only around 3% of American churches are racially mixed over the long term.* A slightly larger number are mixed for a short time as they transition from one group to another. But most of our churches have a single racial group that makes up the vast majority of the congregation.
I suspect that one of the reasons diversity in our churches is so elusive is because it is something that most people support in the abstract, but few churches and church leaders make it an urgent priority.
Is this a problem? Is it sin? Or is it, in fact, just the way things are? Is it an innocuous fact -- no harm, no foul? Is it God's design?
Does it depend where you live?
If you live in rural Maine, you can hardly be expected to attend a diverse church. It simply isn't possible.
But most of us don't live there. Most of us live in metro areas that are, on the whole, much more diverse than the churches we attend. (Despite the vast rural regions of our country, four out of five Americans actually live in cities or suburbs, where diversity is almost always close at hand). What is our responsibility when diversity is in reach, as it is for most of us? Is racial integration something our church leaders should make a top priority? Is it a nice idea and something we hope for but one that should not get in the way of more important church functions? Or is it not really important at all?
I have a simple premise: Christianity teaches that the racial segregation of the American church is sinful. As such, racial segregation in the church is necessarily harmful, and fixing it is an appropriate concern of every believer. Just as every believer is called to abstain from sins such as lust, pride, anger, and so on, every believer is called to abstain from the sin of worldly divisions. There is a lot more to be said, but that simple premise is more than enough to keep us occupied for now.
Jesus prayed that everyone who would ever believe in him in the future would be united, would be "one" just as he and the father are one. The fascinating thing about this prayer in John 17 is that the purpose of this unity is entirely outward focused: "so that the world may know that you sent me." In a broken world that has always been riven with strife and divisions of all kinds, Jesus intended Christians to come together across those lines of division. This is an act of evangelism. The unity of the church is one of only a handful of ways Jesus said we can practically attest to the truth of the Gospel.
Now, many Christians have spiritualized this prayer into nothingness, in two different ways. First, the prayer is often thought of in the context of doctrinal ecumenism. Christians should agree on a few fundamentals and be willing to cross doctrinal lines in order to maintain the unity of the church. This is fine as far as it goes, but it is not the primary sort of unity about which Jesus prayed. Remember, this is an outward-focused unity. Its purpose is to show the world that the Gospel is true. But internal doctrinal differences are often invisible to those on the outside, if not confusing and irrelevant. Coming together across lines of disagreement that the world does not even recognize has little potential to provoke and amaze the world. We must cross lines of division that the world counts as meaningful. This is where the second means of spiritualizing this prayer into nothingness enters in. Many Christians say, we might worship in different places but the true church is united in spirit. The problem with this second perspective is much the same as the first. This spiritual unity is essentially invisible to those on the outside. As such, how can it be an evangelistic, outward-focused unity? How can it amaze? How can it show the world that Jesus is who he says he is?
The New Testament church came to understand this, though we have forgotten it almost completely. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul urged them to "put to death" their old selves and "put on" the new self given by Jesus. In this new self, Paul admonished, "there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all" (Chapter 3). We can spiritualize this under the rug too, but at grave risk to our souls. We must wrap our minds around the fact that Paul's readers could not have turned this into a vague spiritual point, because he had just named all the starkest divisions in their society. He named groups they disliked. He named ethnic, sectarian, and economic divisions. He told them to stop identifying with one group against another. He told them to be united across the most bitter divisions of their society.
This was not an isolated commandment. A key subtext of the entire book of Romans is Paul's knowledge that Jewish and Gentile believers are in conflict with one another. He does not simply tell them to get along. He laboriously provides a deep theological grounding for why and how they can be unified. Because if they are not unified, Rome will not be amazed. Because if they are not unified, will the Gospel appear to be true?
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul recounted the story of Peter and other church leaders giving in to worldly divisions and allowing those divisions to rupture the church. What was Paul's response to church leaders who let society's values guide them rather than Jesus's prayer for unity? He did not think it was merely unfortunate. He did not think it was a distraction from preaching the Gospel. He did not excuse it as just the way things are. He publicly rebuked them for "not acting in line with the truth of the gospel" (Chapter 2).
God calls the church in a given society to make a theological statement (singular). But wait, we must be more specific. Many churches seem to think they are simply called to make theological statements (plural). Those churches are hollow, like the "whitewashed tombs" Jesus described. The church is called to embody, to incarnate, a theological statement. Theology that is not first embodied is no theology at all. It will not amaze the world. In fact, it will disgust the world. Jesus came to us. We know God because of the incarnation. Yet the American church wants to pull off a bait and switch that God himself did not dare to try. We want to call people to a Christ who does not appear to solve the most pressing divisions of our society. We want people to be amazed by a disembodied Christ. On the contrary, they are rightfully disgusted.
