Wake up and smell the racism

Check out this video. Study participants included 133 children from schools that met very specific economic and demographic requirements. In total, eight schools participated: four in the greater New York City area and four in Georgia.

I'm not technological enough to get this video to load, but it's longer and more telling of the problems with skin color bias. I just want to hug the cute little girl in the blue sweater who says "skin color is magical." AC360 Biased toward lighter skin 

Racism is still a problem worldwide, and that includes America. Even these little kids know it. I struggle with racism, everyone I know does. It creeps in when you least expect it because our society has some major issues to deal with. I'm by NO means an expert on everyday racial challenges, so these are just my amateur thoughts. I also realize that racism is not just about whites against blacks, but that blacks are racist toward whites too. It's a colossal problem all around with deep, old, engrained roots. 

The African American community does face some daunting challenges, but they also suffer from a troubled past (yes, I'm going to play the slavery card). From my studies (and no, I'm not brainwashed by "liberal professors"), I've learned more about the struggles African Americans have had to face in the 20th century. Only post-1950s (ish!) did black Americans technically have roughly similar education, employment, and extracurricular opportunities. So, that means that our parents' generation would be the first black generation to remotely have a chance to move beyond their circumstances, and even still they faced rampant racism. Whether we admit it or not, African Americans are still burdened by the consequences of racism, ideas which in large part stem from the heritage of slavery. I'm not glossing over personal responsibility or making excuses, but I get frustrated hearing white people born into circumstances which provided them with good public schools or expensive private schools, employed (and often educated) parents, guidance to get into college, and encouragement to stay in school disparage blacks for not following the same path. 

Tucker mentors two 8th grade African American boys in town, and they are definitely suffering from the statistics below. They are great boys, so fun, respectful, hilarious, kind, and ambitious. Both of them want to go to college (even though Maurice is a Florida fan!). But they live in the government projects and attend a school with many kids in their same situation. Their caretaker doesn't have higher education, but, as a single mother who has taken in her nephew as well, she fears for her boys, that they will fall into violence, drug dealing, or worse. You can't tell me it's completely these boys' fault that they struggle in school, even though they're smart. Even with teachers giving their all, it's tough to teach kids who have unstable home environments or caregivers who, because of their own lack of education or guidance, therefore don't know how to help their own kids. And we can't just slap a government program onto the problem like a bandaid and trust it will heal. They call it the cycle of poverty for a reason. It's not just up to the "black community" to embrace these challenges and solve them. We are all in this community together, and to truly bridge the racial divide means respecting one another and realizing our mutual problems. If only it could be so simple, I know. 

To get involved with kids in Athens, visit Downtown Ministries. There are some amazing things going on there to help heal wounds between the black and white community. You can also check out Friends 4 Life in the Athens area for mentoring opportunities. 

Here are current challenges the US black population faces as of March 2011 (taken from Atlanta Post, an African American news website):

1. According to a report by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) African-Americans only make up 13.6 percent of the United States population, but represent 50.3 percent of all diagnosed cases of HIV
2. According to a study by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at Brandeis University, regardless of income, African-Americans have less financial assets than middle-income white families, and the wealth gap between black and white households has more than quadrupled, regardless of income bracket. The average white family holds around $95,000 more in assets than the average black family. 
3. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African-American mothers lead the percentage of unwed mothers at 72 percent.
4. According to a report by the United States Department of Education, almost half of African American students who attend high school in low-income areas have higher dropout rates, about 73 percent.
5. According to the Associated Press, only about 37 percent of African Americans who enroll in college, actually receive a degree within six years.
6. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, African-Americans make up 60.21 percent of the United States prison population.
7. According to the United States Census Bureau, African-Americans have the highest population of people living in poverty.
8. According to a report by the United States Centers for Disease Control Health Disparities and Inequalities in January 2011, African-Americans have the highest coronary heart disease death rate.

Those are some pretty convicting statistics with of course no easy solutions. Here's hoping increasing awareness will break down barriers and facilitate change. I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes. 

"So the question is not whether we'll be extremists but what kind of extremists will we be... extremists for hate or for love?...for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? ...Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."  MLK, Jr. 

Is Social Justice "socialist"?

In my almost-two years in Athens, I've been abruptly and brutally confronted by the liberalism of academia. When I first moved here I was in shock at the evident enmity many of my new colleagues and professors held toward Christianity and those who followed it. At first I withdrew into isolation for fear of offending someone with my Christianity (cowardly, I know). I was lacking confidence in my intellectual capacity for graduate studies to begin with, and I didn't need my colleagues to have further fodder for my shortcomings (again, so cowardly). So I began praying for my new friends and trying to tread lightly regarding religion, the embarrassingly corrupt history of the church, and the role of religion in society and politics today (again, oftentimes embarrassing). Eventually, I decided their proclaimed "tolerance" for everything but Christianity was in fact the most extreme form of intolerance! And so I decided instead to gently confront their claims and therefore try to learn why an unbelieving world hates unbelievers.

