Let’s Talk About White Privilege and Slavery
White privilege today has its roots in slavery. Until we understand this, we can’t move forward.
By Dr. Michelle Reyes
Prominent Atlanta megachurch pastor Louie Giglio recently said in a roundtable discussion that he would like to replace the phrase white privilege with white blessing.
He claimed, “We understand the curse that was slavery… And we say that was bad. But we miss the blessing of slavery, that it actually built up the framework for the world that white people live in.”
Giglio hoped this new approach would help make the hard conversation of white privilege easier and more palatable for white Christians. What Giglio didn’t anticipate, however, was the backlash from Christians of color, who felt his words were damaging and themselves reinforced white privilege.
While Giglio has since apologized, the result fallout has made one thing glaringly clear: we are not all on the same page when it comes to issues of race. Majority and minority Christians have largely different understandings of the past, our racialized identities, and the question of racism today. Even in the wake of the horrific killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many others, we are still talking past each other. Some are even adding more fuel to the flame.
If we’re ever going to hope for more productive conversations and actions on this issue, we need a new way forward. This begins with having the same working definitions of white privilege and racism. Words matter, and how we describe something directly impacts whether we, as the body of Christ, link arms and engage this issue together.
A Long, Dark History
Let’s start with a more appropriate definition of white privilege. It is not “a privilege because of the curse of slavery,” as Giglio tried to further explain, but rather the advantages that white people enjoy in this country because of the color of their skin. The term itself, coined by activist and scholar Peggy McIntosh in 1988, describes an invisible force that provides people with white skin with unseen, unconscious advantages. It’s the ability to move throughout your day without fear of being racially profiled. It’s not thinking your life is in danger when you’re approached by a cop or not having to worry about your child being forced into a school-to-prison pipeline. It also includes access to better jobs, better salaries, and certain levels of trust and respect--all purely because of how you look.
But this isn’t simply a cosmetic problem. White privilege has an origin. The term is tethered to the long, complicated history of slavery in this country.
White privilege relies on racialization, a system of values that says one group of people is superior to all others because of the color of their skin. This system has been weaponized to justify the cruel treatment of and discrimination toward non-white people throughout American history. Colonialism, slavery, Jim Crow laws, and mass incarceration came out of the belief that white people should enjoy a certain standard of living built on the backs of lesser peoples.
White privilege is both a cause and legacy of racism. It is a conscious act rooted in historic inequities, and it continues to reinforce systemic racism today. When it comes to racial trauma, displacement, the cruel treatment and discrimination of people of color, or the country’s history of slavery, we have to acknowledge the role of white privilege.
Many Christians, and white Christians in particular, don’t want to hear this. There is an immediate, visceral aversion to these kinds of conversations. In a 2015 letter to the editor, for example, Moody Bible Institute theology professor Bryan Litfin called white privilege an “unbiblical term” and said Christians should instead use “more wholesome, less divisive terminology.”. This defensiveness against white privilege is exactly why multicultural education scholar and author Robin DiAngelo talks about the fragility of white people. These conversations make people feel bad, and they want to stop feeling bad.
But if we aren’t willing to sit with the weight of guilt when it comes to the sins of racism, we will never understand that we are the problem. Unless we acknowledge the existence of white privilege, we can’t understand our own complicity in it. Each of us needs to do the hard work of examining our own biases and actions. We cannot separate the past from our present. They are interconnected. Repenting for the sins of historic slavery and its current iterations in our society is a necessary step in beginning to work toward a more equitable and just future, both inside and outside the church.
The Problem of Over-Spiritualizing
Unfortunately, historic disconnect permeates Louie Giglio’s words on white privilege. Instead of confessing our country’s sin of slavery, he turned to the language of blessings, like “the blessing” of the cross on which Jesus died. But, as pastor JR. Forasteros points out, “Framing the Atlantic Slave Trade in terms of blessing/curses invokes God, thereby making it less a sin issue and more a divine act. This is a slightly more genteel version of the rhetoric Christian pastors like Cotton Mather used to justify Christians participating at all levels of the slave trade. Worse, he views the fruits of injustice (in this case, wealth and unjust power) as blessings.”
To be clear: slavery isn’t and never was a blessing by God to white people. It’s not condoned in Scripture. Nor should its dark and gruesome history ever be spun in a positive light.
The only biblical response to slavery and its offspring, privilege, is to confess them and shed them from our life. This is the call of the prophet, Zechariah, when he speaks to the remnant, charging them not to make the same mistakes of their forefathers. According to Zechariah 7:8-10, “And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: ‘This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other’” (NIV).
Their forefathers were given the same command. But they refused to listen; they turned their backs and covered their ears. Even when instructed by God not to oppress their fellow humans, they refused to obey.
Now, Zechariah pleads for the returned exiles not to make the same mistake. They must see the sins of their ancestors, acknowledge them and confess them. If they lose sight of this wrongdoing, they will be in danger of committing the same sins all over again.
Here Zechariah is addressing a major problem between the powerful and the powerless. Human value systems and individual human hearts tend toward diminishing, controlling, and oppressing those we think less of. The resulting advantages that those in power receive are, in the words of God himself, “evil.” As such, discussion about hierarchies that oppress others, including slavery, should never be watered down for the sake of more palatable conversation.
The implications of this are far reaching. At a practical level, conversation on white privilege and slavery shouldn’t be led by those in power. Too often, white people’s voices and experiences are centered in these conversations--itself a privilege. They decide what gets said and who gets to say it. I wonder how last week’s conversation would have gone if Giglio had asked Christian rapper Lecrae to share his perspective first. Giglio’s choice to lead with his own perspective is indicative of how much we still have to learn.
A significant part of deconstructing white privilege is learning to listen and respond instead of leading. Being humble means using your platform to model being a good listener. Putting someone else’s interests above your own means asking questions and choosing not to be triggered by the term white privilege, or insisting that people of color rewrite the rulebook to make you less uncomfortable.
So, let’s have the hard conversations. Let’s learn to listen well, stare our dark history in the face, feel the weight of this sin, and humbly choose to do better.
Dr. Michelle Reyes is the vice president and co-founder of AACC.
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