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WEDDINGS

I was in 11^th grade at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Maryland. The year was 1974. There had been increasing tension in the school for a few days. Some black guy and some white guy had gotten into a fight and it had escalated– there were more fights.

One Friday at lunch, it looked like about 10 black guys and 10 white guys were going to fight in the school yard, but more and more kids kept coming out to watch. The fighters went to the street in front of the school.

The bells rang to bring everyone back into class, but by this time, there were about 50 black kids on one side of the street and over 100 white kids on the other side of the street yelling things back and forth at each other. It looked like at any moment some kid would run over to the other side and then– as they say– all hell would break loose.

Teachers came out and tried to dissuade kids, but it was too late, this was too big. Two busses were called in and they got all the black kids on the two busses in the middle of the day, and took them all home. Some of the white red necks were unhappy about this and stuck around.

Finally, the police showed up and told everyone to disperse. Some of the white kids didn’t want to go just yet, so the cops started hauling them off, and then it turned into a melee with policemen beating up on high school kids with their batons and girls screaming and being pulled by their hair into police wagons.

I was standing next to a guy at the very front of the school, far enough away from the action so as not to be in harm’s way but close enough to see what was going on. A cop didn’t like that a girl was yelling at him, so he hit her and knocked her to the ground. They guy next to me took about 10 steps forward trying to tell the cop he shouldn’t have hit the girl when the cop clobbered him, too.

I couldn’t believe it. I lost all respect for those local police in that moment and it took a long while for me to believe that all police weren’t like that. It took a long while for me to believe there was anything that anyone could ever do about racism.

Racism was in the air, the food, the water, the paint of the buildings. It was in the books we read, the assumptions passed on to us. It was bound up in the world we were born into and it couldn’t be helped, that’s just the way it was.

Sometimes even now, I realize I unthinkingly believe the problem of racism is just too big to do anything about– it’s just the way it is, there’s not much I can do about it.

But then, when I look back at our history, we UUs– given our small size– have taken a back seat to no one in resisting evil.

In the American Civil war, we smuggled slaves out of the south; during WWII we smuggled Jews out of the hands of the Nazis; in 1963 we gathered in Selma, Alabama, when Dr. King called UU clergy to come and witness.

When I think back to the high school race riot, I wince. But that was 30 years ago, we don’t have racism like that today do we– we don’t have people rioting in the streets. No, today racism is more subtle.

In the local news this week, you could read about how the KKK signed up to do litter cleanup on the Rosa Parks Highway. The highway department went to take the sign down– you know the ones you see on the highway that thank the people for litter cleanup, but they were told the couldn’t take down just the KKK sign because it would be unconstitutional.

If I hadn’t accidentally caught that news story on the radio, I probably would never have known about it. It can be pretty easy to ignore racism. It’s like we can have blindfolds on to those things we’d simply rather not see.

But our religion tells us that when we realize we’ve got a blindfold on, we have to take it off. Let me name three blindfolds. Three blindfolds which get in the way of progress.

There is the blindfold of convenience– it can be very inconvenient to seek out injustice, or once spotted, get involved. We simply want to get on with our business, not save the world.

There is the blindfold of discomfort. It is uncomfortable to challenge others and ourselves to take a public stand. What if we make racist assumptions or get in over our heads? What if we look foolish? What if there is danger?

Then, there is the extremely comfortable blindfold of self-absorption.

Tom Brokaw tells about an experience he had after taking the lead chair on the Today show. He started at a small station in Omaha. Then he put in his time in L.A., then Washington, D.C. Then he "made it" at the New York headquarters of NBC.

Walking through Bloomingdale's one day, inhaling the fumes of his ego, a man stopped him and said, "You're Tom Brokaw, aren't you?"

He said, "Right."

"You used to do the morning news on KMTV in Omaha, didn't you?"

"That's right," Brokaw replied, impressed by the guy's knowledge of his career.

The guy paused, looked him over again, and said, "Well, whatever happened to you?" (As told by James A. Harnish, "Are You Humble Enough to be Wise?" Tampa, Fla., September 21, 1997).

And whatever will happen to us? Are we willing to be inconvenienced? Are we willing to become dis-comforted? Are we willing to risk having our ego deflated in order to take on racist and oppressive behaviors when we encounter them? I don’t know...

