Racism in a New Context

So I’ve studied race relations in school and I’ve had discussions and seminars on it through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, but it’s been interesting for me to talk about race relations through the lens of high school girls in my neighborhood. In school and through InterVarsity it was a matter of convincing us that we should not be color blind, racism still exists, culture is a beautiful creation of God and that it may take intentionality on our part to break through barriers and cross racial lines. My learning was more about being an advocate, using my privilege to help others, not stereotyping, and being intentional in making friends with other races.

But with the high school girls, the subject of racism is a whole other ball game. They do not question whether racism exists. They have lots of stories and experiences to share where they were the victim. They know that with each race there comes a culture that can not be ignored, they’re clashing all the time at school. However, one of the high school girls many questions is what’s the difference between wisdom and racism? If they’ve had experiences where a particular race is prone to commit a particular crime against their race, then is it straight up dumb for them to not be racist and then end up getting jacked for their stuff, beat up, or shot because they were trying to do the right thing. Of course, we continued to challenge them in not assuming that because one person of a particular race commits an offense against them, that everyone of that race is dangerous. But living in this neighborhood where there are gangs of different races, the streets are racially segregated, and violence happens between races, I am now challenged to wrestle with racism in a different way than I had before. The high school girls don’t want to wrongly assume someone is a criminal because of the way they look, but they want to know at what point do they cross the line of stupidity in which they’re not preventing a situation that could have been prevented if they had followed their assumption. The issue of racism is complicated by the realities of the neighborhood. And our challenge in bible study is to navigate these complicated issues and questions while standing on the Word of God no matter the context.