Stamped: A White Evangelical American Response
Americans have come into a time of significant challenges, but no greater than any in the past. Perhaps, because of the relative prosperity, comfort, and ease of living many Americans enjoy it seems greater, but I am not convinced it is. Of course, maybe I’m only insulated from the worst of it by the distance provided through culture, region, color, and opportunity. Having just finished reading Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, I’m brought to a moment of introspection and reflection. I am certainly not ambivalent about the things I read, but I am torn—conflicted. On the one hand, I find the racist history of this nation enlightening, but on the other, I find the “antiracist” interpretation (as if two men could speak for an entire group of people with similar views) of events extremely one-sided. Many events in U.S. history, according to them, come down to simply racist beliefs and hatred for black people. While they are right about many things, I cannot accept all they say as truth. I will try to explain.
A reason stands behind everything we choose to read. Nobody sits down to read random thoughts without purpose; either the writer had to have a purpose, or the reader has one motivating their reading selection. We ought to evaluate everything we read from a viewpoint of seeking the reason in the writer’s motives: who their intended audience is and why they have written for them. When you read anything written in an oppositional or defiant manner, it would be helpful, even wise, to pay attention to the small details, the little tells, which illuminate the trustworthiness and validity upon which the writing must stand on its own merits, because every written work ultimately does. It is for this reason that many works (not all or, perhaps, even most) do not stand the test of time. Once an author is no longer deemed relevant, the work must stand on its own, to be judged worthy, or not, fit or unfit, for consumption. I do not believe Stamped will be on anyone’s list of books to read in fifty or one hundred years, unless it’s a list of books with one-sided views intended to stir up anger in a group of people.
I consider myself open-minded, yet still a Christian, which means my mind is indeed closed to some things, ideas, and beliefs. It must be, or I could not reasonably consider myself a Christian without a good deal of deception, either toward myself or others. I hate the term “woke” because I’ve been awake most of my adult life. I’ve understood the divisions between Americans for a long time, and have tried to show empathy, compassion, and understanding toward others, whether or not I would consider them less fortunate than myself. I, too, have suffered, and so I believe it gives me an ability to judge this text on its merits based upon personal observation and experience. But enough of my justifications; let us consider the text and let it speak for itself.
The book gets a lot of things right. The racist stain upon this country is great and stands as a serious indictment of the Christian faith and American culture. For this, we will suffer terribly, though not necessarily as much as those who have suffered under racist actions in the past. Some will say it is impossible that we, I mean white evangelical Americans, should ever suffer that much, but I’m not so arrogant as to think that the situation could never change nor the roles ever reverse. If the penalties of the past don’t find their mark today, it will be in our children’s or our children’s children’s day. But if it does, it will be because we have earned the wrath of men by failing to do our duty as Christians in loving our fellow human beings sufficiently. The current path we are on leads to a race war. If we do not do all we can now to ease the suffering of our fellow Americans, our descendants shall bear the cost in blood.
Before moving on, I have to make something perfectly clear: I don’t believe in capitalizing adjectives that do not need capitalization. I think some do it to highlight our differences and strengthen the divide between us, which is already a gulf. It’s as ridiculous as writing about Asian Americans and using “Yellow people” to describe them, or using “Red people” to describe Native Americans. I’m not sure why I’m supposed to be okay with using “White people.” How is that any better than the other (racist-sounding) terms I used as illustration? The book makes it sound as if, for all their “antiracist” talk, the authors might actually be racist themselves. Let’s go on.
For all that, the book gets many things wrong. Here’s one: At the end of chapter 9, which is very short, the text summarizes assimilationist thought as saying that black people must make themselves small, unthreatening, the same, safe, and quiet to make white people comfortable with their existence. Do I deny this happens? No. But I do deny that this is racist in nature. What do I mean? I mean this is part of what it is to be among American whites in their largely white culture. As a large man, I have always had to make myself small. As a male, I have always had to make myself unthreatening. As an outsider, I have always had to try to make myself the same. As a loud, passionate person, I have always had to make myself quiet. All in an effort to make other white people comfortable with my existence. To say this is racist loses every white ally who has ever experienced the same attitudes.
Does that mean the penalties aren’t greater for dark-skinned people than for light-skinned people? NO. Surely, they suffer more because of racist attitudes, but the basic issue isn’t racism. The basic issue is herd mentality, and you don’t have to be dark-skinned to experience the negative consequences of herd mentality.
