Imus, Race & Christians

As some of you know my wife & I are in process of adopting two children from Ethiopia.

We have been thinking deeply how much we as "white" people really do not understand the race issue, as most of us think we do. I have grown up in mainly middle class, white surburbia and I really have no clue the many faces of racism that lurk in the neighbrohoods that surround me.

Being we are adopting African children we are try to be as educated as possible in raising transracial children.

Saddly most of our conversations with "christians" have been less than good.

I have found the stories make me angry, sad and amazed that in this day and age a 10 year old African female can be followed and watched at your friendly neighbrohood Walmart in Hudson Wisconsin assuming she is likely to shoplift while her caucasion friend has never felt that in her life. It is amazing that a 21 year old African-American guy can be pulled over in Roseville time and time again on his way to his college campus while his caucasion roomate has never experienced racial profiling and never once been pulled over just because.

I have found myself recently much more sensitive to racist remarks. A few days ago while watching a television show I have watched before many times, I was quite suprised how many racist remarks were in the script. It was quite disturbing.

Even seemingly innocent things like prefacing... For example the other day when a friend was telling a story and reference was made to the "black" girl. There was no need to preface her color. In actuality it added nothing to the story. I have found that I do this as well, but I have been asking myself why I never say the "white" girl to preface a individual of my skin tone? Obviously we are different and in describing someones features in trying to explain something is alright, but I find I too often preface when it really doen't need to be.
For example if I tell you that the cashier at the store was very friendly, do I really need to preface that she was black. "that black cashier was really nice" Why would I never say "that white cashier was really nice?Am I suprised that she is nice because she is black? " Is there underliying subconseous racism there? I'm not sure, but I do find it wierd that we so often feel the need to preface colors.

Needless to say I think that it is a good time for us to be talking about race. The church should be the place where this get worked out & wrestled with. It's about time we are proactive instead of reactive.

If the Imus fallout does anything I think this would be a good time to look at these issues again.

I have found the blog Thabiti's Top Ten Tips for Talking About Race at Pure Church to be very helpful and useful when pondering this subject. I hope that it is something the Christian community will grab onto at this time and really thing about these issues.

SIDENOTE:
Dateline NBC did a special news story this past Sunday about the fallout of the comments of Don Imus. They highlighted a Harvard Test - Implicit Association Test which has trys and determine if a person has an automatic preferance to certain skin colors.

It was quite interesting and you can take this test online if you want in about 5-7 minutes.