You wouldn't think a symbol or a collection of words and phrases would have so much power. You would think that after all these years, so many generations of use that they would wear off, unable to produce any level of potent emotion or perhaps wear down- like an old, tired, floppy coat kept around only because you're too lazy to throw it out. It just always amazes me that hatred so effectively disrupts the harmony of the soul. 

Lately, I have had a couple encounters with symbols of racial hatred. And each time, they hurt like hell. The most recent made its rounds on social media last night- "white power" and swastikas written into the snow on the windows of parked cars on our campus. Here's the honest truth, yall. When I first saw the pictures pop up I wondered to myself, "Is that my car?" I wondered if my own students had decided to find my car and intentionally inflict pain for being at Calvin, for speaking about racial justice, or just for being black and easily accessible. It wasnt my car. No one's car in particular was targeted. But that was my first thought. 

And my students, as they learned of this, had a range of emotions. Anger. Disappointment. Frustration. Fear. Exhaustion. Rage. Most of them cycled through all these emotions at different points during the day. I am proud of many of them for being resilient, creative, present, honest. I am so proud, but I cannot protect. I cannot protect them, nor can I protect myself. 

And thats why I have been thinking for the last couple weeks about this thing called a "casual racist". You know that uncle who is always telling "those" jokes? You know the sister who is always using coded language to talk about "those" people. Or how about the folks at church who pull up with a confederate flag on their truck because free speech. And of course the "silly" kids who tag homes and cars and streets with messages that disrupt all that was peaceful about your day. As I was writing about supporting students last week, I stumbled on something that I only fully grappled with this week: There is no such thing as casual racism because the only thing standing between a causal racist and an infamous one, is a dead body. 

It was one thing to write that when discussing other schools. It is another to internalize the realities of that statement as I look into the eyes of the students I adore. 

The weight of this is the weight of white supremacist ideology. White supremacy is and always has been for the subjugation of black bodies even unto death. And any "casual" nurturing of that ideology easily grows into violence that a body like mine will have to endure. That is why hateful rhetoric remains so violent to the soul. Because white supremacy is a promise of violence to the body.  

But we have been convinced that there is a difference. That there is a casual racist and true racist. That there is a passive racist and a violent racist. That there is a regular racist and an extreme racist. We want so much to believe that racist ideology can remain in our hearts without turning folks into monsters. It is a convenient understanding of racism for those whose bodies are never targets. 

White supremacy grows. It encompasses as much space as we are willing to give it. It is all-consuming by design. It is never satisfied. It chases after power in its conception: the power over the hearts and minds of slave owner, enslaved and all those who were disinterested enough to let slavery thrive. And this desire for power, for control over the will, control over the body has been witnessed again and again and again and again in our present day.  We are about to watch it once more with the release of the video of #LaquanMcDonald. Time and again we are watching the snap decision, the snap inclination to brutally overpower black bodies. We saw it with Dylann Roof- a desire that he just couldn't squelch despite the hospitality he received. We watched it in how the resource officer responded to a black girl sitting in her desk. We watched it when an officer wrapped his arms around the throat of Eric Garner. We watched it as an officer callously shot Walter Scott in the back. We heard about it in the case of Jordan Davis who died because of "loud rap music". Loud rap music, yall. That was all it took to make a man take out his gun and shoot at a car of teenagers. All of these cases (and there are so many more) are just a handful of cases that put on display the shallow cause and required overreaction that unchecked white supremacy demands in the treatment of black bodies.  

So those of us who are committed to racial justice, can no longer afford to think of racism in categories- the painful and the painless. Those categories aren't real and we cant endorse them. We must name the depths to which white supremacy reaches. We must take every act, every sound bite, every joke, every message written in the snow seriously. We must. 

The terror is all around us. It always has been. Our own country was founded on terror, on genocide, on dehumanization and mass murder. The bodies who've had to bear the weight of terror have been many- First Nations tribes, Mexicans and Mexican Americans, Black Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and the list goes on. Even some European Americans experienced harsh dehumanization before racing through the escape hatch of whiteness. And while America has an uncanny ability to proclaim freedom and democracy while simultaneously excluding entire groups of people from the same, the US is not the only country with its feet caked in the blood of others. 

I know very little about the world outside the US. I say this with no amount of pride. The truth is I have been dedicating myself to learning the truth of America's own history- wading through books, movies, lectures, and essays to separate fact from fiction, to fill in gaps of missing information. So I will not now pretend to know enough about the relationship between the Middle East and Europe to give any sort of political insight to the recent attacks in both places. I will simply say that I was profoundly saddened by the attacks in Paris and profoundly ashamed to not have known about the attacks in the Middle East until Twitter asked me why I didnt know. 

