GEORGE YANCY: BLACK RAGE AND WHITE GUILT

George Yancy is a professor of philosophy at Emory University and a Black male. In a New York Times essay/letter entitled “Dear White America,” he argues that all White males (whatever they are) are racist and need to get over it.

To make his point, he admits that he is a recovering sexist (and if he can confess his sexism, we should be able to confess our racism):

• This doesn’t mean that I intentionally hate women or that I desire to oppress them. It means that despite my best intentions, I perpetuate sexism every day of my life.

Of what does his sexism consist?

• As a sexist, I have failed women. I have failed to speak out when I should have. I have failed to engage critically and extensively their pain and suffering in my writing. I have failed to transcend the rigidity of gender roles in my own life. I have failed to challenge those poisonous assumptions that women are “inferior” to men or to speak out loudly in the company of male philosophers who believe that feminist philosophy is just a nonphilosophical fad. I have been complicit with, and have allowed myself to be seduced by a country that makes billions of dollars from sexually objectifying women, from pornography, commercials, video games, to Hollywood movies. I am not innocent.

After reading this, it is hard to know which sins are being confessed. Is it sexist to hold doors for women? Is it sexist to think or make any generalizations about them – that they are better with children or that they are less physically strong or even that they are more beautiful than males? However, I would agree that watching porn is a road to sexism – viewing woman as mere sexual objects.

Is Yancy merely confessing that he has sexual thoughts regarding women, and does this make him a sexist? This raises the all-important question – What is sexism and when are we guilty of it? And are women just as guilty of reverse-sexism? Are we therefore all sexists, and if we are, is this category at all useful? Perhaps, instead, we have to be more specific about the destructive forms of sexism in which we partake.

Anyway, how do we apply these questions to the area of racism? Yancy pivots now to his main point:

• If you are white, and you are reading this letter, I ask that you don’t run to seek shelter from your own racism. Don’t hide from your responsibility. Rather, begin, right now, to practice being vulnerable. Being neither a “good” white person nor a liberal white person will get you off the proverbial hook… After all, it is painful to let go of your “white innocence,” to use this letter as a mirror, one that refuses to show you what you want to see, one that demands that you look at the lies that you tell yourself so that you don’t feel the weight of responsibility for those who live under the yoke of whiteness, your whiteness.

I can resonate with a part of what Yancy writes. As a Christian, I believe in the need to confess and to engage in painful self-examination, but it’s something we all need to do. However, for Yancy, it seems that this is only something that Whites need to do. According to him, there is a “yoke of whiteness,” but he doesn’t seem willing to acknowledge a comparable “yoke of blackness”:

• I am asking you to enter into battle with your white self. I’m asking that you open yourself up; to speak to, to admit to, the racist poison that is inside of you.

It seems that only the Whites have “racist poison,” while the Blacks are given a free pass. Is this one-sided critique the way to build a better world? Should we fight racism – something that seems to be growing at an alarming rate – with more racist rhetoric? Besides, is this what our Black brethren need to find healing? I don’t think so. Instead of bringing the races together, this serves to simply separate us further. Besides, White mea-culpa can also serve as a cloak for condescension and paternalism.  What then will elevate us? To treat our brethren from different races as moral equals, each accountable before God for our own moral failures! Therefore, James instructed the Church:

• My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. (James 2:1-7)

When there are specific crimes that Whites continue to commit, then these need to be addressed. However, Yancy feels that it is enough to call Whites “racists” simply because they are part of a society that has favored Whites and seems to systemically favor them today:

• You are part of a system that allows you to walk into stores where you are not followed, where you get to go for a bank loan and your skin does not count against you, where you don’t need to engage in “the talk” that black people and people of color must tell their children when they are confronted by white police officers.

Yes, I do think that we have to face up to certain realities of racial profiling. Honest Black people continue to endure the degradation of suspicion. However, it does not seem likely that this results from any plot or systemic program to degrade Blacks. Instead, Blacks commit crimes at a much higher rate than other racial groups, and I don’t think that Yancy’s victimization rhetoric is helpful here. Instead, it affirms erroneous Black suspicions that Whites still hate them and want to suppress and exclude them. Instead, this is a proven formula to produce more criminality and to increase the division. Therefore, I would hope that Black leadership would be teaching their community:

• Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them… Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay [also through the criminal justice system – Romans 13:4], says the Lord”… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:14-21)

And this is also what Whites should be teaching! No double-standards here! However, Yancy is one-sided throughout:

• As you reap comfort from being white, we suffer for being black and people of color.

