My first defining moment with racism occurred in the living
room of my grandparents’ home in Lexington, Kentucky. As a young black man became visible walking
down the street, my granny yelled out to my mom, “Helen, shut the front door,
there’s a nigger coming down the street!”
I was shocked. My
Bible-believing Christian
grandparents were racists! Here in
Springfield, Ohio, I would never, ever
dare to use the n-word; and to hear it coming out of a prim and proper Southern
Belle’s mouth made it seem even more profane.
I began watching her.
In public, when she was near people who weren’t white, she would cross
the street, move to the other side of the store, and generally cower away from
them. She wouldn’t sit near them in
restaurants. She feared them.
I developed a great deal of contempt for her. I judged her.
I was young and I did not yet have the maturity to challenge
her perceptions. I had not been raised
to question the beliefs of adults, anyway.
The very thought of asking my grandmother why she behaved in a certain manner never occurred to me.
She is gone now, and I do not know why. What was in her past that caused this belief
to be nurtured in her life? Had she been
hurt, and developed an irrational fear from it?
Was it something her family, her church, her community had indoctrinated
into her; and she had never broken through those chains?
I was judging her through the lens of my past, not hers.
I recall hearing one—just one—racial slur come from the
mouths of one of my parents in the forty years of my life. It was meant to be a joke between the two of
them, and I didn’t understand it at the time.
But suffice it to say that my father was teasing my mom about her new
curly perm, and she didn’t think he was funny.
My parents—particularly my father—taught through example
that people were to be valued by what was inside
them, and not what was visible on the outside.
Skin color, clothing, cleanliness, behavior issues…all the children he
dealt with as an educator were always unique and special individuals who
deserved compassion and love. And the
ones who seem especially unlovable are the ones that need the most love.
So I had an advantage over my granny. I don’t think she received that kind of
example.
Once Granny and Papaw died, my parents wrapped their Bibles
up in identical wrapping and gave them to my sister and me— thus reducing the
question as to who should receive which Bible.
I got Granny’s. I wanted Papaw’s. Who wouldn’t?
So many memories of him relaxing in his chair, his silver hair
glistening, with his Bible open before him.
But I see now that God had a bigger plan. This morning, I took Granny’s Bible out from
the high, dusty shelf where I had placed it.
It’s the Bible that belonged to an imperfect, fallible, human being who
carried baggage around from her past.
Just like me. There is one
bookmark in her Bible, and I assume it was she who placed it in the book of
Romans, where she has made little check marks and ticks on certain verses.
Romans is my favorite book of the Bible.
We all journey together. I cannot judge others for flaws in their lives; I cannot understand their walk without having lived it myself. God sees my flaws and responds with Grace. How dare I respond in any other way?
