Things we have learned about building relationships across racial barriers.
Dr. Dolphus Weary
Provided by CN Building Adult Ministries Resource Center
When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s in Mississippi, my grandfather tried to teach me how to pick cotton with two hands. I would off start picking with both hands and then my mind would drift and I would begin to “day dream” and pick with one hand again. After giving me instructions for about six times, I was caught ‘day dreaming” again and he pulled up a cotton stalk and began to beat me across my back.
My mom had to grease my back because of the pain and swelling. I was daydreaming about a better day. I was daydreaming about wishing that poverty would go away and wishing that my skin color would be different. Being born black in Mississippi meant that I had two strikes against me and the only thing I wanted to do was run away.
I received a basketball scholarship to L.A. Baptist College (now Masters College). I remember saying, “Lord, I am leaving Mississippi and I ain’t never comin back’, but God brought me back. We (my wife Rosie and I) returned to Mendenhall Mississippi after college and seminary in 1971 to work to make a difference in the rural poor community. We wanted to see the poor through the eyes of God.
God sees the poor as those precious souls that Jesus died for, so we began working with a wholisitc Christian ministry that eventually became a Health Center, Thrift Store, Farm, an Adult Education Program, an After- School Tutorial Program, an Elementary school, and a Community Law Office as we did evangelism and discipleship. As a result, cities from around the country learned from this model.
In 1998, I began to work with Mission Mississippi, a statewide movement that works within the Christian Community to eliminate racism. For the past twelve years, I have worked to encourage Mississippi Christians to see each other through God’s eyes. When I first began, I thought that 95% of my time, needed to be spent in the white community and only 5% in the black community. I quickly learned that neither the White Christian Community nor the Black Christian Community was (is) ready to see each other through God’s eyes. Today we realize that Asian Christians, African American Christians, Hispanic Christians, and White Christians all need to work on ways to see each other through God’s eyes!
Christians who are white or black read, Mark 12:30-31, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength”, they tend to see their “physical” neighbors through their eyes. All of us need to work on seeing each other through God’s eyes overall. To do this, here are a few things we have learned about building relationships across racial barriers.
1. Relationships require Quality Time
We proactively schedule what we value. For a relationship to grow, it must be valued enough to invest our most precious resource – quality time. We must give not only time, but important time, to make a relationship work. Leftover “when we get to it” time will actually work towards a contrary end. People who feel they are being “Squeezed in” will not feel valued.
2. Relationships require Personal Initiative
Relationships require one or both persons to make a call – to make a move. The best relationships have an element of risk – of stepping beyond insecurities and inviting another to a shared risk. When we think in terms of serving rather than positioning, we open the door to the third requirement for a successful relationship.
3. Relationships require Honest Exchange
Human nature resists discomfort and honesty. Deep heartfelt honesty is uncomfortable on many levels. But once that honesty has occurred, the depth of relationship and intimacy grows exponentially. Vulnerable honesty creates a context of trust. That trust becomes the context for shedding our emotional presuppositions and openly hearing the other person’s heart and perspective. For racial healing to occur, hard conversations must take place.
We have not yet arrived, I have not arrived but we are learning, I am learning how to engage barriers that separate us through God’s eyes. My prayer is to encourage those I encounter to begin the process of choosing to see others through God’s eyes.