Although Blacks continue to suffer in terms of employment and poverty, they also have freedoms and benefits that Whites are denied. For example, a White could not dream about publishing a letter in the Times inveighing against Black racism. They could even lose their jobs for doing so. Meanwhile, one Black professor at Union Theological Seminary has received 19 honorary PHDs despite his ubiquitous racist diatribes. And we find this double-standard systemically enforced across “White” America.

Yet Yancy doesn’t show any appreciation of the fact that there are no longer racist laws on the books, apart from those that favor Blacks through “affirmative action.” Instead, in light of all the progress, Yancy refuses to hold his own racial group in any way responsible:

• I assure you that so many black people suffering from poverty and joblessness, which is linked to high levels of crime, are painfully aware of the existential toll that they have had to face because they are black and, as [James] Baldwin adds, “for no other reason.” 

While this was true in Baldwin’s day, it is no longer true today. Nevertheless, Yancy and many Black people sincerely believe that they are suffering for “no other reason” but White racism, and this is understandable. Blacks had experienced sustained and appalling racism and degradation in our nation for 200 years, and they are still suffering. But why? Is it because of a sinister, hidden, and systemic racism, or are there other reasons for this?  

Shelby Steele, a Black professor, thinks that there are. As a panelist at a conference on racism, he was asked what an ideal America would look like. He writes:

• I said that what I wanted most for America was an end to white guilt... the terror of being seen as racist—terror that has caused whites to act guiltily toward minorities even when they feel no actual guilt. My point was that this terror— and the lust it has inspired in whites to show themselves innocent of racism— has spawned a new white paternalism toward minorities since the 1960s that, among other things, has damaged the black family more profoundly than segregation ever did. I also pleaded especially for an end to the condescension of affirmative action... the benevolent paternalism of white guilt, I said, had injured the self- esteem, if not the souls, of minorities in ways that the malevolent paternalism of white racism never had. Post-1960s welfare policies, the proliferation of “identity politics” and group preferences, and all the grandiose social interventions of the War on Poverty and the Great Society— all this was meant to redeem the nation from its bigoted past, but paradoxically, it also invited minorities to make an identity and a politics out of grievance and inferiority... their entitlement and that protest politics was the best way to cash in on that entitlement. (Shame: How America's Past Sins have Polarized the Country)

Steele believes that White guilt is now more destructive to the Black community than White racism. He argues that the very programs intended to help Blacks were not simply ineffective but actually damaged the Black community:

• White guilt was a smothering and distracting kindness that enmeshed minorities more in the struggle for white redemption than in their own struggle to develop as individuals capable of competing with all others.

White guilt expresses itself in many destructive ways. It places all of the guilt for the present-day Black problems on White racism. Consequently, the Blacks are given a free moral pass. But this freedom from blame and conscience is a bondage that perpetuates a blame mentality, dependency, and the resulting criminality. Instead of bringing the races together, it has further polarized them. It also disdains those Whites who understandably want to treat their Black brethren as equals.

According to Steele, White guilt and the “benevolent paternalism” of “affirmative action… has injured the self- esteem, if not the souls, of minorities.”

However, Yancy has embraced the opposite approach – to promote White guilt:

• What I’m asking is that you first accept the racism within yourself, accept all of the truth about what it means for you to be white in a society that was created for you. I’m asking for you to trace the binds that tie you to forms of domination that you would rather not see.

And there are many Whites who condescendingly embrace this message, while most entirely reject it. In either case, alienation is intensified with negative effects for all of us, and this grieves me so!

Instead, the Christian is required to walk in love and unity, each examining themselves, each a sinner who is totally dependent on his Savior. We are to embrace, not racial distinctions, but our common unity and humanity, as our Lord had prayed:

• "That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23) 

Let this also be our prayer! The unity we so desire will not be brought about by using race to heal racial problems but by Christian love.