When we seek a practical unity that crosses all the barriers of division in American society, we make a theological statement. It is an evangelistic witness that Jesus is who he says he is and can accomplish what he claims. When we do church the way it is normally done in the United States, we simply reproduce the divisions of society at large, and give that society no reason to be amazed. 3% of American churches are racially integrated. Does this have anything to do with the values of the Kingdom? Or does it have everything to do with American society? When was the last time you went to a church where the millionaire and the homeless person worshiped side by side? When was the last time you went to a church that was more welcoming and comfortable for the homeless than for the middle class? How do the values of whiteness and middle classness and upward mobility that dominate our churches fit in with the Kingdom of God? What theological statement are they making?
How can we break through the complacency and self-satisfaction of an American church that is so far from the heart of God? Our whole pattern of church life and composition blatantly reflects American history, American values, and American social divisions. Yet many well-meaning Christians find little reason to make integration a top priority. We're willing to cast off one of the primary means of being the body of Christ as if it's a stylistic choice. Churches that are eager to "evangelize" often cannot be bothered to embody their message. How can we break through? What will it take?
In the thirteenth chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus said that people will know that we are his followers if we love each other. I do not see much love in the American church. I do not see much love in myself. I search my heart and cannot find a good motive. I truly cannot. Am I so much worse than everyone else? Why do we appear so satisfied? Yes, we tend to do a good job loving people in our little congregation in our little corner of the world. We even do a good job of loving people 6,000 miles away! But while we do so we wish to absolve ourselves of all responsibility for why we live and worship where we do, why the people around us are so like us, why the poor in our own country are so far away. We love our congregation in our little corner, while lobbing missiles of misunderstanding and recrimination toward our brothers and sisters in their corners.
Trayvon. Ferguson. For those of us who long to see a compassionate American church that values Jesus more than whiteness, these were shattering experiences from which we will not recover.
Why do we accept the premise that American society, rather than the values of the Kingdom of God, should structure the biggest decisions of our lives? The segregation of the American church has no theological basis. It is not in the will of God. It is sinful. It reproduces misunderstanding and isolation. It fosters division. It does not amaze the world. It merely shows the world that we are just like them. Though racial segregation in American society has slowly eased a little bit (not by much) Americans are increasingly self-segregating by income and political views. If you're poor, you probably live around a lot of poor people. If you're middle class, you probably live around a lot of middle class people. Will we, the church, join in this trend? Or will we live by the values of the Kingdom?
In the fourteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel, Jesus told a story that the American church desperately needs to hear:
_____________________
* This statistic is from United by Faith by DeYoung et al. They classified a church as "racially mixed" if no single racial group made up more than 80% of the congregation. That seems to be a generous definition, but even that is met by only 3-4% of churches over the long term.
There is no law requiring it. There is no church enforcing it. This has nothing to do with Jim Crow.
In fact, most churches are downright eager to become more diverse.
But the goal remains elusive.
Consider: even if we use a really broad definition of what constitutes a diverse church, only around 3% of American churches are racially mixed over the long term.* A slightly larger number are mixed for a short time as they transition from one group to another. But most of our churches have a single racial group that makes up the vast majority of the congregation.
I suspect that one of the reasons diversity in our churches is so elusive is because it is something that most people support in the abstract, but few churches and church leaders make it an urgent priority.
Is this a problem? Is it sin? Or is it, in fact, just the way things are? Is it an innocuous fact -- no harm, no foul? Is it God's design?
Does it depend where you live?
If you live in rural Maine, you can hardly be expected to attend a diverse church. It simply isn't possible.
But most of us don't live there. Most of us live in metro areas that are, on the whole, much more diverse than the churches we attend. (Despite the vast rural regions of our country, four out of five Americans actually live in cities or suburbs, where diversity is almost always close at hand). What is our responsibility when diversity is in reach, as it is for most of us? Is racial integration something our church leaders should make a top priority? Is it a nice idea and something we hope for but one that should not get in the way of more important church functions? Or is it not really important at all?
I have a simple premise: Christianity teaches that the racial segregation of the American church is sinful. As such, racial segregation in the church is necessarily harmful, and fixing it is an appropriate concern of every believer. Just as every believer is called to abstain from sins such as lust, pride, anger, and so on, every believer is called to abstain from the sin of worldly divisions. There is a lot more to be said, but that simple premise is more than enough to keep us occupied for now.
Jesus prayed that everyone who would ever believe in him in the future would be united, would be "one" just as he and the father are one. The fascinating thing about this prayer in John 17 is that the purpose of this unity is entirely outward focused: "so that the world may know that you sent me." In a broken world that has always been riven with strife and divisions of all kinds, Jesus intended Christians to come together across those lines of division. This is an act of evangelism. The unity of the church is one of only a handful of ways Jesus said we can practically attest to the truth of the Gospel.
