The struggle against racism & the reality of Jesus | Perkins Fellow '18
“THE PROBLEM of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line…”
(W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903).
If you were to become a neonatologist, you would observe a strange phenomenon. As you would deliver babies, you would notice increasingly that babies of African American women would, on average, be born twice as likely premature or with a lower birth weight than those of white women (yes, this is a statistically significant study). Even if you were to control for socioeconomic status, you would find an even more harrowing statistic: African American women of higher socioeconomic status (those who have obtained bachelors and masters degrees, respectively) were three times as likely to have a baby born premature or with lower birth weight than their white counterparts. Further, this same group of African American women would still have a higher premature and lower birth weight rate than white women who have dropped out or never complete high school education. In a study by Collins and David, they point to racism and the stress it produces in African American women as the main factor that increases the rates of premature birth. But this would be hard to explain to many in our country, of which around 70% of white Americans believe racism to be a product of the past. It would even be more of a surprise to explain to the Charlottesville community, where our own University was one of the centers of the highly racialized eugenics movement in the early 1900s.
I came to the University of Virginia in 2014 from a relatively homogenous area in Virginia Beach. I remember reading “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. my junior year and feeling the searing conviction of his words addressed to the “white moderates”. “When you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’,” King writes, “—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait”. I remember sitting by my fireplace and feeling the burn upon my back of the relevancy of King’s words to our country, still. It wasn’t long before my veil was further torn away when one of our classmates, Martese Johnson, was unjustly aprehended at the Corner in Charlottesville, a block away from the edge of our campus. The boulder began to roll faster and faster as Theological Horizons brought John Perkins to U.Va. to speak, the shootings of the black men by police in the summer of 2015 (and on), and finally culminated with the election of Donald Trump where I found one of my black brothers crying in my room, and I held one of my black sisters as she wept in fear and pain. Tears, pain, heaviness – everywhere. And if that wasn’t enough of a burden to handle, the slave-built grounds churned as the white supremecists marched through the epicenter of the Rotunda. Everyday, I felt the weight of America upon my shoulders, and the sins of our country were still reverberating… loudly.
I was reminded of the story of Jesus. When Jesus had told his disciples he was going to suffer and die on the cross, Peter rebuked him saying he couldn’t possibly do that – we all know what Jesus said to Peter next: “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 6:23, NIV). Why did Peter say this, and why did Jesus respond that way? Peter thought Jesus was going to be a political messiah; he thought Jesus was coming to overcome the Romans and become the new political leader. In reality, Jesus came to suffer and die because the Kingdom he was coming to build was not only physical, but it was spiritual, it was in our hearts – it was a war in the heavens. Jesus came to renew our country, yes, but not at the expense of renewing our hearts, minds and souls. Suffering was neccesary for the atonement.
But Jesus was clear, that the Kingdom he has brought to Earth is a spiritual reality. I began to stray away from prayer and devotion to God and replace it with my works. I began to tire myself out. Paul wrote it succinctly, which seems to be a thorn in the enlightened side of America:
For we do not wrestly against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12, NIV).
How are we supposed to fight this force of racism, then, that has such real and dark physical manifestations? How do we fight a phenomenon that has plagued our country for years? We need to be renewed, and we need to cling to the cross. We need to humble ourselves and collectively repent. We desperately need to seek the face of God and not fall wayward to the dirty rags of works. Our turning from our sin and our selves towards the cross is what should inform our work.
In my time as a Perkins Fellow, I learned this. That if I am to do the work of the Kingdom, I need to have my heart right before God. And that is something I want to encourage you all in. It is obvious that our country has sins of racism still so evident, and we can see tangible manifestations of that nearly everyday. One response would be to just go out and start working to solve it. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but you will become tired and you will hit a wall. If you are working for God, stop. You are already justified before him, and I would encourage you to repent and get your heart before him. To others, they may interpret salvation as a reason to not do work in the community. Brothers and sisters, our eschatology has not yet been realized. The Kingdom of God is a dynamic and ever-present reality that needs to be brought about by us, the church. So to those who see the racial division in our country but fail to act, please get before God as well and ask Him what your role is in the beautiful, ever-unfolding picture. The reality of Jesus and his salvific power at the cross should always be what informs our lived theologies. As my dear friend Ross Byrd once told me, “Theology doesn’t neccessarily make good obedience, rather obedience makes for good theology”. I would encourage you to take a deep look at our country and ask God how it is he wants to use you to bring shalom to our country. Following Jesus is wildly fascinating, but it should also be restful. We need to rest before the cross. I will leave you with one verse to meditate upon. Our country is hurting, and we desperately need Jesus now more than ever.