To my chagrin, it turns out that Christians are seen as rudely intolerant, elitist, uneducated, ignorant, heartless, and selfish. Ouch. Our sins have enacted near fatal wounds to Christianity's reputation. Not that God can't overcome the damages of our sins, but still, it's something to think about. And the religious right doesn't help things since it manipulates God and "God's plan" for whatever political expediency it deems most pressing. (Thanks Glenn Beck for making up lies and dragging us all down with you.) So, I started asking my liberal friends why they stand for socialism, i.e. national healthcare, increased welfare, free higher education, no war, decreased military spending, tax hikes for the wealthy, etc. While the old conservative argument of "liberals want government to be God" sometimes rings true, oftentimes I was confronted by the compassion of my "liberal" friends. Why does the political left seem more socially compassionate than the "religious right?" If conservatives purport to be acting in the name of "Christian principles" that this nation was founded on (which, by the way, were not so Christian but were in fact Deist and straight from the French Enlightenment), why can Republicans quickly agree to fight wars that further endanger human rights for the most oppressed and deflect resources from the poor at home? (More on my struggles over pacifism and just war at a later date!)

Now, I know these are sticky, tricky, complicated, ugly issues that have no simple answer. And I'm still muddling my way through them all, especially since anything the government touches immediately drowns in inefficiency. But, if it comes down to me having to pay more taxes so that a single mom with 3 kids can feed them, clothe them, pay their heating bill, keep their water, etc, while simultaneously 5 other people abuse the system and corruptly siphon funds or selfishly use the funds rather than provide for their kids, I think I'd rather have less money, face the corruption, but know that in the end that one mother can care for her kids. Maybe the higher taxes and government inefficiency are merely the consequences of our failure as Christians to confront poverty head on through the church, I don't know. Any suggestions for solid theology on how living the Christian life plays into politics would be awesome. In the meantime, I loved an article on the recent budget crisis here by Tony Hall, executive director of Alliance to End Hunger. He quoted from Isaiah on the biblical mandate to care for the poor and oppressed (but the New Testament is rife with these commands as well):

"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless,” Isaiah 10

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear." Isaiah 58

Here's the meaty (and polarizing) part of Hall's views on the recent proposed budget cuts and how we as Christians should pray for our nation. It's long but worth the read:

"Every day 25,000 people worldwide die from hunger and preventable diseases. Fifty million Americans go to bed hungry at least two or three times a month; 17 million of them are children. So when I saw a recent poll showing that my fellow evangelicals were among those most supportive of cuts to foreign aid directly benefitting vulnerable people, it broke my heart.

Some Christians argue that justice for the poor is simply a matter of private charity. They believe government shouldn't be in the business of helping vulnerable people. They think it's solely the responsibility of the church to care for the poor.

This line of reasoning not only ignores the message of the prophet Isaiah, it also betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the dynamic interplay between the public, private and social sectors in addressing global and domestic poverty.

When I ask Christians what percentage of funding for domestic feeding programs they estimate comes from private charity—including soup kitchens, food shelves, school lunches for poor kids and meals for elderly people—most are shocked when I tell them it's less than seven-percent. Bottom line: without substantial government investment, 50 million Americans would not have enough to eat on a regular basis; private charity, however generous and well intentioned, doesn’t go far enough.

Those who believe the government should not be involved in helping poor people have a spiritual obligation to restructure the missions budgets of their churches and reevaluate their own giving priorities if they want their views to be taken seriously."

Pretty controversial, right? And I toned it down with cut and paste. Some points are well-taken, for instance the church's impotence to effectively minister because of Christians' failure to tithe (also see Rich Stearns' amazing book (that I'll probably reference later on the blog) The Hole in Our Gospel). So if we want the government out of "ministry," what are we going to do about it to take up the slack and minister to the poor, oppressed, the fatherless, the widows, the hungry, orphans, etc? That is one tough question. At the same time, the Bible is pretty clearly against the adversity of debt, and entitlement programs are the largest source of the nation's debt according to the CBO (and rife with corruption to boot). Here's the flip side of Hall's argument, a clearly articulated article by Eric Teetsel. Highlights from his points include the following:

"Despite such a clear identification of the problem, many on the political left continue to offer solutions that don’t address entitlement spending. Instead, they propose cuts to military spending. While there are examples of fraud, waste, and abuse at the Pentagon that should be addressed, simple math proves that even the most radical reductions in military spending will not solve the crisis posed by entitlements.

