I attended The Justice Conference in Chicago this past weekend–two days packed with biblical teaching on helping the poor, racial justice, human trafficking, and much more. You can get a good snapshot of the conference by perusing #Justice15 on Twitter. With the gravity of the topics discussed, I found my mind brimming with subjects I wanted to blog about upon returning home. I will certainly get to some of those soon, but first need to shed some light on an ironic and tragic injustice some of the black presenters of the Justice Conference experienced at the nearby conference hotel, Congress Plaza.
One of my favorite presenters at the conference was Rahiel Tesfamariam, who taught one of the workshops at the Race & Reconciliation pre-conference track I attended. My favorite thing about Rahiel’s presentation was how clear she was that she loves Jesus and how that is her motivation to do justice work, and then how boldly and effectively she pursued her work. Rahiel is the founder and publisher of the online magazine Urban Cusp and is a leader on race in America and dismantling racism.
While I was reading through the #Justice15 tweets on my Twitter feed Saturday, I saw the following tweet being retweeted:
Rahiel is pictured on the left of the photo. I encourage you to read Rahiel’s account of what happened to her and the four activists from Baltimore who were with her and who attended the Justice Conference.
As a white male, I will never have to experience what Rahiel, Kwame (Rose, a co-presenter with Rahiel), Anthony, Jeff and Larry experienced Saturday night.
As a white male, my pale skin color is an all-access pass to people’s trust, filling them with feelings of safety, hospitality and fairness. When I go to a hotel, I am pampered and served by the staff and given the opportunity to rest and relax.
Because of Rahiel and her friends’ darker skin… people fear for their lives around them!
…they are treated as subhuman (a.k.a. subwhite).
…they are treated as convicts in the very hotel they are customers of.
…they are mistaken for homeless people.
…the police are ready to be called in a moments’ notice. Can you imagine how this situation would have exploded (possibly literally) if the police had been called? Because 5 people decided to hang out in their hotel’s lobby after a grueling two days at a conference, their very lives are in danger.
Meanwhile white people like me can shout and yell in the same hotel lobby, break telephones, as well as get private access to the top hotel manager on duty without any credentials except for our European skin.
I want to pull out my hair.
I want to tear my clothes and wear sackcloth and ashes.
Knowing I will never have to experience what my black and Hispanic brothers and sisters experience, yet knowing they will continue to experience it over and over and over and over and over and over again. All the while being told by the majority of white society that racism is over and they need to get over it.
Knowing they will have to train their children how to carefully experience this degradation and dehumanization without getting killed or arrested in the process.
Knowing white people will hear stories like these and think things like, “You are exaggerating…you are playing the race card…if you dressed better, these things wouldn’t happen to you…if you stayed quiet and just complied, these things wouldn’t escalate…”
Knowing most white Christians will turn a blind eye to American’s systemic racism and racial injustices while the Bible cries out as a banished prophet:
Amos 5:21 “I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.Isaiah 1:16 Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
“Justice” is not a subjective term. It is not open to your interpretation. It does not mean “Let’s just all get along” or “I don’t see color” or “I have a black friend.” Justice is when two people are treated with equal dignity. Injustice is when one is free and one is enslaved. Injustice is when someone is given a sentencing when they committed no crime. It is when one paying customer can sit in a hotel lobby but another can’t without being interrogated, degraded and insulted.
The tragedy of the racial profiling that took place at the Congress Plaza Hotel on Saturday night is that it is only one instance of dehumanizing profiling that happens all over our country, all the time, most of which never get any exposure.
I will say some things here that I humbly ask my white brothers and sisters in Christ to pray over and consider:
If you deny the experience of people of color, you cannot love people of color. How can you love someone whom you have invalidated? Whom you have told their story and their pain do not matter and are untrue. This is like telling a child who confides in you that they have been molested that they are exaggerating, that they were just being tickled by the person in question and that that person would never do that to them. But you tell them you still love them and care about them…
If you do nothing and say nothing about the injustices people of color experience, how can you love them?
If you assume you are right about racial discrimination, though you have zero first hand knowledge, and you assume people of color are wrong, though they have a lifetime (and generation upon generation) of first hand knowledge, how can you call yourself a learned person, a wise person, a humble person, a loving person, or a mature person?
Why are so many white people so often so defensive and offended about these things? What on earth do we have to lose by loving people of color?
If you refuse to stand up for the injustices people of color face in America, you are directly disobeying God’s very words in Scripture. It can be said no plainer than this.
Jesus, have mercy on us.
White brothers and sisters, rise with me with courage and obedience to God’s word and love our brothers and sisters of color. LOVE them. Love is a verb. It’s an action. It’s humble. It’s incarnational. It’s relational. It is being a learner. It is respect. It is dignity. It is not proud. It is not self seeking. It is kind. It does not dishonor others. It not does delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. It is defending. It cares more for the oppressed than for what the oppressor thinks about it. It is advocating. It is solidarity
#BlackLivesMatter
#NotOneDime
These are action step recommendations from UrbanCusp.com’s article on this racial profiling incident that we can do to help ensure that this doesn’t happen again and that offenders are held accountable:
1) Call general manager Shakeel Siddiqui at #312-427-3800 x 5075 (or email ssiddiqu@congressplazahote
2) Call director of security Beatrice Ruiz at #312-427-3800 x 5021 (or email ruiz@congressplazahotel.com), asking for a full investigation into the incident of racial profiling on June 7 and requesting disciplinary action for any and all security guards who unjustly profiled a hotel guest and her company.
3) Commit to not personally and organizationally patronizing this hotel and encouraging those you know who visit or reside in Chicago to spend #NotOneDime there.