Now, many Christians have spiritualized this prayer into nothingness, in two different ways. First, the prayer is often thought of in the context of doctrinal ecumenism. Christians should agree on a few fundamentals and be willing to cross doctrinal lines in order to maintain the unity of the church. This is fine as far as it goes, but it is not the primary sort of unity about which Jesus prayed. Remember, this is an outward-focused unity. Its purpose is to show the world that the Gospel is true. But internal doctrinal differences are often invisible to those on the outside, if not confusing and irrelevant. Coming together across lines of disagreement that the world does not even recognize has little potential to provoke and amaze the world. We must cross lines of division that the world counts as meaningful. This is where the second means of spiritualizing this prayer into nothingness enters in. Many Christians say, we might worship in different places but the true church is united in spirit. The problem with this second perspective is much the same as the first. This spiritual unity is essentially invisible to those on the outside. As such, how can it be an evangelistic, outward-focused unity? How can it amaze? How can it show the world that Jesus is who he says he is?
The New Testament church came to understand this, though we have forgotten it almost completely. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul urged them to "put to death" their old selves and "put on" the new self given by Jesus. In this new self, Paul admonished, "there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all" (Chapter 3). We can spiritualize this under the rug too, but at grave risk to our souls. We must wrap our minds around the fact that Paul's readers could not have turned this into a vague spiritual point, because he had just named all the starkest divisions in their society. He named groups they disliked. He named ethnic, sectarian, and economic divisions. He told them to stop identifying with one group against another. He told them to be united across the most bitter divisions of their society.
This was not an isolated commandment. A key subtext of the entire book of Romans is Paul's knowledge that Jewish and Gentile believers are in conflict with one another. He does not simply tell them to get along. He laboriously provides a deep theological grounding for why and how they can be unified. Because if they are not unified, Rome will not be amazed. Because if they are not unified, will the Gospel appear to be true?
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul recounted the story of Peter and other church leaders giving in to worldly divisions and allowing those divisions to rupture the church. What was Paul's response to church leaders who let society's values guide them rather than Jesus's prayer for unity? He did not think it was merely unfortunate. He did not think it was a distraction from preaching the Gospel. He did not excuse it as just the way things are. He publicly rebuked them for "not acting in line with the truth of the gospel" (Chapter 2).
God calls the church in a given society to make a theological statement (singular). But wait, we must be more specific. Many churches seem to think they are simply called to make theological statements (plural). Those churches are hollow, like the "whitewashed tombs" Jesus described. The church is called to embody, to incarnate, a theological statement. Theology that is not first embodied is no theology at all. It will not amaze the world. In fact, it will disgust the world. Jesus came to us. We know God because of the incarnation. Yet the American church wants to pull off a bait and switch that God himself did not dare to try. We want to call people to a Christ who does not appear to solve the most pressing divisions of our society. We want people to be amazed by a disembodied Christ. On the contrary, they are rightfully disgusted.
When we seek a practical unity that crosses all the barriers of division in American society, we make a theological statement. It is an evangelistic witness that Jesus is who he says he is and can accomplish what he claims. When we do church the way it is normally done in the United States, we simply reproduce the divisions of society at large, and give that society no reason to be amazed. 3% of American churches are racially integrated. Does this have anything to do with the values of the Kingdom? Or does it have everything to do with American society? When was the last time you went to a church where the millionaire and the homeless person worshiped side by side? When was the last time you went to a church that was more welcoming and comfortable for the homeless than for the middle class? How do the values of whiteness and middle classness and upward mobility that dominate our churches fit in with the Kingdom of God? What theological statement are they making?
How can we break through the complacency and self-satisfaction of an American church that is so far from the heart of God? Our whole pattern of church life and composition blatantly reflects American history, American values, and American social divisions. Yet many well-meaning Christians find little reason to make integration a top priority. We're willing to cast off one of the primary means of being the body of Christ as if it's a stylistic choice. Churches that are eager to "evangelize" often cannot be bothered to embody their message. How can we break through? What will it take?
In the thirteenth chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus said that people will know that we are his followers if we love each other. I do not see much love in the American church. I do not see much love in myself. I search my heart and cannot find a good motive. I truly cannot. Am I so much worse than everyone else? Why do we appear so satisfied? Yes, we tend to do a good job loving people in our little congregation in our little corner of the world. We even do a good job of loving people 6,000 miles away! But while we do so we wish to absolve ourselves of all responsibility for why we live and worship where we do, why the people around us are so like us, why the poor in our own country are so far away. We love our congregation in our little corner, while lobbing missiles of misunderstanding and recrimination toward our brothers and sisters in their corners.
Trayvon. Ferguson. For those of us who long to see a compassionate American church that values Jesus more than whiteness, these were shattering experiences from which we will not recover.
Why do we accept the premise that American society, rather than the values of the Kingdom of God, should structure the biggest decisions of our lives? The segregation of the American church has no theological basis. It is not in the will of God. It is sinful. It reproduces misunderstanding and isolation. It fosters division. It does not amaze the world. It merely shows the world that we are just like them. Though racial segregation in American society has slowly eased a little bit (not by much) Americans are increasingly self-segregating by income and political views. If you're poor, you probably live around a lot of poor people. If you're middle class, you probably live around a lot of middle class people. Will we, the church, join in this trend? Or will we live by the values of the Kingdom?