THE GREATEST THREAT TO THE CHURCH

Pride has an insatiable appetite. It is never satisfied. There is never enough money, power, popularity, or recognition that will cure us of pride. It is the opposite of humility. Pride always seeks to build self-esteem; humility is satisfied with the esteem that comes from God alone. Pride delights in a grandiose image of self; humility exults in lowly transparency. Pride compares itself favorably to others; humility humbles itself before the perfection of the Savior. Pride trusts in self; humility knows self too well and therefore trusts in God. Pride destroys true friendship and fellowship through self-glorification, like a mouth that consumes all of the food on the table; humility attracts others, allowing them to put aside their defenses.

Spiritual pride is even more lethal. It disguises itself in clothes of virtue, but it makes everyone into an object to be used for its own fulfillment. It takes while it hides behind a façade of giving. While it boasts of being the caretaker of truth, it is the servant of darkness.

Painful lessons are necessary to expose and purge us of this all-consuming lust. Aaron and Miriam, Moses’ brother and sister, needed to have their spiritual pride exposed. Otherwise, it would have destroyed Israel. They had become jealous of their brother Moses and spoke against him:

·       Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the [dark-skinned] Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. And they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it. (Numbers 12:1-2; ESV)

Evidently, they believed that Moses’ Cushite wife was beneath them – a sure sign of pride. Even worse, they had convinced themselves that God had equally revealed Himself to them. Although it is doubtless that He had revealed Himself to them, it was pride that had prevented them from seeing that God’s revelation to Moses was far more extensive, direct, and intimate:

·       And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” (Numbers 12:6-8)

It was Moses who had spent 40 days and nights with the Lord on two occasions. It was to Moses that He had given His Words and His Ten Commandments. It was Moses who had been transformed by hearing the Words of God so that his face shined. In contrast, it was Aaron (and probably also Miriam) who had allowed Israel to rebel by creating the calf of god and cavorting before it.

From where then did they get the hubris to think themselves equal in role to Moses? From the blindness of pride! Meanwhile, Moses was humble and self-effacing:

·       Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. (Numbers 12:3)

Only a man taught the painful lessons of humility could be able to lead God’s people. Moses had been proud. He had thought that, by the strength of his character and status, he would be able to lead the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt. However, his God showed him that he didn’t have what it took. When God approached him 40 years later in the burning bush, Moses had been so humbled that he knew that he wasn’t up to the task of leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. He therefore demurred:

·       But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11)

In contrast to 40 years earlier, Moses lacked self-confidence. He now needed to clothe himself in God-confidence. Aaron and Miriam also had to learn God-confidence. This would require that they be stripped of their self-confidence and pride. So God struck down Miriam with leprosy. However, Aaron (perhaps Miriam had been the ringleader) was quick to confess their sin and humbled himself:

·       And Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes out of his mother’s womb.” (Numbers 12:11-12)

The Moses could have thought, “She deserved what she got, and so I won’t pray for her.” However, humility instructs us that, apart from the grace of God, we would do even worse. Therefore, in the face of repentance, humility cannot hold grudges:

·       And Moses cried to the LORD, “O God, please heal her—please.” (Numbers 12:13)

What a leader! Miriam and Aaron could have led a movement that would have divided Israel. However, as far as we know, they had learned their lesson and never again rebelled against God in their pride.

MY PRAYER: Lord, humble us, if need be, that we might be vigilant against the sin within. Show us what we are and the extent of the grace that we have received from you that we might never allow the ugliness of pride take control.

WHEN UNDERSTANDING FAILS US

What can we do when it seems that God has failed us? When our loved ones are afflicted and die long before their time? When God could easily heal a faithful servant and doesn’t? Even when he allows them to commit suicide? When we these kinds of things happening, we feel betrayed and wonder whether we can really trust this God.