The military budget is $680 billion, including about $530 billion for day-to-day operations and an additional $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Take the $1.6 trillion deficit and subtract the U.S. military budget of $680 billion and you are still left with a $920 billion deficit this year.

Even if every taxpayer was willing to subject themselves to astronomical rates, remember that the projected annual deficit ten years from now is $9 trillion. In 2008, the total taxable income was just $5.65 trillion for alltaxpayers in America.

Implementing reforms to Medicare and Medicaid is going to cause trepidation among those who rely on these services. This only makes fear-mongering and ad hominem attacks more damnable. Respectable public servants may disagree with Paul Ryan’s plan, but any politician who claims to be serious about fixing the federal budget but is not willing to reform Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is just banging their fist."

Two totally different viewpoints, both with some compelling supporting evidence. So, can we be compassionate and spend responsibly? That remains to be seen. I get pretty frustrated with the corruption in DC, but I have to admit that I don't envy their job. I'd love to hear from you all what you've been digging up on these issues and how you're thinking through the relationship between faith and politics. I'm about to read Tim Keller's new book Generous Justice that delves into these issues of a solid, theological understanding of applying the principles of biblical justice. I'll keep you posted with what I find.

The Antidote

So, I love cheesy "save-the-world-in-one-episode" tv shows, like Alias, or 24 (before it got super weird in the last season). And of course, there's always some poison, or germ-warfare, or something that needs an antidote. And the "hero" or "heroine" always finds said antidote in the nick of time. Well, the sermon in church today struck me with the pastor's one simple line: "the antidote to anxiety is truth." I am oftentimes so poisoned by my anxiety that I presume my world is on the brink of collapse. I need an antidote.

After my recent post regarding my disappointment and disillusionment about Poland, I have received so much encouragement and love from you all. From texts, to emails, to comments on the blog or facebook, many of you have shared your deep, dark disappointments with me, leading me to realize that we all struggle with shattered dreams, the resultant anxiety, and finally the sense of despair and fear over an unclear future. That's why I've decided that our 20's are terrifyingly liberating: we are free to follow a host of directions in our lives, but too much freedom brings terror.

So, back to the antidote. In our trials that take us from total freak-outs to hysterical pity-parties, we find ourselves "stuck in saturday." A friend of mine showed me a poignant and quite applicable blog posting with this title, which you can read here. Basically, when reflecting on Easter, we often remember the sorrow of Good Friday when Jesus died and then skip straight to the joy of Sunday and the resurrection. We forget that all of Jesus' disciples and followers were "stuck in Saturday." Their hopes for salvation, for eternity, for the fulfillment of ancient prophecies, had just been crucified horribly on a cross. They were witnessing dreams shattered and a trial of faith wherein they knew God's promises to raise his son on the third day, but they hadn't witnessed it yet and were instead terrified for their earthly and heavenly futures. Then, Sunday dawned. The worst day of their life was shortly proceeded by the most amazing.

Finally, I read a beautiful posting on C.S. Lewis' writings about Jesus in Gethsemane that you can read here. In his last book Letters to Malcolm, Lewis discussed sympathy in light of an intense trial. Lewis himself had lost his wife, Joy, just a few years earlier. Here's the gem of the piece (oh, to write like this man!). Lewis reminded Malcolm that anxieties are not necessarily a reflection of little faith but are rather afflictions: "Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of the Christ. For the beginning of the Passion - the first move so to speak - is in Gethsemane." Christ, knowing the task before him, suffered heavily under the weight of his burdensome future. In Christ's anxiety in the garden, we see his humanity. As Lewis explained, "To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a man." Jesus had seen men crucified, but I'm sure the brutality of the experience was anything but predictable. Jesus' request that the Lord take the cup from him shows that his anxiety was "equally God's will and equally part of our human destiny." If the perfect man endured it, we can expect deep anguish as well. And, according to Lewis, the Passion's successive movements offer elements of suffering common to many of us:

"First, the prayer of anguish; not granted. Then He turns to His friends. They are asleep—as ours, or we, are so often, or busy, or away, or preoccupied. Then He faces the Church; the very Church that He brought into existence. It condemns Him. This also is characteristic. In every Church, in every, institution, there is something which sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. But there seems to be another chance. There is the State; in this case, the Roman state. Its pretentions are far lower than those of the Jewish church, but for that very reason it may be free from local fanaticisms. It claims to be just on a rough, worldly level. Yes, but only so far as is consistent with political expediency…. But even now all is not lost. There is still an appeal to the People—the poor and simple whom He had blessed, whom He had healed and fed and taught, to whom He Himself belongs. But they have become over-night (it is nothing unusual) a murderous rabble shouting for His blood." (Lewis)