The book also shows a clear disdain for Christianity and the views of Martin Luther King, Jr. (though when speaking about him directly, this negative stance feels toned down, more subdued), while praising the views of Malcom X. I cannot help but feel there is an agenda beyond the antiracism proclaimed by the writers of this book, but since it is only a gut feeling about a subtext I cannot prove, I will keep it to myself. I mention it only to clarify that the anti-Christian rhetoric wasn’t lost on me.
In chapter twenty-one, the text says this about George Wallace receiving 100,000 letters of support for segregation, “mostly” from northerners, “This proved, painfully, that everyone—the North and the South—hated Black people.” Really? You’re going to go with that? U.S. population during the mid-1960’s was about 194 million, but you are going to say that 100,000 letters of support means EVERYONE hated black people? One hundred thousand letters in the 1960’s proves EVERYONE hated blacks. Okay. Got it. So this is one of those texts. Whenever someone says everyone, never, or always, it’s time to step back and take a hard look at what you’re reading or hearing and the people doing the talking.
Later on, the book mentions that during the late 1960’s, “Black students and their hundreds of thousands of non-Black allies compelled nearly a thousand colleges and universities spanning almost every US state to introduce Black Studies departments, programs, and courses.” Notice that, although I’m sure their allies included a mix of people groups, the authors (and editors) cannot bring themselves to credit white people at all in being their allies during the sixties. One sentence half-heartedly admits to such, however, in saying, “White hippies, who had been anti-Vietnam War, had now begun pledging to (try to) strip the influence of racism from White Americans.” I would say they failed, but notice that the authors must refer to them by the half-derogatory term “hippies.” Watch the footage of the MLKJ speech, “I have a dream.” You will see white allies in the crowd who looked nothing like hippies. Hippies, during the sixties, were mostly busy not bathing, protesting Vietnam, dodging the draft, doing drugs, living in communes, and going to rock concerts, whatever the authors of this book would have you believe. If they also said, “Yeah, power to the people, man!”, what of it?
Now then, which is it? Does EVERYONE hate black Americans? Or do only some? It doesn’t work both ways. And while the movie Planet of the Apes most certainly carries racist themes, one doesn’t have to be a racist to enjoy the fantasy of it. Yes, Tarzan of the Apes was also racist, but that doesn’t make everyone who enjoyed Tarzan a racist. I happen to enjoy Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft, who both apparently were racists, but that doesn’t mean I’m also a racist. I cringe when I recognize those elements and find those stories less enjoyable for that fact. And while I’ve always found Rocky to be boring and irrelevant (yes, I know), I can see why someone might think it’s racist, yet I’m not convinced. The authors highlight how black people must be depicted as flawed in order to remain human in said depictions, but then holler that for a white person to do so is racist (as in Apollo Creed) because he’s a stereotype. Poor writing does not equal racism. Yes, I think Rocky is drivel, but not necessarily racist.
I’ve been accused of being racist by people who don’t know me because they misread my intentions or misattributed motives to my actions. When you’re an overweight white guy who keeps his head shaved quite often, I find that people, just as often, are quick to lump you in with others they perceive as their enemies. My great-grandmother on one side was Native American and a refugee from the Trail of Tears. My great-great-whatever-grandmother on the other side was black. I have been acquainted with racism all of my life. I’m white, more or less, but I’m no racist. I have heard it from my own ancestors and relatives, directed foolishly in spite of themselves at other people groups, yet that doesn’t make me a racist.
Besides these issues, the real problem with the book is that it only hints at the real underlying causes that remain a problem to both white and black people in America—greed and classist elitism. I once heard a black man say that to be poor in America is to be a “N-.” You fill in the blank. If you think white people are not harmed by greed and classist elitism, you’re part of the problem and not the solution. We ought to work together to solve our problems, but you’d rather divide us and stir up children to anger with this version of Stamped deliberately directed at black youths.
I could say more, but I’ll leave you with a quote from the book that I think highlights the authors’ purpose quite clearly, “I wonder if Black people were thinking, Where can we send you all? Back to Europe? Or maybe instead of sending them, they were thinking more about ending them.” [All emphasis in the original.] (#Whydon’tyoutelluswhatyoureallythink?)