So, I need to make a confession. Yesterday morning, early, around 6:15, I stopped in the Price Chopper in Hamilton while it was still Senior Hour. That is my confession. My punishment was this: Nobody noticed me. I fit right in.
But as I was driving home, I started to think about that. A lot of my clergy friends talk a lot about white privilege. I'm generally polite and listen, but I don't really. I'm of the generation and part of the nation that figures we've done our part. Now I just want to be left alone to live my life.
Coming home I realized that nobody at the Price Chopper questioned me. Nobody followed me around. Some even smiled and nodded. I fit right in. I wasn't afraid of them, and they weren't afraid of me. And I sometimes wonder why that is.
Here are some words written in 1963 from a Birmingham jail:
“We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. . .Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; . . . when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; . . . when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”
I have another confession to make. I have an inordinate fear of fire. I have watched homes burn in my life, and I have once seen firefighters struggle and fail to rescue a family from the flames. I cannot begin to tell you the number of nights I'll get out of bed to go to the kitchen to make sure the range is turned off. And I think I would probably panic if I were among the disciples at Pentecost when the tongues of flame lit upon their heads.
And by saying that, I worry that I may be rejecting the Holy Spirit, the ultimate blasphemy. It's so much easier to just go along with society and what it expects of me. Follow the rules, obey the powers and principalities, live in the system we've been given. No, more that that. SERVE the system. It sustains us and provides for us. Be comforted in it.
But sometimes, late at night, when I'm checking my appliances, I wonder about fire. Have I forgone the life-giving fire of the Holy Spirit for the destructive fires in our land. Am I stoking them and warming myself from the pain they cause? I don't know. I think I'm afraid to know.
Here are more words written from a Birmingham jail:
“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." . . . Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
I have yet another confession to make. I remember when I was in High School. It was a private school in the South. Only white kids attended it. What strikes me now is what didn't strike me then. I didn't notice that only white kids attended. . . until a black kid attended. And I remember how uncomfortable I was, and how strange and exotic and OTHER he was. His name was Rodney. That's all. Rodney. Just a name. Just another kid. That's all.
The Apostle Paul implores the Corinthians to realize that the Body of Christ is many parts. His way of saying we're all in this together. I wonder if I really know what that means?
Here are more words written from a Birmingham jail:
“I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”
I have a final confession to make. Yesterday it finally hit me. I finally understood what the phrase “white privilege” means. I was pumping gas in Sangerfield. A cop pulled up next to me. He nodded to me; I nodded to him. He went about his business, and I went about mine. He put on a mask and strolled into the store; I got in my car, took off my mask, and went on. We were both wearing masks to protect each other. And I saw him as an officer of the law, someone there to protect all of us.
And I never once felt compelled to lament, in the words of the Psalmist, “. . .you take away their breath, and they die.”
Here are the final words from a Birmingham Jail:
“If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.
“I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
“Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr.”