In the fourteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel, Jesus told a story that the American church desperately needs to hear:
“A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’
“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’
“Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’I will leave the last word to Dr. John Perkins. He's a Black man who lost his brother when White policemen in Mississippi murdered him. Perkins got out of Mississippi. But then God called him to go back. He befriended two White pastors, who became convicted that they needed to tell their congregations to love their Black brothers and sisters. Within a short time, both pastors had committed suicide. Such was the strain of fighting against racism. Later, White policemen beat Perkins almost to death as he struggled for civil rights. These experiences caused him to dedicate his life to seeking racial reconciliation among American Christians. In 1982 he wrote a book called With Justice for All. His searing critique of the church might sound angry to you. Or unfair. But it is the critique of man who loves the church and has given much more for it than most of us.
“Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’
“The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
“‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’
“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”
The only purpose of the gospel is to reconcile people to God and to each other. A gospel that doesn't reconcile is not a Christian gospel at all. But in America it seems as if we don't believe that. We don't really believe that the proof of our discipleship is that we love one another. No, we think the proof is in numbers -- church attendance, decision cards. Even if our "converts" continue to hate each other, even if they will not worship with their brothers and sisters in Christ, we point to their "conversion" as evidence of the gospel's success. We have substituted a gospel of church growth for a gospel of reconciliation.
And how convenient it is that our "church growth experts" tell us that homogeneous churches grow fastest! That welcome news seems to relieve us of the responsibility to overcome racial barriers in our churches. It seems to justify not bothering with breaking down racial barriers, since that would only distract us from "church growth." And so the most segregated racist institution in America, the evangelical church, racks up the numbers, declaring itself "successful," oblivious to the fact that the dismemberment of the body of Christ broadcasts to the world every day a hypocrisy as blatant as Peter's at Antioch -- a living denial of the truth of the Gospel.
_____________________
* This statistic is from United by Faith by DeYoung et al. They classified a church as "racially mixed" if no single racial group made up more than 80% of the congregation. That seems to be a generous definition, but even that is met by only 3-4% of churches over the long term.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
The Long Reach of Slavery
Slavery, abolished 150 years ago, measurably influences who is rich and poor today (see abstract below), and even who we vote for. It is one thing to say in a general sense that we are living with the echoes of slavery. It is quite another to control for all other variables and find that current inequality correlates with slave concentrations eight generations ago. We're not as independent as we like to believe. We can't escape the past. We must either face it as best we can, or let our ignorance compound its ravages.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
The Graph You Must See Before You Can Understand America
Is the United States a place of opportunity for all? Is social mobility high or low? Is class now a more important dividing line than color? Do Whites continue to experience privilege based on their skin color? Has the legacy of state-sponsored racial discrimination been overcome? What causes poverty in the United States? Are there different kinds of poverty? What are the solutions? What is my responsibility? What is the government's responsibility? What do the places we live have to do with these questions? Before you can hope to answer any of these questions, before having much of any opinion about anything in American society, this is the graph you must meditate on:
It shows the characteristics of the communities Black and White children grow up in. Communities in which 30% or more of the residents are poor are almost never experienced by White children, but they are routine experiences for Black children. The takeaway: Black kids are 30x more likely to grow up in communities of concentrated poverty. The graph is from Patrick Sharkey's recent book, Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress Toward Racial Equality. The graph is even more powerful in the context of his broader argument. More commentary to come as I work through the book.
Friday, January 3, 2014
How a Failure to Understand Poverty Shows We Don't Understand the Gospel
What do you think of poor people? If you're a Christian, what does your understanding of poverty say about your grasp of the Gospel? Do your efforts to ameliorate poverty make your life harder on a daily basis? Should they? Do you find yourself sharing in the suffering of the poor or are they a distant abstraction? We would do well to ponder these questions more.
Look through the Bible for words like poor, needy, and poverty. You'll find verses warning against behaviors that can cause individuals to fall into poverty. For example:
Lazy hands make for poverty,
but diligent hands bring wealth.
Proverbs 10:4.
The plans of the diligent lead to profit
as surely as haste leads to poverty.
Proverbs 21:5
One who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth
and one who gives gifts to the rich—both come to poverty.
Proverbs 22:16
I wish that last one seemed true more often in real life. Anyway, as the scripture says, there are all sorts of behaviors that pretty reliably produce bad life outcomes, including poverty. What you won't find in scripture, however, is the reasoning backward that is so pervasive in our culture. Our culture says, here's a poor person; therefore, this person must have been lazy, or unwise, or in some way flawed. Scripture's view of poverty is not like this at all. It exposes basic truths about negative habits that can produce poverty, but it never assumes, as we are so prone to, that a given instance of poverty was caused by such habits.
In fact, scripture attests to numerous other causes of poverty that have nothing to do with deficient individual character. For example:
The poor often lack important social connections, and frequently face deliberate exclusion.
The poor are shunned by all their relatives—
how much more do their friends avoid them!
Though the poor pursue them with pleading,
they are nowhere to be found.
Proverbs 19:7
The poor are shunned even by their neighbors,
but the rich have many friends.
Proverbs 14:20
Wealth attracts many friends,
but even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them
Proverbs 19:4
The poor often lack the resources to respond to life-altering crises.