As we all sat engrossed by the pain, fear, and confusion unfolding on our televisions, many of us noticed a curious thing happening on social media. There are people out there who decided it would be an appropriate moment to "teach" student activists about "real oppression". The problems with this statement are many: 

1.  It ignores the history of white supremacy in institutions of higher education. We, in the US, dont have to twist ourselves into a pretzel to identify the history of racism in public institutions. There is a desire of so many to interpret events of today, a-historically, to pretend that some veil dropped out of the sky, clearly separating past from present. There have been plenty of articles outlining this history specifically for #Mizzou, and we have access to the history of many more. We must take seriously America's history of segregation, animosity toward integration, and considerable lack of support for students of color in years since. Contrary to popular belief, Black people didnt fight for civil rights because we desperately wanted to hang out with white people. We didnt seek integration into previously white schools because we wanted admission; we wanted equality. We wanted an equal education. If there are still forces, rooted in history, prohibiting an equal education for black students, than we all have a duty to stand with those students and demand the fulfillment of that civil right.       

2. It minimizes the online threats being leveled at black students in the wake of their protests. Our students have every right to be fearful about a gun threat. I was a freshman in high school when the Columbine Shooting changed everything. I turned on the television and watched kids just like me racing out of their high school away from peers who decided to take as many lives as they could. Since then mass shootings have almost become common place. They are no longer unimaginable. And therefore, it is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that black students shouldn't have been afraid on yik yak postings started threatening their lives. Our students dont just have school shootings to be fearful of; just 5 months ago they watched breaking news of a white racist who walked into a church building for the express purposed of killing black people. There is every reason for black students to take these threats seriously. And so should all the other students on campus, and so should their parents, and so should the professors, and so should the staff... Because when the safety of one group is threatened on a college campus, everyone is at risk.     

3. It perpetuates the myth of the casual racist. There seems to be this idea that casual racism "isnt that bad". Its a luxury of white privilege to think that there are some white people who just havent caught up to the modern age, or that folks who still say the n-word or 'colored' wouldn't actually hurt anyone, or that people who just dont want to be politically correct should be laughed at for their ignorance, or that those who use swastikas, nooses or confederate flags for intimidation would go no further. What black people know is that its only our bodies that separate a casual racist from an infamous one. We cannot assume that casual racism wont evolve, wont churn into hatred, wont become a plan, wont result in violence. Until we are fed up with "casual racism" students will continue to be concerned about their safety, and they should be. The desire to not be a hashtag is strong, and they have no crystal ball to tell them who to fear and who not to fear. They need university officials and the police to take their concerns seriously.    

4. It suggests that black students must wait for terrorism. It is appalling to even suggest that students have no right to advocate for themselves unless they are experiencing absolute terror. How dare anyone suggest that oppression takes only one form, as experienced by Paris, and make that the standard for having the "right" to protest mistreatment. Students of today know all too well the potential for being terrorized (see #2) on their own campus. I will not tell them they must wait for that terror to arrive. 

We live in a frightening world. Our students are well aware of this fact. Rather than berate them, judge them, scold them... perhaps we could try a different approach. Perhaps we could try standing in solidarity with them, encouraging all systems of protection to do just that... protect them.  Their black lives matter while still alive. 

There is a story I have not wanted to write or talk about. When the story first broke, I spoke of it only with my husband. It rocked me in similar ways to discovering what happened to Sandra Bland, except even writing didnt seem like it was available to me to process. 

Recently, I have seen a few female friends posting the story and attempting to give language to it, so I thought I would give it a try too. The news story is of Daniel Holtzclaw who is accused of raping 13 women- most of them black. Google his name and you will find the details of Holtzclaw using his authority as an officer to pull women over and using his power to penalize them as cover to sexually assault them. 

And its terrifying. 

I will not recount the details here, but surely you can believe the horrific commingling of shame, fear, and helplessness his victims must have experienced. And I am afraid too. When I first heard of the number of under-handed ways he used his authority to victimize women, I went into strategic mode. What apps could I put on my phone? How could I call my husband the fastest? Should we have a code word? Can he use GPS or Find My Friends to get to me? Should I carry pepper spray? Would I use it? If I managed to get away, where would I go? Who would believe me? 

The more I talked about it, the more I started to shake. So I stopped talking about it that night. Stopped thinking about it. Until I would pass an officer on the highway, on the street, walking downtown. And then the fear would flood back. The first time I cried. I didnt cry out of fear. I cried because the fear was so specific, so clear, so imaginable. I cried because my list just got longer- I fear the multiple ways my body could be violated, brutalized.

Some days, I try to convince myself that this is unreasonable. Its one story. Except that the Associated Press recently reported that they have found "1,000 officers who lost their badges in a six year period" for sexual assault or sexual misconduct. The AP goes on to say that this number under-represents the abuse because there are so many agencies who dont report this information, who dont revoke badges, and who never receive reports of misconduct because victims are scared of retaliation. Though it could surely be helpful, Im not sure I want to know the true number of officers using their authority to violate the bodies of others. I dont want to know how many are guards, how many patrol streets, how many are in our schools. Its quite a terrifying thought. 