Last week there was a story about the “National Alliance,” a self-described “white separatist” group which tried to buy ads on MetroLink. According to the Post-Dispatch, The light blue and white ads read, "The Future Belongs to Us," and provide the group's Web site and phone number (St Louis Post Dispatch on January 13, 2005).

They like to appear ‘normal.’ In November 2003, the group sponsored Eurofest 2003, a festival that was intended to recruit new members. Several area heritage groups participated, thinking that the event was held to celebrate traditional music, dancing and food.

Oops. Like the British prince who wore a Nazi costume to a party, they’re probably wondering what they got into.

I have to admit, I had a blindfold on for this one. I was in the waiting room of the YMCA when I read the letter to the editor in the Webster-Kirkwood Times from a Mr. Frank Weltner, the PR director of the “National Alliance.” Apparently, he wasn’t thrilled by having the true nature of his organization publicized and he wanted some spin control.

In his letter, the PR director said his group

“is a majority civil rights advocacy group. We lobby legislatures for laws which support the majority’s viewpoint and needs. [We are] not a white supremacist group. We have no desire to reign supreme over other races in any manner whatever. [We are] a white separatist group, which places us in line with about 95% of all Americans...” (Italics are mine. The letter was printed in the 1/7/2005 Webster-Kirkwood Times).

I find it fascinating that Mr. Weltner makes his case sound so reasonable, so ordinary, so middle-American. Even the name sounds harmless enough: The ‘National Alliance’ is sponsoring EuroFest 2003. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? Pack a lunch and take the kids?

Mr. Weltner claims to represent the majority view of Kirkwoodians, and says his is a civil rights organization. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

If you didn’t know better, you might assume that he, and all of Kirkwood were living in the 1930s– not 2005. I agree with him that his views are “as American as apple pie,” in that racism is a big part of our history, a part of our present, and– God willing– much less a part of our future.

It is amusing yet sad that Mr. Weltner believes white separatists like himself are “in line with about 95% of all Americans.” If you and I do not speak up, if you and I do not write letters to the editor, if you and I do nothing in response, Mr. Weltner and his cronies could say– see, there’s our majority.

The 1930s are history, and so is some of the worst racism in America. Let us pray that one day, racist organizations will be a historical curiosity rather than a present danger.

In the meantime, we must teach our children about racism. In the meantime, we have to straighten some things out, even if we didn’t make the mess.

As Dr. King told us years ago, “hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that,” and despite the racism still with us “we shall hew out of the mountains of despair, a stone of hope.”

As a country, we have come a long way in our struggle with racism. Two centuries of slavery, another of segregation– explicit racism draws notice now in ways it never used to before. That’s a good thing.

Some people suggest there is very little racism in America today. Some people say the views held by people like Mr. Weltner are extreme and that the average person isn’t racist.

I agree this country– and the world– has made a lot of progress on racism. But I had another blindfold taken off this week. I have to say, it stung a little coming off. Kind of like a band-aid that’s been on your skin for a few days– it almost feels comfortable, but there’s a little itch.

And you know you have to take off the band-aid to get healthy. And then when you remove it– ouch! What was once a little warm, a little comfortable, is now exposed and tender.

Let’s say you discovered that through psychological online testing, you could find out whether or not you were racially biased, and even how much you were biased. Would you be willing to take an online test in the privacy of your home?

Would you be willing to take the test even if the results were not as subtle as you might like? There’s a test called the Implicit Associations Test developed by some researchers at Harvard. It measures unconscious preferences you may have around age, race, gender, weight, gay-straight preference, Judaism versus other religions, disability, Native American, Asian, Arab-American, and one or two others.

Anthony Greenwald, one of the scientists who came up with the IAT says:

“When there’s a strong prior association, people answer in between 4 and 600 milliseconds, when there isn’t, they might take 200-300 milliseconds longer than that– which in the realm of these kinds of effects is huge. One of my cognitive psychologist colleagues described this as an effect you can measure with a sundial” (Gladwell, Blink, 81).

So, of course, in preparing for this morning’s service, I had to take the test. Here’s how it works: you are shown say black faces and good words, like hope, joy, fun. Then you’re shown black faces and harsher words like evil, bad, hurt.

And you do the same thing with white faces. Most people have an automatic preference in the sense that they are much faster making some associations than others.

These preferences can be 'slight', 'moderate', 'strong', or 'little to no preference'. For my Black-White IAT, it said: Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for White relative to Black. Hmm.