A person’s riches may ransom their life,
but the poor cannot respond to threatening rebukes.
Proverbs 13:8
The little the poor do have is often taken away unjustly, and their best-laid plans are often deliberately thwarted.
An unplowed field produces food for the poor,
but injustice sweeps it away.
Proverbs 13:23
You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.
Psalm 14:5
Unscrupulous people often target the poor and seek to profit at their expense. A righteous person is one...
who lends money to the poor without interest;
who does not accept a bribe against the innocent.
Psalm 15:5
But the wicked take advantage of the poor.
For he has oppressed the poor and left them destitute;
he has seized houses he did not build.
Job 20:19
There are those who move boundary stones;
they pasture flocks they have stolen.
They drive away the orphan’s donkey
and take the widow’s ox in pledge.
They thrust the needy from the path
and force all the poor of the land into hiding.
Job 24:2-4
The poor also have to grapple with governments that frequently oppress them with unjust laws.
Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
Isaiah 10:1-2
The cumulative effect is devastating, as the poor are often held down by a web of unjust laws and practices.
There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court
and detest the one who tells the truth.
It is not hard to see that such practices are rampant in our culture. Just think of the schemes of the banks, mortgage companies, and payday lenders. But the more subtle practices the Bible so wisely notes are present here too, and we are implicated in them. The norm in American culture is to live in the best community one can afford, putting as much distance between us and the poor as money will provide. The rich do indeed have many friends, while the poor suffer for want of connections. The Bible speaks of such states of affairs not as age-old ways of the world that we must resign ourselves to, but as expressions of cultures nearing the extreme limits of depravity. When God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah to decry extreme evil he focused on treatment of the most marginal members of the society:
“Among my people are the wicked
who lie in wait like men who snare birds
and like those who set traps to catch people.
Like cages full of birds,
their houses are full of deceit;
they have become rich and powerful
and have grown fat and sleek.
Their evil deeds have no limit;
they do not seek justice.
They do not promote the case of the fatherless;
they do not defend the just cause of the poor.
Should I not punish them for this?”
declares the Lord.
“Should I not avenge myself
on such a nation as this?
Jeremiah 5:26-29
Indeed, the scriptures are full of such warnings. This is a dramatic contrast to American culture and American Christianity. We live in a culture in which material poverty and moral poverty are frequently assumed to go together. We readily believe that a lack of outward success reveals internal failures. By the same token, material success grants an automatic aura of respectability. The Bible offers a much more complex portrait of poverty. It recognizes that individuals often rise or fall on the strength of their qualities of character. But it does not -- not once, not ever -- take the poor as a social group to task for their poverty. On the contrary, the scriptures are overflowing with warnings and admonitions against the rich and the powerful.
The Lord enters into judgment
against the elders and leaders of his people:
“It is you who have ruined my vineyard;
the plunder from the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing my people
and grinding the faces of the poor?”
declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.
Isaiah 3:14-15
Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor
will also cry out and not be answered.
Proverbs 21:13
Whoever increases wealth by taking interest or profit from the poor
amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor.
Proverbs 28:8
The righteous care about justice for the poor,
but the wicked have no such concern.
Proverbs 29:7
This is not a mere matter of moral behavior. God calls us to a certain set of attitudes toward the poor because he explicitly identifies with them. To mistreat the poor is to shake our fist at God.
Do not exploit the poor because they are poor
and do not crush the needy in court,
for the Lord will take up their case
and will exact life for life.
Proverbs 22:22-23
“Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan,
I will now arise,” says the Lord.
“I will protect them from those who malign them.”
Psalm 12:5
Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.
Proverbs 14:31
The Old Testament prophets saw God's identification with the poor as being so strong that they directly equated just treatment of the poor with the presence or absence of a relationship with God.
“Does it make you a king
to have more and more cedar?
Did not your father have food and drink?
He did what was right and just,
so all went well with him.
He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the Lord.
“But your eyes and your heart
are set only on dishonest gain,
on shedding innocent blood
and on oppression and extortion.”
Jeremiah 22:15-17
Jesus doubled down on the words of the prophets, declaring that eternal judgment and reward would be meted out on the same basis:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 25:31-46
This is where it begins to get interesting. It turns out that the very group most of us look down on is not only the object of God's special concern; it is the primary target for the arrival of God's Kingdom on earth. When the Old Testament prophets spoke of the Messiah who was to come they emphasized what it would mean for the poor:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God
Isaiah 61:1-2
God has decided that in his economy the poor would be the repositories of special spiritual riches.
We must, first, admit that God has done this.
Most of us are loath to make this admission in any substantive way. But having done it we must grapple with the simple certainty that this is not a choice we -- we of middle class sensibility and material comfort -- would have made. Moreover, we must seriously consider the possibility of our spiritual impoverishment. The Gospel is good news for the poor, and for everyone willing to become poor. It is a disaster for the rest of us. For the poor, the Gospel is hope and joy and life; there is little to lose. It can be the same for the rich as well, but first we must see ourselves in the poor. That's a journey that may well bring us to material poverty. If we think the Gospel and middle-class Americanism mix we have not understood the Gospel.
