2025.09.28 ARE YOU RACIST? Spiritual Lemons, blog post, Lyn G. Brakeman

 Racist? Not me! Many cry out. There is no racism advocated in the Bible, after all! Or is there?

Focus a bit more closely on the particulars, then wonder again. Sometimes an extraordinary truth smacks you upside the head like the proverbial rake and forces you to draw back and forward all at once—startled and intrigued?  

In the early 1960s, my small daughter was standing up on the back seat (pre-seatbelt time) of our car. I was driving up the street to deliver a mis-delivered package to the neighbor’s house. I parked, ran up to their door and rang the bell. The door was opened by their live-in Black maid. My daughter loudly exclaimed: “What was that?” I was shocked that my little girl had made such a racist statement. 

She wasn’t racist, but we lived in an all-white town—neighborhood, schools, churches, stores. Our small daughter had never seen a Black person before. Thus was born my own shocking personal question: Is it toxic, that is soul-poisoning, to live all the time in an all-white society, a blinding blizzard, a whiteout? Would it not be equally blinding for Black people to live in a blackout?

From neither perspective could anyone see the world or themselves accurately. Blizzard and Blackout are equally blinding and binding to ALL races, ALL cultures, ALL creativity, and ALL religions. Shocked, I wrote the painful truth about my own slow awakening to this blindness, AND about the value of being clear-eyed and open-hearted toward the whole world, not just those who looked like me. I invited divine help into this process along the way at every turn, using loud little words like HELP!

Is racism real, or is it some high falutin ideal? Is it inborn? Could someone be racist without even knowing it?  Are we trained by circumstances, or, like my daughter’s innocence, simply exposed to it, shocked by it, wounded by it?  I strongly and increasingly believe that Racism is a symptom!  It is NOT inborn. We learn it as a way to survive, perhaps thrive. Survive what?  I leave that to each and all of you. 

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Divinity created the whole schlmiel—and with it enough common sense and freedom to CHOOSE love everywhere towards everyone/everything all the time, including yourself—not hate. 

God did NOT CREATE racism—only FREEDOM.