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14, NIV).
Faith, justice and coding. Reflections by Sarah Bland '19
Standing on the rooftop bar of Squarespace’s office building in NYC’s SoHo district, I looked out over the foggy scene of bustling traffic in the intersection below and felt, in a word, overwhelmed. The week leading up to that moment had been filled with many new people, intense full-stack development classes, and challenging conversations. I was in New York City for a program called The Impact Fellowship, an intense, two-week coding experience for “the next generation of social entrepreneurs.” I went, intending to engage with issues of injustice, meet similarly motivated peers/ mentors, and ascertain whether computer science could be a viable field for those seeking to “love God and love people” well. And yet, here I was, visiting the posh downtown office of a company with millions of users, nearly half a billion in net worth, and hundreds of employees earning six digits. Questions about the computer science industry dizzyingly crowded my mind: “Can ethics and industry intersect meaningfully, or is CS too obfuscated by desire for wealth, glory, and power?” “Am I competitive enough to be a software engineer? Powerful and faithful enough to do SWE for God’s glory?” “Is CS intrinsically too abstracted away from immediate aid and love for those who need it most?” My mental state was perfectly mirrored in the confused honking, peddling, and shouting below.
Overwhelming as the moment was, these sensations of cognitive, emotional, and spiritual dissonance in relation to my vocation and calling were not incongruent with prior experience. While it may be true that we often don’t understand God’s ways, we can sometimes [if we’re fortunate] begin to see patterns. One that’s repeated itself again and again in my life has been God’s calling to go and do in cities. In college alone, I’ve been called to Greensboro, NC for a service trip, Chicago for a spring break social justice plunge, Chicago [again] for a summer of urban ministry, the Perkins House Charlottesville, and New York City for a winter break spent learning about coding for social impact. Lord willing, I will spend this coming summer in Detroit, Michigan, working at the intersection of justice and SWE (e.g. teaching coding skills through a startup like Grand Circus to people who’d otherwise not have access to tech education). Each of these cities have taught me particular lessons; nonetheless, persistent threads have woven themselves throughout all of my experiences. Predominantly, I have been struck in each location by the confluence of human brokenness and excellence on all scales. The paradoxical coexistence of vibrancy and pain in the human experience are nowhere more evident than in the multitudes living in places such as Chicago and New York City; nowhere are the broken, hungry, and alone more visible.
It may not be immediately obvious how computer science, or the tech scene at large, plays into all of this. It is the case that NYC, perhaps more than any other city I have encountered, exhibits a bold demarcation between countably infinite numbers of exceptionally wealthy individuals and (seemingly) uncountably infinite numbers of needy individuals. Certain fields within computer science, such as financial and informational technology, play a significant role in this divide, as they contribute to ever-widening wealth and access gaps within the city. Now, more than ever, NYC’s Silicon Alley is burgeoning into a multi-billion value parallel to California’s Silicon Valley. Even impressive companies such as Squarespace are overshadowed by nearby Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft offices. To be sure, some of these tech companies are impacting the world positively through their products and research. Almost all, however, are explicitly negative in terms of their diversity, inclusion, and ethical resource acquisition (think: precious metals like Coltan, important for building hardware). Certainly, many are neutral. Regardless, it is inevitable that computer science is changing the world (and quickly); the only variable that remains to be defined is the moral and ethical direction in which it does so.
It is the multidimensionality of this problem, as well as the role that I [may or may not] play in it, that caused my overwhelmed and anxious state that afternoon in New York City. I know that God has given me a mind and desire for computer science. I believe that CS has the potential to change the world on a broad and powerful scale, but I personally possess a limited understanding about what that could look like and have no certainty whatsoever about what part I could play. I know that God tends to call me to go and do. I also know that God is training me to think about and engage with issues of injustice; He is ever-breaking my hubris, white privilege, and false self-sufficiency through prodding my heart to better love my neighbor. Finally, I know that God often asks more questions than He provides answers and am learning to be still in that discomfort. My mother, at the end of a long conversation discussing these themes, said to me: “Sarah, you are a warrior being trained for the forefront of some battle.” Ultimately, I can only pray that God will arm me well in preparation and that I will be able to discern His voice when He calls.
When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the LORD. They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
The LORD said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.”
Exodus 14:10-15 (ESV)
P.S. Have an interest in learning more about some cutting-edge tech projects that actually are promising vectors for change? Check out WePower’s decentralized energy network (built using blockchain technology), this research project on protecting victims of intimate partner violence from surveillance by abusers, or Bad Batch Alert. Or send me an email at scb4ga@virginia.edu and we can chat!