wfn.org | Commentary: Black History Month confronts untruths, racism

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Feb. 11, 2002	News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.     10-31-71BP{048}

NOTE: A head-and-shoulders photo of Bishop Linda Lee is available at
http://umns.umc.org/photos/headshots.html.

A UMNS Commentary
By Bishop Linda Lee*

Annual recognition of the life-giving and life-supporting contributions of
African Americans to the United States -- and the world -- through Black
History Month is important. It is important because the untruths about the
Africans who were brought to this country as slaves, that were promoted and
taught as truth, have not yet been purged from the psyches of the people of
this nation, black or white. 

As a result, we find that racism continues, even in the church. For many it
is expressed as an unconscious pattern of thinking and behavior that
continues to bring pain to the souls of those whose faith will not let them
stop believing that it is possible for us to be one in Christ Jesus.  

The history of African Americans neither began nor ended with life on the
plantations of America. It still escapes many that the Atlantic slave trade
was an economic venture. For several hundred years, the economic foundation
of this country was built on the backs and blood of Africans now American.
For money, men and women were willing to sell their souls and convince
themselves that brother and sister human beings were not human.  

Slavery has existed in one form or another for millennia. It was the
disregard of the humanity of other human beings that was the sin that
allowed all manner of atrocities to be condoned in the barbaric treatment of
the Africans during the Atlantic slave trade. The denial of the humanity and
value of another human being work toward the destruction of the spirit and
the soul of both the one in denial, and the one about whom the denial is
made. Nobody wants to be kidnapped.  Nobody wants to be beaten or tortured.
Nobody wants to be stripped of his or her identity.  Nobody wants to live in
a perpetual state of disenfranchisement and marginalization.  

Black History Month is one important step in getting the truth out that God
did not make a mistake when black people were created. It is an important
step in the difficult process of changing hearts by making the truth
available to everyone.  

In the 2000 United Methodist Book of Discipline, the following words are
found:  "The United Methodist Church is a part of the church universal,
which is one Body in Christ.  Therefore all persons, without regard to race,
color, national origin status, or economic condition, shall be eligible to
attend its worship services, to participate in its programs, and, when they
take the appropriate vows, to be admitted into its membership in any local
church in the connection. In the United Methodist Church no conference or
other organizational unit of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude
any/member or any constituent body of the Church because of race, color,
national origin, status, or economic condition." (Pp.4 Article IV)

These words speak toward a noble goal that many in the United Methodist
Church are working very hard to make a reality. We are not there yet. Racism
continues to pervade our structures and our relationships. 

Reaching the place in race relations described in our Book of Discipline
requires that white Americans move from a belief in the innate inferiority
of African Americans to truly open hearts and respect for a people whose
only "wrong" was being born black. This is a monumental process of change.
It requires confession, repentance and accountability. African Americans
have need to forgive and to claim fully the humanity that is ours --
unmistakably God given and God sustained. As the healing progresses, we will
be able to see how our structures continue to perpetuate the exclusion,
marginalization and disrespect of African Americans and others.

But God doesn't make mistakes. I believe that the work that is still needed
for the United Methodist Church to be the Church of Jesus Christ in the 21st
Century is included in God's plan. 

Black History Month is one of the steps to get us there. Through it, we
learn more of the truth.  And it is the truth that moves us to new
understandings, new insight and new possibilities. 

John Wesley was an advocate of education. He also preached and wrote against
the practice of slavery in North America at the time he was here. We are
educated not only in our institutions of learning, but by life. Studying the
information brought to the forefront during Black History Month provides an
important opportunity to learn more of what we need know in order to ensure
that all people have access in one Spirit to God.
# # #
*Lee is the episcopal leader of the United Methodist Church's Michigan Area,
which includes the Detroit and West Michigan annual conferences.

Commentaries provided by United Methodist News Service do not necessarily
represent the opinions or policies of UMNS or the United Methodist Church.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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