more on the men's retreat

I heard back from a good friend whose opinion I value highly. These comments he had interspersed into what I had written in an MS Word document. I didn't want to copy and repost everything I had written, which is why this may seem choppy.

I will comment more later if I have time.

When one wants to study a particular characteristic in people, animals, rocks, minerals, or anything else for that matter; the goal is to keep all other variables constant. People, in general, are so complex that this is rarely possible. Additionally, since the retreat was likely the brain child of well intended Christian fellows – rather than statisticians – this was probably not considered. There was no ‘balanced’ discussion of race, but rather a multi-variant function of race, economic background, life experience, etc. However, one could observe that the high correlation that exists between low economic standing and minority race, makes the mix you described inevitable – perhaps not to the degree you experienced, but finding a group of minority men with life experience similar to yours is statistically improbable on its face.

These man may be your Christian brothers, but spiritual kinship can be very different from worldly kinship, and I think that is OK. I see nothing wrong with worshiping beside someone who you would never stand beside in any other context. As I see it, Jesus calls us to reach out not hang out. Relying on a common grace, does not require fraternity. That said, I think the important lesson is this...Recognizing that you have nothing in common with a man, or group of men, after openly communing with them is fine. It would have been a shame if you had come to that decision a priori.

I think the assumption is that we are so immersed with the majority lifestyle that there is no need to make a special occasion to discuss it. Why do we have no white history month? Why is it that universities sponsor clubs for just about every ethnicity you can imagine, but omit such clubs for white students? Maybe it seems unfair to the majority, but I don’t think fairness is the point. There are some things that are so much a part of our existence that we do need to make note of them, and there are some things that are more rare, and therefore need to be intentionally brought into the light. After all, I may leave myself a note to remember my yearly doctor’s appointment, but I don’t leave myself a note to brush my teeth each day. Fairness isn’t the issue. Now, if you had volunteered to speak about your experience, I imagine that the men there would have been open to giving you the floor. Oddly, however, your experience would have been as foreign to them as a drunken binge or felony bust is to you.

You cannot judge how minorities are treated solely from the perspective of how you treat minorities. Many of your (and my) students are children and grandchildren of men and women who were systematically treated poorly, overlooked, and downright abused. That this becomes a part of a community’s culture cannot be overlooked. My mind has changed a lot over the past years as I have worked with middle school, high school, and college minority students on a close level. Let me share some stories…

I worked with a rural high school that had a population that was about 85% minority. I worked with the best students in the school. They had 4.0 grade averages, and had always been successful academically. However, they had average SAT scores in the 700’s. Additionally, the first time they encountered academic difficulty was when they were introduced to white university instructors. From the outside, one can understand that the issue was sub-standard learning conditions. These students received A’s in high school calculus while studying little more than what I learned in 8th grade algebra, etc. But in their mind, they were academically talented. I find it interesting that you used the word ‘misperception’. I initially thought that the students with whom I worked were misperceiving their academic talent, until I went to their end-of-year awards night. Every adult, parent, guardian, and teacher praised their brilliance. The students’ perceptions were correct. They just had no appreciation for what existed outside their community.

One year later, they are in universities where they may be facing their first white instructor. That coincidence that this may also be the first time they face a grade below a ‘B’ may be lost on them. Add this to the fact that racism is REAL even still, and the association is understandable – perhaps not correct, but understandable.

The students who take the SAT preparation classes I teach in these communities will refer to the vocabulary on the SAT as ‘white words’. I thought their claims were silly, and wanted them to understand that they were ‘academic’ words if anything, but as time passed, I saw their point. I taught in a program in which I was the only white instructor. Heck, I was the only white person there. There are certainly many qualified minority test preparation instructors, and I don’t think someone should have replaced me, but their initial association was understandable.

Finally, I have noticed an interesting thing about most social and political phenomena. Generally, the ones who shout the loudest are the ones that believers in the issue would least like to have representing them. I favorite example of mine (and one that I hope will not offend) is the issue of legalization of marijuana. There are a number of reasons one could use to argue that marijuana should be legal (e.g. tax revenue, civil right, etc.) But, when a believer in legalization is interviewed, you almost always get some burned out guy who says, “Man, I just think we should be allowed to smoke it, dude.” Similarly, racism is a real issue in our culture, and we would be fooling ourselves to think otherwise. However, one will often hear complainers, excuse makers, and the like more often than commentary from genuinely oppressed.

All of that said. We all make excuses, and place blame in inappropriate places. You and I don’t do so using the race or gender card very often, but perhaps that’s mostly because we rarely find ourselves in situations when such an attribution would even be reasonable. I recall a time in which I reacted by complaining of racism. I once applied for a scholarship from the NAACP. The final step was to submit a photo and personal statement. I did not receive the scholarship and blamed it on racism (thinking I was rejected because of the photo). Perhaps, however, my personal statement was poorly written.