RACHEL HEDDLES | copy editor
This past week I unlearned guilt and realized the importance of humility instead.
Though several of this week’s events hinted at how easy it is to respond to the issue of racism with feelings of guilt, shame and frustration, Tuesday night’s discussion on “Race, Gender and Privilege” particularly reminded me of how often I’ve felt those feelings. As I listened to numerous female students give their reactions to Peggy McIntosh’s article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, I not only remembered those familiar feelings of guilt, but I also began to get a sense of a much more constructive response—humility.
In trying to reconcile some of the ideas from Tuesday night’s discussion that centered on recognizing and taking responsibility for systemic racism and the daily prejudicial privileges whites receive, with the ideas presented by Doug Schaup of every culture being redeemable by God, I realized there are two extremes which we can fall into when responding to racial reconciliation. The first is an elevation of oneself which allows one to feel justified, vindicated, blameless and defensive. The other is a lowering of oneself into guilt and self-hate.
Humility lies outside of these extremes, and provides a balanced and beneficial alternative. While humility at its core does involve lowering ourselves, it’s not the same kind of lowering as the guilt or shame described by many of the students in Tuesday’s discussion. Rather, humility is a willingness to lower the importance of our own pride and self-image, to take risks and be teachable in order that others might be honored.
Humility is what will enable us to enter difficult conversations and come out changed. Humility will allow us to approach people of different races, ethnicities and cultural backgrounds and will make us willing to admit to ignorance, to make mistakes, to be told where we are wrong and where we have misjudged.
Humility is what will allow us to ask a friend of another race or ethnicity questions such as: “How is my language disrespectful to you?” and “How have my actions dishonored you?” or sometimes even more importantly, “How are you hurt by the words I leave unspoken?” or “How are you harmed by my inaction when you encounter prejudice?”
Meanwhile, there is an equally important task for those who are being asked the difficult questions. To those who are being asked, “Teach me,” I would ask, please be willing to extend patience, to extend grace and to be willing to accept the humble acts of reconciliation attempted by those around you.
As we each seek to live out the ideas presented to us this week, to move from learning, or unlearning, to action, let us adopt an attitude of humility with each other, coupled with an extension of grace, so that honoring each other might go from being a slogan to being a reality.