So, my chagrin, while painful, pales in comparison to Christ's agony. When we don't feel brave, when we hide in fear, when we face tearful impasses, we can find comfort that our Lord felt all these emotions, and probably on a level deeper than we can comprehend. Lewis encouraged, "We are not on an untrodden path. Rather, on the main-road." This Easter, I have been so galvanized through Christ's strength in the garden, on the cross, and in the tomb. While I remembered Christ's promises in my head last week, I feel like my heart again internalized them this weekend. I've never meditated on Christ in Gethsemane, in his grief and sorrow, apprehensively facing the sins of humanity and ultimately finding renewed strength in his Father. I guess you all can tell it was a great Easter weekend for me. Hope yours was great too.

Sobering up

James 4:13-15 – Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

Ever read verses and feel completely, utterly, boldly confronted with truth? So, I'm a Type-A, hyper-organized, plan my life for the next several years sort of girl. I'm finishing up my thesis, will graduate with my masters in August, and fully intended to be moving to Poland in September to teach English on a Fulbright. I found out I was a Fulbright finalist in January, and have been waiting ever since to hear if I actually received the grant. Unofficially, Tucker and I have deduced we didn't get it. Ever since last Friday when this epiphany hit, I've been in mourning. I no longer cry every 10 minutes like I did this weekend, but I'm still grieving the death of my dream. I now realize I had been drunk on my dreams, of spending 9 months in Europe, returning stateside to settle down and be adults, start a family, get a house, maybe even buy a minivan (startling but true. They're so much more economical than SUVs.). It may seem silly to claim that I'm "mourning" over the loss of my 6-year-long dream of European-living, but Europe is like a second home to me. I first visited in 2005, and I've been back once a year since then. If you've ever been away from home for a while, you get that ache in your heart to return. That's how I feel about Europe. It's not about status, or escape, or whatever else you may be assuming. It's about returning to my home-away-from-home.

So when I applied for the Fulbright, I was hesitant to plan on living in Poland. I was fearful of the gut-wrenching nature of deep disappointment. After hearing I was a finalist, the dreams immediately began manifesting themselves in my mind. Living in Poland would be realizing my dream to live in Europe, to daily stroll down cobble-stone streets, hop on the efficient public-transportation, listen to the church bells ringing, use resources well, walk most places, visit the market for fresh groceries, imbibe the historical monuments and culture, learn another language, travel on the weekends, meet new friends, appreciate history further and become a better teacher when I returned to the classroom. These were the fantasies of my dreams. None of them are to become reality. But it's taking me a while to sober up.

I'm angry at God, have pitched my tantrum and now am just trying to figure out why he decided not to grant me this desire of my heart. I know I'll never understand, but my questioning nature won't quite rest. My dreams for Europe weren't bad, Tucker and I weren't neglecting some responsibility just to venture overseas. But evidently, our best laid plans veered off course from God's plan for our lives. Why is this so painful then? Maybe because discipline is difficult? But we have nothing to stay for. No job possibilities, no house, no kids, no goal other than to move to Europe. Which is an impossibility. The old saying when God closes a door, he opens a window is making me feel like I'm not strong enough to reach the height of said window, or can't find it and instead am stumbling around in the dark, on the verge of tears, with fear and anger welling up inside me. And the worst part is when people contritely say "something better will come along" or "God has a plan" or "everything will work out." Please don't think this blog posting is an invitation to offer me suggestions about jobs, or to talk about this rejection, or to ask for more information. This blog is probably my passive-aggresive (which is the antithesis of my nature, if you know me) way of getting the word out without personally having to broach the subject.

One thing I've learned from this is that when people are grieving their lost dreams, grieve with them. Tell them it really stinks, that you'll pray for them, that you don't understand it but that you know God loves us and works for our good, even when it hurts. Don't gloss over my pain. I guess that applies to many situations, so maybe this is my optimism peeking through that I'm already gleaning lessons from this trial.

I know we would've loved Poland. Tucker knows it too. We loved it when we visited for a week on foreign study, and we were so excited about the possibility to immerse ourselves in the culture and people. I've been looking into learning Polish, buying the best warm-weather gear, brushing up on the country's history and current events, checking the weather. All for naught. I don't feel foolish. I feel like a dreamer who woke up to an abrupt, nightmarish shift in my consciousness. But I also feel like the Lord is teaching me to remember that my will is not always his will, and the desires of my heart, strong as they may be, may not be best for me. I know he knows what's best, but head knowledge is different than heart knowledge. I'm still angry, I'm still sad, I still feel lost without a goal to work towards. But I'm carrying on with my duties, have good days and bad, and still dream of living in Europe. Only now, my dreams are just at night, just pretend, no longer within reach.