While I might be able to forget this story and ignore the statistics, what I cannot do is ignore the stories that pop up in my own life. I will not be giving details, but there are two people in my life who have been sexually assaulted by an officer- one male and one female. One included public shaming in the middle of the street after being pulled over and "searched". The other was raped in police custody. Both were devastating for the victims. Devastating. 

So when we talk about police brutality against black bodies, we cannot just talk about gun violence. We have to talk about the little girl who are thrown around at the pool party, the little girl who was tossed across her classroom, and the women who are being sexually violated. When we talk about violence, we cannot limit our discussions any longer... I cannot limit my discussions any longer. Because to limit the conversation is to not have the opportunity to name it, to fix it, to heal those who have already been hurt. 

And much healing is necessary. Can you imagine how much healing the little girl who was brutally tossed across her classroom will need? The shame of it being so public, the physical pain that was caused, the trauma of walking into that classroom again, the emotions of not being protected by her teacher, the fear and distrust she will carry for a long time regarding officers. And she is but one. 

So, Church, we must keep talking about police brutality and criminal {in}justice and race. But we cannot short-cut the conversation. We cant assume that by focusing on the use of guns/tasers that we are uplifting the extent of the problem. We are not. And just like the violence of guns can be traced historically, so can sexual violence. We know that sexual violence, particularly against black women, is centuries old. I recently remarked to a friend that the details of Holtzclaw's charges are another example of how close we are to history. 

I am here for discussing the plight of black men in America. I will continue to speak out against police killings. I will not be "calling out" folks also keep writing about the ways this particular violence must stop. But I also refuse to lose black women in the process.  The ways women experience oppression is no less important, and must be uplifted by the Church if we are sincere in our desire to chase after shalom. 

"Racism is a sin problem, not a skin problem." Have you heard this statement? I recently saw it on Mike Huckabee's extraordinarily problematic twitter timeline last week during the democratic debate, but would you believe I have heard people say it in real life since then. Yep, It seems to be an increasingly common proclamation that America doesn't have a skin problem, just a sin one. Well, I'd like to offer some breaking news for Christians: 

Racism is both a sin problem and a skin problem.

And I thought we should talk about that. So here are my thoughts on why this statement is both nonsensical and problematic. 

1. I do not understand how folks believe they can admit to racism, but deny what racism is built on. This is the nonsensical part. If we are going to agree that racism is a sin, what exactly do we think the sin is based on? Did we change the source of racism? Is racism no longer constructed around race? Did I miss the memo? Are we really now asserting that racism, though a sin, actually does not involve race? Friends, having a skin problem is the sin problem. And our skin problem is well documented in American history and our current realities of racial disparities. Pick a system: health, education, homeownership, wealth, criminal justice, environmental justice, voting access, jobs, wages... you will find America's sin problem manifesting itself along the lines of skin color. So lets stop pretending that "sin problems" and "skin problems" are somehow mutually exclusive when talking about racism.     

2. The second problematic messaging around this statement is that it is used to temper the conversation on race rather than amplify it. For Christians, since when do we make ourselves comfortable with having a sin problem? Last time I checked, we are supposed to be actively addressing our "sin problems". I mean are we applying this statement to everything? "I know this married couple is not being faithful, but dont worry, adultery is just a sin problem." Is that how this goes now? No? I didnt think so. This cannot be a comforting statement- we only have a sin problem, thats all. NOPE. Any admission that racism is a sin problem should immediately spur us into action. We could begin with lamentation, confession and repentance for starters. 

3. This statement has two purposes. The first is to cloak the violence of racism. By even suggesting that racism isn't a "skin problem" immediately makes racism abstract. It erases the violent effects racism has on a specific population- people of color. If there is no racial skin problem, then there also aren't people with skin whose lives are deeply effected by racism. We must reject the desire to make racism intangible, abstract, vague. Racism has drawn the lines of life and death, wealth and survival, rights and inequity, opportunity and oppression for the entire history of the United States of America. That cannot be erased. 

4. And its second purpose is to lead to the conclusion that the only remedy for our "sin problem" is self-prescribed spiritual action. So we should pray and come together and be unified and seek reconciliation. But because there is no skin problem- no victims, no violence, no effects from the evil of racism- we do not have to call for justice. The statement is used to so spiritualize racism that we are no longer required to work against it in any practical ways. Bye Felicia. We have so much work to do as Christians. Part of that work is spiritual for sure, but there are also ways of existing in the world that ought to reflect our commitment to stop sinning, to stop racism. 

So, the next time someone says this, you let them know... you do take the sin of racism seriously. So seriously that dismissing it, minimizing it, and neglecting to work against it, isn't an option for you.