“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”
Tonight my
family watched the movie “Crash”. This film follows the lives of several
individuals in LA and shows how they interconnect. It highlights the prejudice,
stereotyping and racism that are prevalent in today’s culture. (If you have not
seen it I really suggest you check it out!)
Many of you
may feel that racism and stereotyping are largely things of the past and that
our society has passed that. The media is continually boasting about how we are
multi-cultural and a mosaic of cultures, but over the past few years I have
taken several sociology courses that highlight just how real these issues of
racism still are today.
One of the
ways in which society has tried to stop racism is by creating a so-called
“color-blind society”. A society in which we do not see an individuals color but
we see them simply as people and ignore their ethnicity entirely. In many
Christian circles I’ve even heard it said that God is color-blind, and I’m not
sure that I agree with that.
This past
semester I wrote a paper on racism in sport and in my research I found an article,
which pointed out a flaw in the idea of a “color-blind society”. It basically
said that as race evaporates from the socio-conceptual landscape, racism is
pushed further and further out of sight, unmentionable because the terms by
which we recognize and reference it fade from view. This actually allows racism
to flourish, because it is harder to detect and recognize when racism is
occurring.
Not only
that, but regardless of how hard you try not to, you will always see someone’s
color. And that’s not a bad thing. In my first sociology class the professor
asked us a question: what are some things you notice about me? The class
responded with all the politically corrects answers: you’re a professor; you’re
a woman, etc. etc. Eventually the teacher stopped us and said “I’m BLACK! You
can say it.”
By ignoring
someone’s race you strip them of part of who they are. I believe that one’s
color and race is something to be celebrated. We can learn to appreciate the
differences because, let’s face it; it would be terrible if we were all the
same boring shade of beige. And if God really was color-blind He could have
created us all the same color if He wanted to. But He chose to create people of
many different tribes and nations, of different colors, ethnicities, and races,
because each is special and unique in its own way.
So although
race should not define how you view someone or how you treat them, it should
still be something that you recognize, respect, and appreciate.
