Our country recently proved that it is willing to elect a minority to it's highest office. I'm optimistic but not completely convinced that the country is equally ready to support a minority candidate once it becomes apparent that he is human just like the rest of us. From what I've witnessed, people are willing to accept minorities leaders when they are superstars but not necessarily for anything less. Nobody seemed concerned that the Augusta National Golf Club wouldn't admit black members back when Charley Sifford and Calvin Peete were good but not great PGA golfers. It wasn't until a black person became the absolute undisputed best golfer in the world that it became an issue.
I've also witnessed this at a local level. We were once members of a predominantly white church with a minority pastor. Nice guy who had been blessed with a great pastoral and musical gifts but his preaching ability was average. In other words, he was just like the rest of us; talented in some areas and average in others.
This fact that he wasn't a superstar at the pulpit opened up a chasm in our congregation. Some people weren't ready to accept average preaching from a minority and, in fact, developed an elitist attitude along the lines of "we gave him a chance and he didn't make the most of it" as though his working in the dominant white world was some gift that was theirs to give. For others there was the "I'm just not sure he can relate to us due to cultural differences" attitude as though his being from a different culture could only be an opportunity for him to adapt to our way of thinking rather than a chance for us to learn from his background. I don't think anyone felt like that they were being racist. Just the opposite. They thought they had cleared themselves of any racial bias by calling him to our church in the first place.
On the other hand, there was a segment of the congregation that wouldn't acknowledge that he had any faults what-so-ever. This was driven primarily by a fear of being called a racist and also what I felt was a primal fear of having normal interactions with a person visually and culturally different from them.
Between the two sides of this chasm there were very few people left to hold up this fellow brother in Christ and support him honestly as a fellow imperfect human being. Memories of this have come back to me recently as we have focused on racism recently during meditations at our current church. The experience has made me leery of people wearing anti-racism on their shirt sleeve during this election year. Will those same people also develop an elitist mentality when they realize he is an imperfect human like the rest of us, as though he owes them for allowing him into the white world?
I think we have come a long way in the 10 years since the experience I described and so I am optimistic. I sure hope we have because our president elect is going to need our ongoing support in the coming years as we face some difficult challenges.
OSH