This is all particularly searing in light of the fact that I and nearly everyone reading this is outlandishly wealthy in a global-historical context. This is what Jesus said to people like us:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
It is hard to wrap my mind around these things, blinded as I am by my privilege, wealth, and unearned power. It reminds me of this:
The rich are wise in their own eyes;
one who is poor and discerning sees how deluded they are.
Proverbs 28:11
Look through the Bible for words like poor, needy, and poverty. You'll find verses warning against behaviors that can cause individuals to fall into poverty. For example:
Lazy hands make for poverty,
but diligent hands bring wealth.
Proverbs 10:4.
The plans of the diligent lead to profit
as surely as haste leads to poverty.
Proverbs 21:5
One who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth
and one who gives gifts to the rich—both come to poverty.
Proverbs 22:16
I wish that last one seemed true more often in real life. Anyway, as the scripture says, there are all sorts of behaviors that pretty reliably produce bad life outcomes, including poverty. What you won't find in scripture, however, is the reasoning backward that is so pervasive in our culture. Our culture says, here's a poor person; therefore, this person must have been lazy, or unwise, or in some way flawed. Scripture's view of poverty is not like this at all. It exposes basic truths about negative habits that can produce poverty, but it never assumes, as we are so prone to, that a given instance of poverty was caused by such habits.
In fact, scripture attests to numerous other causes of poverty that have nothing to do with deficient individual character. For example:
The poor often lack important social connections, and frequently face deliberate exclusion.
The poor are shunned by all their relatives—
how much more do their friends avoid them!
Though the poor pursue them with pleading,
they are nowhere to be found.
Proverbs 19:7
The poor are shunned even by their neighbors,
but the rich have many friends.
Proverbs 14:20
Wealth attracts many friends,
but even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them
Proverbs 19:4
The poor often lack the resources to respond to life-altering crises.
A person’s riches may ransom their life,
but the poor cannot respond to threatening rebukes.
Proverbs 13:8
The little the poor do have is often taken away unjustly, and their best-laid plans are often deliberately thwarted.
An unplowed field produces food for the poor,
but injustice sweeps it away.
Proverbs 13:23
You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.
Psalm 14:5
Unscrupulous people often target the poor and seek to profit at their expense. A righteous person is one...
who lends money to the poor without interest;
who does not accept a bribe against the innocent.
Psalm 15:5
But the wicked take advantage of the poor.
For he has oppressed the poor and left them destitute;
he has seized houses he did not build.
Job 20:19
There are those who move boundary stones;
they pasture flocks they have stolen.
They drive away the orphan’s donkey
and take the widow’s ox in pledge.
They thrust the needy from the path
and force all the poor of the land into hiding.
Job 24:2-4
The poor also have to grapple with governments that frequently oppress them with unjust laws.
Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
Isaiah 10:1-2
The cumulative effect is devastating, as the poor are often held down by a web of unjust laws and practices.
There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court
and detest the one who tells the truth.
You levy a straw tax on the poor
and impose a tax on their grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
you will not drink their wine.
For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.
and impose a tax on their grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
you will not drink their wine.
For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.
There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes
and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
Amos 5:10-12
“Among my people are the wicked
who lie in wait like men who snare birds
and like those who set traps to catch people.
Like cages full of birds,
their houses are full of deceit;
they have become rich and powerful
and have grown fat and sleek.
Their evil deeds have no limit;
they do not seek justice.
They do not promote the case of the fatherless;
they do not defend the just cause of the poor.
Should I not punish them for this?”
declares the Lord.
“Should I not avenge myself
on such a nation as this?
Jeremiah 5:26-29
Indeed, the scriptures are full of such warnings. This is a dramatic contrast to American culture and American Christianity. We live in a culture in which material poverty and moral poverty are frequently assumed to go together. We readily believe that a lack of outward success reveals internal failures. By the same token, material success grants an automatic aura of respectability. The Bible offers a much more complex portrait of poverty. It recognizes that individuals often rise or fall on the strength of their qualities of character. But it does not -- not once, not ever -- take the poor as a social group to task for their poverty. On the contrary, the scriptures are overflowing with warnings and admonitions against the rich and the powerful.
The Lord enters into judgment
against the elders and leaders of his people:
“It is you who have ruined my vineyard;
the plunder from the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing my people
and grinding the faces of the poor?”
declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.
Isaiah 3:14-15
Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor
will also cry out and not be answered.
Proverbs 21:13
Whoever increases wealth by taking interest or profit from the poor
amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor.
Proverbs 28:8
The righteous care about justice for the poor,
but the wicked have no such concern.
Proverbs 29:7
This is not a mere matter of moral behavior. God calls us to a certain set of attitudes toward the poor because he explicitly identifies with them. To mistreat the poor is to shake our fist at God.
Do not exploit the poor because they are poor
and do not crush the needy in court,
for the Lord will take up their case
and will exact life for life.
