Losing Races: a Dream Deferred
In honor of the Dr. Martin Luther King holiday, I wanted to excerpt Losing Races: A Dream Deferred on my blog. It tells of an experience I had in 2003 at a conference sponsored by one of America's foremost evangelical ministries. Sadly, I endured many similar experiences in 2004. Please consider reading the piece in its entirety before posting a comment.
Forty years ago, a prophet issued a clarion call to the nation. Decades later, his dream that one day we would be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character, was deferred for all but two African Americans, two Hispanics, and several women at the gathering of evangelical leaders. It is similarly deferred every day in the boardrooms and executive offices of many national ministries and on the airwaves of top-rated evangelical media. Some of the most prominent evangelicals fail to engage subjects of race, economic and social justice, and related issues every chance they get. Then they wonder why "colored folk" (a phrase not often uttered but a lingering attitude frequently communicated) don't attend their events or embrace their causes.... I had the opportunity to discuss my conflict - on the one hand personally benefiting from the conference but on the other, discomfort with the lily-whiteness of it all - with the ministry's vice president. He acknowledged the racial imbalance by blame shifting: blacks and Latinos don't respond when invited. My discomfort he attributed to being from New York. Does that mean that attendees from the Bible Belt were fine with it?
posted by Jeremy Del Rio @ 1/16/2005 11:12:00 PM
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