Faith Works 5-27-22

Faith Works 5-27-22
Jeff Gill

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When I started writing about critical race theory, I learned something rather interesting.

It was the start of a loosely connected series of columns with the overall destination made clear at the start: I believe most of the political and social complaints and criticism about "critical race theory" is really a desire to see less discussion of race and racism in the public arena, and that it's not a prudent goal for educators or churches or politicians to try to eliminate such conversations.

And I've certainly heard from a fair number of educators who agree with my take about how conversations about racial issues are called "indoctrination." Teachers and administrators affirm that if they actually could indoctrinate students, they'd start with getting them to have a good night's sleep, turn in assignments on time, and use less strongly scented personal grooming products. Seriously, those three are where they'd start.

Yes, a conversation started by a teacher carries a certain weight, and I think teachers are almost without exception very careful about how they wield that responsibility, but race is still a vexed issue for us even if you argue — as I would — that we have come a very long way from 1962, let alone 1862, in this country and in our community.

My learning was that in the initial column, I got some rather vehement feedback and from a very wide range of correspondents, by which I don't mean across the county, but from across the country.

By way of experiment, one of my subsequent columns I made a point of talking about critical theory specifically, not mentioning the word "race" at all, and I got zero emails back on that one. The ideas were in the same neighborhood, but I wasn't ringing the same bell.

So I suspect there are folk who have internet alerts set up keyed to the phrase "critical race theory" and when that bell is rung, they charge out of their own personal fire house to pour some water, or maybe kerosene, on my incendiary ideas. This column will be a good test of that, since I think I've now said critical race theory four times, twice in quotes and twice without. We shall see.

As for talking about race, as a preacher of the Gospel, as a minister of God's grace, I think we have work to do in this country just as Germany is still working on anti-Semitism. It's a sign of the remarkable progress they've made there in Europe that Ukrainian Jews are happy to find refuge in places like Berlin and Nuremberg. Yes, a little ironic, but irony is the seasoning of history. The point is that Jews fleeing war and oppression can see Germany as a safe place: that's a huge sign of progress in 77 years. But I think few Germans would say they are done.

For me, as a person who came to Licking County by invitation, with a passion for history and an interest in building community, I have long known we have some work to do in this area around race and reconciliation. As a parish minister and community leader, I'm not sure I've done enough in the past, and we'll see what time I have left to serve and witness, but I know that our racial divisions still need a hand of healing and words of renewal.

When I was helping bring some organizations together in Newark after I first arrived, in 1989, and setting up community meetings, there were times when I was cautioned "Black people do not feel comfortable coming downtown after dark." Eddie Mae Scott pulled me aside to let me know she knew many African Americans who could recall vividly when you'd better be on the right side of the East Main bridge when the sun went down.

I had the chance to converse online, and later in person, with the late historian James Loewen, who wrote "Sundown Towns" about the widespread pattern in the Midwest of having both unspoken and sometimes official rules about who could go where, many of which lasted well past the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Loewen liked to say "Telling the truth about the past helps cause justice in the present; achieving justice in the present helps us tell the truth about the past." We have work yet to do, and not talking about race and justice won't help us get closer to getting it done.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got a long way to go himself. Tell him where he should go, if you're of a mind to, at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.