Newsletter Vol. 1 Issue 4

A Long, Loving Look at the Real: Race and Perceptions 

Each week of the Spiritual Exercises asks us to pray for a particular grace. This week, we pray, in the words of Kevin O’Brien, SJ, for “a healthy sense of shame and confusion before God as I consider the effects of sin in my life, my community, and my world.” 

In the words of Jesuit theologian Walter Burghardt, S.J., to reflect on ourselves, the world, and the reality of sin is to take a “long, loving look at the real.” Our Church teaches that, though every one of us is inherently good, we are born into a world marred by the effects of sin. This is because the people who preceded us in life were humans who, like us, were flawed by sin. Indeed, it is not cursory to grapple with the inequities experienced by some racial groups in our nation. In fact, it is often painful, difficult, and profoundly uncomfortable. It is loving, though, because it is about looking intently and honestly in new ways.
  
We look at the realities that exist in our country, forced to confront manifestations of our collective capacity to bring hatred and injustice into the world. Yet together, the people of the United States are also at present taking a long, loving look at the reality of racism in ways unlike any before, especially following the insurrection at our Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The presence of sin embedded in racism has left an uncomfortable mark on each of our minds, hearts, and souls. Acknowledging that our forefathers engaged in the forced enslavement of African peoples and the extermination of indigenous peoples in order to create a new nation, governed exclusively by white people, is a hard reality to face. This act created systems that for the past two centuries have marginalized black, indigenous, and other people of color, all the while granting privileges to those in power. Furthermore, the widespread belief that black people are dangerous, to be feared, and to be policed for the protection of a system based on injustice has helped justify the terrible acts we witness today.

For example, during Black Lives Matter protests last August, many, acting on this distorted message, participated in preemptive violence against largely peaceful protesters exercising their rights as American citizens. Consciously or unconsciously, those who acted with violence, many under order from local or state governments, carried out repressive acts based on race. This is systemic racism in action. 

Meanwhile, the narrative of false justice leads many to see white people, even violent ones, as safe, non-threatening, and respectful, a view which played out on live television when mostly white rioters attacked and occupied the U.S. Capitol. Even when the violent group scaled the walls of the heart of American democracy and broke into the chambers of Congress, observers could be forgiven for assuming that law enforcement on “The Hill” believed these people were to be trusted. The discrepancy between the way these two groups of people were perceived and treated demonstrated how evil allows us to sin and to turn away from God’s desire for us to see His beauty in each human person. 

It is difficult to name these actions as a manifestation of evil in the world. Yet Burghardt’s long, loving look at racism compels us to name how the sin of racism operates both historically and today. 

As we continue to journey on throughout these weeks, we ask God for a deeper understanding of God’s unconditional love for us as we continue into our education and reflection on racism. 

Resource Reading 

Rev. Bryan Massingale, professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University in New York and author of the book Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, writes in America magazine about the need for the faithful to confront racial justice. 

READ ARTICLE HERE

Meditation (15-30 minutes)

 
What is my reaction to the police force shown in the August 2020 Black Lives Matter protest and the riots at the Capitol this month? How do I invite God into my reaction and see what God wants me to see?

In what ways can we name how the sin of racism has impacted people of color concretely in moments of American history? Are there ways those have a continual lasting impact?