One evening in 2015, I heard a duet sermon titled “Hear My Story” at FUMC. It was given by Adama Brown-Hathaway and Joy Butler. Parts of that sermon struck a deep chord in me.
Each began with an introductory story of their respective families, a brief family history of who they came from, where they lived - their origin stories. Then they each shared what was, for me, something powerful and deeply sad.
Each told the story of their earliest experience of racial prejudice. Adama’s innocence and sense of security ended at age eight. A young, white substitute teacher, frustrated by her black and brown charges who were being a little rowdy, called them together to sit on the floor and asked if they knew about several prominent Black leaders. They happily responded that they did. Then she did the unthinkable and told them they were acting like a “bunch of black n*****s.” Their joy turned to tears and silence.
Joy told a story about her favorite baby doll, a brown-toned doll in a grass skirt that her parents brought back to her from a trip to Hawaii. She loved to play with that doll and comb her long black hair. Joy proudly showed it to her uncle, whose response was to question why she was playing with a black doll and then to berate her mother for giving it to her. This experience left Joy with feelings of shame and humiliation and she put her doll away in the back of a drawer.
Their sermon continued with the telling of their stories of transition and transformation.
My brief summary doesn’t do justice to the personal telling of these stories. I was left with such a sense of sadness at the ways each of these children had lost their innocence. As they grew older, each had experiences that were transformative in their understanding of race and living in that understanding.
Unpacking our personal stories around the topic of race is a first step we can all take. If I can reflect honestly about how I came to have the opinions, biases, and worldview that inhabit me, I can see more clearly. It can be a first step toward engagement, change, and disruption. Just hearing the stories told by Adama and Joy was a transformative experience for me – leading me to engage more fully in conversations, book studies, and other learning opportunities at First Church and other spaces.
Although this has been in the back of my mind for four years now, it was not until this month that I started to put my story on paper. I hope you won’t wait so long! My story is very different than either Adama’s or Joy’s, having lived in a very white Midwestern bubble until I was a junior in high school, then suddenly plopped down in an east Texas town that still had segregated high schools. A new building was under construction and the two high schools merged my senior year, 1970-71. That was definitely a time of transition and transformation for me.
Below are the prompts Adama asked Joy and others to respond to:
- Recall your earliest memory or awareness of race/racial prejudice/racism.
- Think about a time/incident/event related to race/racism/racial prejudice that you found transformative.
As you reflect back on the experience of uncovering your story, consider answering a few more questions:
- What feelings did this exercise elicit?
- Did anything surprise you?
- Did you find some biases in your thinking about race that you had not recognized before?
- Do you feel motivated to learn and explore the issue of race/racial prejudice/racism more fully? How might you do this?
Storytelling can be transformative for both the storyteller and the listener. As a spiritual practice, consider finding time during Lent to share your story with someone or a with a small group.