So, I took a few more of the tests. Apparently, I have a moderate automatic preference for STRAIGHT PEOPLE relative to GAY PEOPLE.

My data also suggest a moderate automatic association between African American and Weapons [versus whites and weapons].

Are my results unusual? No. According to researchers profiled in a book called Blink, which is about how we make snap judgments–

“80% of people who have taken the test have shown pro-white associations, meaning that it takes them measurably longer to complete answers when they are required to put good words into the “Black” category than when they are required to link bad things with black people” (84).

“The disturbing thing about the test is that it shows that our unconscious attitudes may be utterly incompatible with our stated conscious values. As it turns out, for example, of the 50,000 African Americans who have taken the Race IAT so far, about half of them, have stronger associations with whites than with blacks.

I suppose this should not be surprising. Every day, on the news, on TV, in our personal associations, we get these messages. As a Harvard psychology teacher put it:

“You don’t choose to make positive associations with the dominant group. But you are required to. All around you, that group is being paired with good things. You open the newspaper and you turn on the television, and you can’t escape it.”

So here’s the thing. We can talk about how we’re not racist. We can be conscious about being anti-racist. We can consciously attend to our conscious actions and treat people equally, and that’s enough, right?

But what if we find that we’re unconsciously racist? It’s not even our fault– it’s that we’re fed a steady diet from birth that has a racist tinge to it, and some of it we’re not even aware of. But it affects us.

Let’s say, like 80% of the people who’ve taken this test, you have a pro-white association. The evidence suggests this will affect how you act in front of a black person. It won’t affect what you will choose to say or feel or do. You probably won’t even be aware of it.

Now, let’s say you are going to interview a black person for a job. Studies show that it is very likely you will not lean forward as much, you’ll turn away slightly from this person, be a bit less expressive, have a bit less eye contact, stand a little further away, smile less, hesitate more.

How will that affect your interviewee? Well, they will probably pick up on that, even if they can’t consciously articulate it. They may feel a little less certain, a little less confident, a little less friendly.

And then what? Maybe the two of you get the idea this won’t be a good fit. This other person doesn’t seem all that friendly, isn’t as warm as you’d hoped, this interview isn’t going as well as it might have.

And why is this? Because of racism. Can we do anything about it?

One interesting thing about the Implicit Association Test is that people who have taken this test have tried to figure out ways to “improve” their unconscious assumptions. They take the test over and over again, but the results come out the same. It seems they are unable to consciously affect their unconscious attitudes.

But one day– guess what– some guy figured out a way to improve his score, that is he figured out a way to lessen the automatic preference he give to white faces and good adjectives and black faces and bad adjectives. His score improved and he had to figure out what did it. He remembered he had been watching the Olympics the day before on TV.

So, researchers spent some time before the test looking at pictures of Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Colin Powell. The listened to King’s speeches. And voila!

I have to wonder if we are also called to do the same thing– to consciously adopt a program of combating the unconscious prejudices society sends down our eyes & ears and into the nooks & crannies of our unconscious mind. We can watch African American actors in positive role models. We can spend time with some black friends. We could make friends with some black folk we know.

This isn’t rocket science, but it is science. It is fascinating. Unitarian Universalists have long preached justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, in fact that is one of our Seven Principles.

But our 4^th Principle is a free & responsible search for truth and meaning– which means we have to (a) figure out our beliefs and then (b) line up our beliefs with our actions. We are especially called to do this when it is unpleasant.

If you want to improve your own racial bias, there is a way to do it, but it will require some work on your part. If you want to improve your own racial bias, the research says it means changing your life so that you are exposed to minorities regularly and get familiar with the best of their culture. (See Sprittual Homework below.)

We Shall Overcome, #169. I invite you to rise & sing.

Spiritual Homework

Week of January 16, 2005 from Rev. Dr. Ó Connell Your spiritual homework this week is to go to the Harvard web site and take the online Implicit Association Test for race. Try it cold. Then try looking at pictures and stories of King and other notable African Americans, then try the test again. See if you improve your “score.” Is this a struggle? Yes, it is. Remember Dr. King’s struggle in Birmingham. There may have been racial struggles in your life, as their has been in mine. But over our heads, we can hear singing in the air. And we know the struggle in Birmingham was overcome. We know the KKK will be overcome. We know the National Alliance will be overcome. In our own lives we have been to the Mountain Top, we have imagined a better world.

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