It might surprise you to learn that even the Saints of Israel had a problem with God. The Psalmist complained that God had betrayed the covenant He had made with David:

• But you [God] have rejected, you have spurned, you have been very angry with your anointed one [David]. You have renounced the covenant with your servant and have defiled his crown in the dust. You have broken through all his walls and reduced his strongholds to ruins… O Lord, where is your former great love, which in your faithfulness you swore to David? (Psalm 89:38-40)

Another Psalmist complained that it was useless to serve God, seeing that the unrighteous thrived better than the righteous:

• Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. (Psalm 73:13) 

Of course, Job, after losing everything, had his own complaints against God:

• "Although I am blameless, I have no concern for myself; I despise my own life. It is all the same; that is why I say, 'He [God] destroys both the blameless and the wicked.' When a scourge brings sudden death, he [God] mocks the despair of the innocent. When a land falls into the hands of the wicked, he [God] blindfolds its judges. If it is not he, then who is it?” (Job 9:21-24)

From the narrow vantage point of his experience, it seemed that God acts unjustly in every way:

• All was well with me, but he [God] shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target; his archers surround me. Without pity, he [God] pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground. Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior…yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure. (Job 16:12-17)

From Job’s limited perspective, he was sure that he didn’t deserve the way that God had treated him. Instead, he was sure that God was guilty of unfaithfulness. However, Job placed too much trust in his own thinking. This became clear to him after God had revealed Himself and asked Job a long series of questions that Job couldn’t even begin to answer.

Job got the point. If he couldn’t answer one of these easy questions, how could he bring charges against God! Consequently, Job repented:

• "I am unworthy (“vile” NKJV)--how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer--twice, but I will say no more." (Job 40:4-5)

• “You [God] asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know…My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:3-6) 

The Psalmist had placed too much trust in his understanding, in the limited spectrum of life that he was able to observe. However, God had given him a revelation that changed all that:

• But when I thought how to understand this [the flourishing of the unrighteous], it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end. (Psalm 73:16-17)

God had enabled the Psalmist to see the big picture, and he was mightily blessed:

• When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.  Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:21-26)

However, the Psalmist of Psalm 89, who had accused God of renouncing His covenant with David, didn’t receive an answer, at least as far as we know. After unloading on God, he nevertheless concludes the Psalm:

• Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?... Blessed be the LORD forever! Amen and Amen. (Psalm 89:49, 52)
  

Although sorely disappointed, the Psalmist’s only hope remained with the Lord. He therefore blessed Him, refusing to place his trust in his own understanding.

Discouragement is the lot of God’s servants. There are going to be times when His ways do not make any sense to us. However, the wise servant will not place too much trust in what he sees and understands. Perhaps we trust too much in our wisdom, and perhaps our trust in misplaced. Perhaps we just need to reaffirm our trust in a God who alone is our hope, knowing that there will be times when understanding will surely fail us.

THE COURAGE TO STAND AGAINST EVIL

How can we stand against evil? The rewards of feeling good about ourselves in are fleeting at best. Enlightened self-interest will fail us, so too a morality based on pragmatic considerations alone.

The day before he died (February 24, 1791) John Wesley wrote to William Wilberforce, who had been leading the crusade in the British Parliament against slavery:

·       Unless the divine power has raised you to be as Athanasius contra mundum [against the world], I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy, which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American Slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it."

William Wilberforce had been standing against the world. Os Guinness had written:

·       "Championing abolition was a dangerous business. The slave trade occupied a position in the British economy (as a percentage of gross national product) equivalent to that of the defense industry in the United States today. At one stage, Wilberforce was the most vilified man in England. He was even threatened and attacked physically…" (Entrepreneurs of Life, 83)

In a speech before the House of Commons in 1787, Wilberforce confessed:

·       "So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the Trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for Abolition. Let the consequences be what they would, I, from this time, determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition."

And Wilberforce, aided by his Christian colleagues, kept his vow, even to the day of his death, as Guinness wrote:

·       "On Friday, July 26, 1833, the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery passed… Wilberforce lapsed into a coma soon after hearing the news of his great success, and died three days later on Monday, July 29, 1833, aged 73." (89)

Wilberforce had travailed for almost 50 years. What gave him his fortitude? Certainly not moral relativism or simply what felt right to him! Instead, he was convinced that he was serving God.

How was Dietrich Bonhoeffer able to endure to his death in his fight against the National Socialists (Nazis)? He wrote:

·       "Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in the faith and in exclusive allegiance to God – the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people?" (70)

They are the ones praying over the Word of God.