Proverbs 22:22-23
“Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan,
I will now arise,” says the Lord.
“I will protect them from those who malign them.”
Psalm 12:5
Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.
Proverbs 14:31
The Old Testament prophets saw God's identification with the poor as being so strong that they directly equated just treatment of the poor with the presence or absence of a relationship with God.
“Does it make you a king
to have more and more cedar?
Did not your father have food and drink?
He did what was right and just,
so all went well with him.
He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the Lord.
“But your eyes and your heart
are set only on dishonest gain,
on shedding innocent blood
and on oppression and extortion.”
Jeremiah 22:15-17
Jesus doubled down on the words of the prophets, declaring that eternal judgment and reward would be meted out on the same basis:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 25:31-46
This is where it begins to get interesting. It turns out that the very group most of us look down on is not only the object of God's special concern; it is the primary target for the arrival of God's Kingdom on earth. When the Old Testament prophets spoke of the Messiah who was to come they emphasized what it would mean for the poor:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist
Isaiah 11:1-5
And when Christ himself stood up in the synagogue to declare that the fulfillment of the prophets was at hand, he quoted this:
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God
Isaiah 61:1-2
When John's disciples wanted to know if Jesus really was the Messiah, his answer was simple:
“Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor."
Matthew 11:4-5
The Gospel came for all of us, but it came in particular for the poor, because they are able to receive it. A lot of people like to spiritualize this to the point of nothingness. The Bible is quite explicit in rejecting these attempts. Though Matthew's recording of it is more commonly heard, it is worth paying attention to how Luke put this famous saying of Jesus:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God."
for yours is the kingdom of God."
Luke 6:19-20
The materially poor really do have a special place in God's heart and in his Kingdom. Lest we think this is a translation quirk, James is about as blunt about this as one could be:
Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor.
James 2:5-6God has decided that in his economy the poor would be the repositories of special spiritual riches.
We must, first, admit that God has done this.
Most of us are loath to make this admission in any substantive way. But having done it we must grapple with the simple certainty that this is not a choice we -- we of middle class sensibility and material comfort -- would have made. Moreover, we must seriously consider the possibility of our spiritual impoverishment. The Gospel is good news for the poor, and for everyone willing to become poor. It is a disaster for the rest of us. For the poor, the Gospel is hope and joy and life; there is little to lose. It can be the same for the rich as well, but first we must see ourselves in the poor. That's a journey that may well bring us to material poverty. If we think the Gospel and middle-class Americanism mix we have not understood the Gospel.
This is all particularly searing in light of the fact that I and nearly everyone reading this is outlandishly wealthy in a global-historical context. This is what Jesus said to people like us:
“If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Matthew 19:18-24
It is hard for us to come to grips with just how different the Bible's assumptions about poverty are from that of the average American Christian. We tend to assume, often subconsciously, that wealth is a sign of God's blessing. In contrast, the Bible is constantly warning about how dangerous it is. We also assume, again unconsciously, that the poor are to be pitied. In contrast, God has made it blatantly clear that he is on the side of the poor, so much so that he decided to give them spiritual resources those of us who cut ourselves off from the poor know nothing about.
The rich are wise in their own eyes;
one who is poor and discerning sees how deluded they are.
Proverbs 28:11
It is all well and good to be charitable. It is another thing altogether to go deeper into the meanings of the Gospel and join in the sufferings of the poor, not because they need you but because you need them.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
The Purposes of Forgetting
Quick! Name a segregationist from the civil rights era.
Anybody come to mind?
Don't feel bad if you couldn't think of one. This is a social critique, not an individual criticism. Now, let's say you did name one. Was it Bull Connor? George Wallace? Strom Thurmond? Ross Barnett? I imagine those names pretty much cover it, if you came up with a name.
Now here's the dirty little secret. None of those guys, with the possible exception of Wallace, were particularly good at defending segregation. Most of them proved to be useful foils, and had they never existed the battle for white supremacy would have played out in much the same way. But to the extent we remember any segregationists, we like to remember those who were incompetent, or buffoonish, or violent, or some combination of the three. Why is that?
As I hinted at in my review of Sweet Land of Liberty, our remembrance and forgetfulness of the civil rights movement carries a purpose of its own. That purpose is to congratulate ourselves on how far we've come. Are our schools as segregated as they were 40 years ago? "Doesn't matter; tell us about Birmingham again." Are isolated enclaves of poverty just as cut off from hope and opportunity as they were? "It's okay, remind us of Selma." Has the wealth gap grown larger? "Don't worry, just tell us again about dogs and fire hoses and freedom riders and the man standing in the schoolhouse door. Then we'll know how far we've come."
We remember the dumb segregationists because we want to believe they were the problem. We don't want to know that defeating them, by itself, solved almost nothing. We don't remember the white racists who were actually good at defending their interests. Men like Richard Russell in the senate, Mayor Daley in Chicago or, for that matter, our presidents. More than that, we don't want to know that the problem went beyond the capacity of individual heart change to fix.
