The Beloved Community and the Healing of Whiteness

After re-reading the great essay, "Dylan Roof Is an American Problem," I'm meditating on how Dylan Roof's story and manifesto sheds light on the story of White America as we live in it today. (I will not share his manifesto on my blog, but it is very much worth studying if you are called to dive deep into the darkness). I strongly recommend reading the linked essay and if possible Roof's manifesto before reading my meditation which follows.

White America today is a young child lost in the haunted house of our unspeakable history, unable to find a way out. We created the myth of whiteness and the new Protestant Exodus. We used this myth unto genocide, slavery and oppression. And now we are terrorized and haunted by our own story. Our every impulse is to crucify the truth and create a mythology of greatness despite the fact that we cannot help but spiral into deeper and intensifying violence and degradation. Whether we fight against racism, fight for it, or simply stand by in confusion we are all of us horrified at what we've become.

We stand at a precipice. We are living in the middle of the changing of an age. Our urgent project is to dig deep within ourselves, to eschew our falsely constructed whiteness and to embrace our humanity. Our urgent project is lamentation, repentance, and the journey of humility to listen to brothers and sisters of color who have been patient with us beyond any reasonable expectation. For any who still identifies chiefly as 'white' the only path forward is to embrace what Jesus called, "Dying unto self." That is to say, taking off the old clothing of our false selves and putting on the new clothing of the new humanity Jesus promised we would find. This is a journey through the valley of the shadow of death of our old selves, loss of false identity, loss of false pride and false righteousness. This is a journey of honesty with our history and of dying to it.

We must not, however, give in to despair. We must fear no evil. There is a more excellent path, the path of a deep love-ethic and the community that embraces it. Dr. Martin Luther King and the great heroes of our nation pointed us to the beloved community. In the Beloved Community all true selves are welcome and embraced as beautiful image-bearers of the divine - particularly those who've lost all sense of ethnic identity through historical and lineal happenstance. You can enter as a member of a tribe or as an orphan of no tribe. All are equal and loved in the Beloved Community. As the old song puts it (even though now the lyrics sound quaint and more than a little cringeworthy): "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world." [Note: here's a wonderful write up of Rev. Clarence Herbert Woolston who wrote this delightful tune during one of America's ugliest racist eras]. Make no mistake, dying to a deeply held identity, even one as false and violent as whiteness, is no easy task. I have been trying to die to my false self in all its manifestations for many years now and I am often discouraged to discover I'm still just beginning. And even though I still haven't found what I'm looking for, there's a joy I've found knowing I've left the haunted house behind as I journey to discover the embrace of the Beloved Community all the while cheered on by a great cloud of witnesses.