Part of the solution...?

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Everyone in the Black Power movement, from Stokely Carmichael to James Cone, stress that the best thing whites can do is to stay out of the way. What I am learning about the Black Power movement is that it is not about becoming equal to whites. It's about becoming human beings, affirmed in their blackness, who are full participants in the institutions of society.

It's all quite simple. White Americans simply need to allow themselves to conceive of an African American president and the possibility that they have been saved by a black Jesus. For Americans, the institutions of government and church are the most sacred and it is not surprising that Americans are dominated by the idea that the leaders of these institutions must be white. We have never had a POTUS of color and, for some odd reason, we insist on conceiving of Jesus as a white guy. Putting African Americans at the helm is such a simple thing to do. But maybe it's not that simple. Remember, equality is not the goal here. If Americans are going to solve "the problem of the color line" [W.E.B. DuBois coined this phrase as the greatest challenge of the 20th century], we must allow all citizens, without regard to color, to be full participants in every corner of society. If blackness is going to be affirmed in American society whites, who have dominated the institutions of government and religion, must get out of the way and allow ourselves to be darkened by the blackness of our brothers and sisters of color.

Chuck D of Public Enemy said in "Polly Wanna' Cracka'": "White is right, Black is bad. Black and white is still too bad". I never thought I had any hangups with blacks. Except that when I considered what it would mean for my world to become a little darker, I found I had some issues to tackle. I considered what it would mean for my faith if I allowed Jesus to be black. There was little that tripped me up there because I always understood Jesus as being of a different ethnicity than me. But when I imagined Jesus dying on a cross, I couldn't accept THAT Jesus to be black. Sure, a black Jesus could hang with fishermen, prostitutes and tax collectors. He could even preach a sermon on the side of a hill. But die on a cross? That was my limit. I was horrified that I couldn't reconcile that one barrier to being open to a black Jesus. In the interest of complete honesty, I discovered that I couldn't accept that a black man would be able to be faithful to that end. My stomach knots up to see that typed on my computer screen. I don't know where that idea came from. I have since come to utterly reject that prejudicial indictment on the faithfulness of blacks.

You see, allowing my world to darken is inconceivable, not because I reject the humanity of African Americans but because of unencountered, latent prejudices instilled not by racist propaganda but by an institutional compliance with the marginalizing of African Americans for centuries. Jesus has never been black so he never can be. There has never been a black president so there never will be.

If white America is going to see black America as true peers, we must get out of the way and let the blackness of our society make its own mark on society. The Black Power movement is alive and well and it is at a revolutionary roil. The work that white America has to do is examine itself, one person at a time, and consciously reject the latent prejudices that infect our ability to fully affirm the humanness of black America.