No, says Shelly Tochluk, author of Witnessing Whiteness: First Steps Toward an Antiracist Practice and Culture (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) and faculty member at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles. Racism is still with us, she affirms. Whites must recognize “that we don’t want to be racist, unconscious to how race impacts our lives, or mired in a guilt complex,” Tochluk says in a copyrighted interview in the Feb. 4 (2009) issue of Velocity, a community-based publication. “We can then turn out attention to developing a way of being white that is positive, energizing and based upon an active attempt to dismantle racism, privilege and oppression. To do this, we start by becoming better witnesses to racial injustice. If we can’t see it, we can’t do anything about it. So, a first step is to become more conscious of how racism lingers within ourselves, our families and our communities.”
What is the problem with white people saying they are colorblind? Many white people say they are colorblind hoping to convey a message that they ar not prejudiced, are against racism and that they don’t make judgments based on color. But what they are also saying is that they believe a person’s ethnicity is meaningless. They are saying that if race doesn’t matter to them as white people, then it should not matter to a person of color either. This does two things: (1) It denies the fact that being a person of color in the U.S. can invite a radically different experience than being white. (2) It also stops white people from looking deeper within to find out how we unconsciously benefit from privilege or allow subtle racism to continue.
The BCB Leadership Center has decided to offer a number of enrichment events for pastors and lay leaders through the new technology of “Webinar.” If you are able to read this, you must have signed on to the Web and that is all that is required for you to participate in these live, interactive events. You will be able to hear all of the other participants as well as the presenter, and you will be able to speak up and ask questions, etc. You will also see the visuals elements of the seminar. These can be made available at little or no cost; the handouts will be Emailed ahead of time so that you can print them out and have them in front of you.
What topics would be helpful to you in your ministry? Some that have been suggested are conflict management, how to start a community action project that will impact poverty or other social issues in the neighborhood where your church is located, issues related to diversity, etc. We are building a list that we will present over the next 18 months. Please share your suggestions and let us know if any of those mentioned above are important to you.
Please also tell us about scheduling: Should we offer these during the middle of the day or in the evening? Which days of the week would be best for you?
Monte Sahlin, Research Director
This is a very historic time! I confess, I did not believe that I would see a person of color elected president of the United States in my lifetime. As the campaign neared the end and it became clearer what the outcome would be, I found myself afraid to think that it would happen for fear that it would somehow slip away and the disappointment would be overwhelming for me. What does President Obama mean for the Seventh-day Adventist Church?
We are a very diverse denomination, as denomination’s go in America. Another historic event in 2008 is that this is the year that the Adventist Church in North America has most likely crossed the line into “majority minority” status. From one perspective, we are a like the America of the future; the one that the U.S. Census Bureau predicts will arrive around 2030. There are a growing number of truly multicultural congregations (perhaps 15 to 20 percent of the total) where no major ethnic category has 51 percent or more of the membership. An amazing percentage of our young adults claim multiethnic status in surveys of Adventist members, which implies that already, in the Baby Boom generation (now middle-aged), the Adventist Church may be a more comfortable place for inter-racial marriages than the general population.
In the Adventist Church in North America, all of us are now minorities. Yet, for a larger share of the clergy and church administrators than for the laity, many of us still live in a mono-cultural bubble. We do not worship in diverse, multiethnic congregations nor in congregations of cultures other than our own. We do not work closely with diverse groups or leaders of other ethnic groups. There is a serious leadership gap developing because the Church is more multiethnic than the skills of most of its leaders.
Cross-cultural experiences and training in multi-cultural leadership must become a major priority for the Adventist Church. Leaders who lack multi-cultural experience and skills should not be elevated to major positions. We need to begin to educate more of the laity about the fact that they belong to a very diverse faith community. We must especially help them to understand and embrace the “minority majority” situation.
The world of future which President Obama symbolizes is the world of today in Adventism. We need to embrace it as a fulfillment of Revelation 7:9 and 14:6-7. We need to live into and make it an evangelistic asset, not a cause for misunderstanding, pain and injustice.
Monte Sahlin