By the middle of the twentieth century, injustice based on race was built into the fabric of our neighborhoods, our economy, and our government. Built. Pretending that it could be uprooted by a change of heart and newfound intention to be nice is like assuming a skyscraper will disappear because we regret building it.
Unfortunately, there is little evidence that a majority of white Americans have ever actually cared about doing the work of unbuilding what they had built. We made it through the entire civil rights era without this basic selfishness being challenged. That is why we remember the beatings on the bridge at Selma, and the bombing of a church in Birmingham, and it's why those events galvanized public opinion at the time. The majority of white Americans did not care, and by all appearances still do not, about the quiet, fundamentally unequal share of opportunity that slowly strangled black Americans and silently killed them by the thousands.
A dramatic beating, a bomb. Why, there is something to get upset about! On the other hand, the fact that because of your skin color you have less housing options, poorer education, less fairness from police, less money, less life expectancy, less, less, less -- well, that's just the way things are and haven't you heard it has nothing to do with race?
Because of the indifference of whites, civil rights activists were forced to build their movement on showcase events -- the beatings and mass jailings. But that was a thin reed to build a just society on. It's why the movement faltered every time it encountered smart white authorities who avoided public outrages while quietly protecting the life-killing privileges their white constituents demanded.
I've come to realize that we're still doing the same thing. We're trying to get the majority of white Americans to care, and instead of unapologetically informing them about the basic justice of the cause and seeking to sensitize their social conscience, we are still going out on those thin reeds, seeking a showcase to dramatize an unequal America.
That was what Trayvon Martin was all about. I admit now that I was misguided on that, not because of the case itself but because of what I wanted to use it for. If people are not already outraged and morally stricken by the daily life experience of many of America's poor, a killing in murky circumstances is certainly not going to move them.
Anybody come to mind?
Don't feel bad if you couldn't think of one. This is a social critique, not an individual criticism. Now, let's say you did name one. Was it Bull Connor? George Wallace? Strom Thurmond? Ross Barnett? I imagine those names pretty much cover it, if you came up with a name.
Now here's the dirty little secret. None of those guys, with the possible exception of Wallace, were particularly good at defending segregation. Most of them proved to be useful foils, and had they never existed the battle for white supremacy would have played out in much the same way. But to the extent we remember any segregationists, we like to remember those who were incompetent, or buffoonish, or violent, or some combination of the three. Why is that?
As I hinted at in my review of Sweet Land of Liberty, our remembrance and forgetfulness of the civil rights movement carries a purpose of its own. That purpose is to congratulate ourselves on how far we've come. Are our schools as segregated as they were 40 years ago? "Doesn't matter; tell us about Birmingham again." Are isolated enclaves of poverty just as cut off from hope and opportunity as they were? "It's okay, remind us of Selma." Has the wealth gap grown larger? "Don't worry, just tell us again about dogs and fire hoses and freedom riders and the man standing in the schoolhouse door. Then we'll know how far we've come."
We remember the dumb segregationists because we want to believe they were the problem. We don't want to know that defeating them, by itself, solved almost nothing. We don't remember the white racists who were actually good at defending their interests. Men like Richard Russell in the senate, Mayor Daley in Chicago or, for that matter, our presidents. More than that, we don't want to know that the problem went beyond the capacity of individual heart change to fix.
By the middle of the twentieth century, injustice based on race was built into the fabric of our neighborhoods, our economy, and our government. Built. Pretending that it could be uprooted by a change of heart and newfound intention to be nice is like assuming a skyscraper will disappear because we regret building it.
Unfortunately, there is little evidence that a majority of white Americans have ever actually cared about doing the work of unbuilding what they had built. We made it through the entire civil rights era without this basic selfishness being challenged. That is why we remember the beatings on the bridge at Selma, and the bombing of a church in Birmingham, and it's why those events galvanized public opinion at the time. The majority of white Americans did not care, and by all appearances still do not, about the quiet, fundamentally unequal share of opportunity that slowly strangled black Americans and silently killed them by the thousands.
A dramatic beating, a bomb. Why, there is something to get upset about! On the other hand, the fact that because of your skin color you have less housing options, poorer education, less fairness from police, less money, less life expectancy, less, less, less -- well, that's just the way things are and haven't you heard it has nothing to do with race?
Because of the indifference of whites, civil rights activists were forced to build their movement on showcase events -- the beatings and mass jailings. But that was a thin reed to build a just society on. It's why the movement faltered every time it encountered smart white authorities who avoided public outrages while quietly protecting the life-killing privileges their white constituents demanded.
I've come to realize that we're still doing the same thing. We're trying to get the majority of white Americans to care, and instead of unapologetically informing them about the basic justice of the cause and seeking to sensitize their social conscience, we are still going out on those thin reeds, seeking a showcase to dramatize an unequal America.
That was what Trayvon Martin was all about. I admit now that I was misguided on that, not because of the case itself but because of what I wanted to use it for. If people are not already outraged and morally stricken by the daily life experience of many of America's poor, a killing in murky circumstances is certainly not going to move them.
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