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The Congress Hotel has a history of abuse, not just of patrons, but also of its employees. There was a decade-long strike against the hotel for their terrible labor practices. No one should ever stay at this hotel. Even last year, the hotel was still trying to avoid paying pensions it owed to its workers. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/…/with-congress-plaza…
The behavior of the black against black crime is never discussed by the so-called leaders of the civil rights of their own culture., This race lie being propagated by these leaders goes against what Scripture teaches, Acts 17:26 when Paul tells us that we are all of one blood, God separated the people at the Tower of Babel in Genesis and set boundaries for these people. When a minor culture commit a majority of the crime there is something badly wrong. It goes back to the lack of discipline starting at home, when there is no authority exercised in the home,there is no respect for civil authority, this goes for any culture. Today we have chaos making it dangerous for all people black , white, brown or any culture.We are an imperfect people,this is why Christ died on the cross for our sin.
Hello Joe,
How do you know that civil rights leaders do not talk about black against black crime? Could it be that you are just not included in those conversations? I speak about race issues on occasion to white people but I spend a lot more time talking about black on black crime with black teens who I know who are criminals. Just because you are not a part of those conversations, doesn’t mean does conversation do not occur.
Also to your comment that says the “minor culture commits a majority of the crimes” There is actually some compelling data that alludes to a disparity in the justice system. That while crimes are committed at equal rates across racial boundaries Minority cultures get convicted at much higher rates . Huffington Post has an interesting article on this phenomena. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/van-jones/are-blacks-a-criminal-rac_b_8398.html
I agree completely that as human beings, we are all sinful, and we all need the cross regardless of race. God Bless You Joe.
Your Brother in Christ,
David
Hi Joe, I think David brings up some very helpful points that I echo. In addition, correct me if I’m not interpreting what you said correctly, but it sounds like you’re saying we are all “one race” via Acts 17:26 so talking about racism is fabricated. I’m not 100% sure that what’s your saying, but if it is, this previous article I wrote about the “one race” or “color blind” mentality might be helpful for you: http://www.atacrossroads.net/color-blind-whites-minorities/
One thing to remember with Acts 17:26 is that yes, biologically we are the human race, but sociologically we have created cultural classes based on skin color that we call “race.” These things have been created and we create society around them, i.e. the U.S. government for the vast majority of our nation’s history, deprived rights like owning land, education, voting etc from people who weren’t white — or even when slavery began, there used to be both black and white slaves, but it became easier to control a person by dehumanizing them altogether, which whites did based on skin color and only had black slaves from then on, it made much simpler way to determine who was human and who wasn’t. Long drawn out arguments and petitions had to be done to get Irish people to be considered legally white, for example. So we’ve created a country on “white” or “not-white”, and still reap the sour fruit of this foundation. So since this is our context, it’s important to address the disparities and injustices done based on what culture has called “race.” You’ve actually fallen into this yourself by calling blacks a “minority culture” (rather than just saying “race”) and then lumping them into a category as if they are all the same and making lots of assumptions about them. This is the problem of racism, it just lumps everyone together in an “us” vs. “them” mentality, forming our conclusions of a person based on assumptions and what media/culture tells us to think about them, rather than engaging in deep relationship, learning our history, and learning the “why” behind the way things are, as well as the learning the equality and dignity of all people regardless of skin color. In building these relationships you also will build friendships that will shatter your stereotypes, for example I know many black people who have wonderful families, have tons of respect for authority, commit no crimes, etc. Yet they still get unfairly labeled by racist stereotypes.
One thing that really helped me as a white man who grew up in the suburbs with hardly any positive exposure to people of color was to learn the history of our nation as it comes to race. It really opened my eyes and showed me how much I had to learn! I began to see the “why” behind the way things are historically, not just seeing things as isolated incidents that came up out of the blue.
I think we should blame the white person who chose this hotel. Or maybe the rates were a determining factor in choosing this lousy hotel…oh, that rotten capitalist money based system corrupts everything. I think we should blame a hotel manager for not telling everyone on duty those days that there would be black attendees at a conference and to be careful with them. Oh, perhaps let’s blame someone else on staff for not giving late check-outs to the black attendees. Some sort of special treatment is surely due, reparations style.
I have stayed in Ritz Carltons and Comfort Inns, but never have I come even close to spending three hours on couches of a hotel lobby with friends or fellow conference attendees. It would occur to me that the hotel might not appreciate a lobby being taken over by a group, white, pink or purple, when homeless issues are an admitted problem there, or simply that it is borderline inappropriate to monopolize the lobby area. Hotels usually have coffee shops if you want or need to hang around long after check-out. Or is this a white cultural norm, another anachronistic and inappropriate ritual denying personal freedom and choice?
And are you simply dim-witted not to understand that employees in this city of wildly out-of-control crime might be afraid of irate young black people? They racially profile you and you racially profile them. Grow up, everyone.
How might this have been handled better, the therapist in my head asks? How might all parties have behaved with more grace and wisdom? It is easy to blame and display outrage at their racially profiling your group but to not respond with more skill and maturity is the elephant in the room.
Really, how would Jesus have handled this situation? I doubt he’d be demanding to see the manager and feeling victimized, but even if he felt that way, he probably would have remembered the line he wrote in the Psalms about a soft word turning away wrath.
I may as well conclude that I could write a more gentle and politically correct response, allowing for everyone’s outrage and victimization due to white privilege, but frankly, I’m rather sick of all this blaming the very people who have championed so much of the progress made in civility and civil rights the last fifty years. I’m rather sick and tired of it all.