WOW2000: Becoming Racially Responsible as a Welcoming Church Movement

by Rev. Dr. Irene Monroe
August 6, 2000 (a plenary session on at the WOW 2000 conference)

I come this morning to share my thoughts of what it takes for us all to be racially responsible. Had we not witnessed, and had we not experienced Tolanda's, an African American lesbian, effort to be heard and affirmed in this space, I still would have had to come to talk with us all about being racially responsible, because of the sheer number of people of color in attendance at this conference. However, because we have had this experience, and we now speak from this place of pain and brokenness, it is now a spiritual imperative for the life of this Welcoming Church Movement, and for the souls of us saints to talk about being racially responsible.

In order to be racially responsible, we must examine three things. First, the relationship between a person's intent and a person's outcome. Second, the relationship between who we say we are as a movement, and what we actually do as a people, And third, the unhealthy relationship between white guilt and black rage.

Because one's intent is well meaning, it does not mean that one's outcome is not hurtful, is not damaging, is not destructive. We know the old cliche: "the road to Hell was paved with good intentions". For example, for a white person to say to a person of color who he hurts the feelings of that his intent was well meaning, and then not take responsibility for the outcome of his intent is not being racially responsible. To ignore or to be indifferent about your outcome dismisses your effort, although well intended, to communicate with the person. It is not enough to own your intent, and then abandon your outcome.

Who we say we are as a movement, must be followed up by our actions in order to be taken seriously, in order for our own self-respect, and in order to invite people other than ourselves into the fold. It is not enough for us to say we are a justice-seeking people, and not be a justice-doing people.

To truly be an ecumenical movement we have to be racially responsible. For example, people of color worship differently from white people even if people of color are in white denominational churches. When several African Americans left the worship space after Tolanda's statement, many left not only in solidarity with Tolanda, but many also left, myself included, because the worship space had been desecrated.

Why did many African Americans feel the worship space had been desecrated? When African Americans had nothing else to hold onto in a racially divided and segregate society African Americans had the church. The church is their solid rock. The church is their Balm in Gilead. The church is their refuge in a time of trouble. To not know the centrality of worship in Black people's lives made the space not only unsafe, but also unholy. To had expected African Americans to be in worship at that time, or to had wondered why they were not in worship after Tolanda gave her statement is not being racially responsible. You cannot expect African Americans, given their reverence for the church and the recent racial incident, to sit down and worship with the entire group, when what now stood before them was a divided body of Christ, and a worship space that had become now unsafe, unholy, and, in many of their eyes, ungodly. To invite people of color into a worship space that does not know what worship means in the lives of these people is not being racially responsible, and it is also not being truly ecumenical.

Lately, in order for us to be a Welcoming Church Movement that is racially responsible, we must unlock the deadbolt between white guilt and black rage. For white people to say they feel guilty for their people's racism, and they feel ashamed to be a white person, and yet not do anything to eradicate the injustice is not being racially responsible. To be racially responsible is to move with the guilt and to move with the pain not only to eradicate those feelings for yourself, but to do the work that must be done in order to stand on your convictions that you are wedded to being a justice-doing people.

Here is another example about being racially responsible. For African Americans to use black rage beyond the point of making a point becomes self-serving, becomes hurtful, becomes destructive not only toward white people, but also toward blacks and other people of color who want to stand in solidarity with you. African Americans must come to understand that their use of rage has to be as accountable to all of us here as a group as does white people's use of guilt if we are all truly about bridging the gaps that stand before us and not widening the already existing chasms. To assume that the job of being racially responsible falls only on the shoulders of white folks is to miss the goal of working toward living in right relations with one another in order to be united in the body of Christ.

I just want to end with these words: Ernest Hemingway in a Farewell to Arms said that the world breaks us all, but some of us grow strong in those broken places. I know we are broken by what happened this weekend. However, I also know that God wants us to grow string in those broken places. And, as a Welcoming Church Movement, we must grow strong in those broken places in order to be the prophetic voices God calls us out to be as a people at this specific time and place in history.

Peace be with us all!