The Power & Responsibility of the American “We”

Reflections from a White Christian on the Importance of Remembering Black History in the United States

Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.

-James Baldwin, From “Letter From a Region in My Mind,” The New Yorker, Nov 10, 1962

We won the Super Bowl (or World Series or World Cup or…) It is common in the English language and in popular American culture to use “the royal we” or “majestic plural” to include ourselves in some great feat.  We know, in fact, that “we” didn’t win any such thing, but we invoke ownership nonetheless.  Similarly, when we begin having a conversation about our nation’s history, many White Americans tend to associate themselves with the positive elements of America’s founding, lineages, and victories. 

But when we get into America’s misdeeds, its injustices, its sins, the idea of “we” becomes very difficult for people, especially White people. People say things like, “Well, I wasn’t here. I didn’t do any of that. My parents didn’t own slaves and my grandparents didn’t own slaves.” Indeed, there is a tendency when it comes to mistakes, misconduct, and abuse, to disassociate ourselves from those things while retraining every aspect of perceived positive achievement. 

But if we use “we” for the positive things we also need to be willing to use it for the shameful things. This is the power and responsibility of the American “we.”  It’s important for anyone who identifies as an American, as a citizen of this country, to not simply embrace all the things about American history that we think are glorious and wonderful, but to also acknowledge and accept the things about our history that are tragic and devastating.

In truth, American history is a mixture of good, bad, and ugly. And the parts of the historical record that we choose to include – alongside that parts that we choose to ignore or are are blind to altogether – make up our version of the American narrative. And when White Americans are blind to both positive contributions of African Americans and the destructive elements of our White forebears, our incomplete and false narratives will cloud our ability to see our nation’s history accurately and impede our ability to make progress toward a “more perfect union” and a fuller expression of the “beloved community.” 

There is a power and responsibility in invoking the American “we” and for many White people we need to recover this power by expanding our understanding of this common “we.” 

African American History Some Whites Are Blind To

We just finished observing another Black History Month.  Some White friends that I know question whether such a month is even needed. “We don’t have a  White History Month,” they say. “Why do we need a Black one?” Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, makes the point about the African American contribution to our nation’s history that some Whites are blind to:

What’s interesting for me, when I look at the experience of African Americans in particular, Black people have been so committed to this country, they’ve been so committed to the identity of an America that is committed to equality and justice. In the 250 years of enslavement in which Black people endured being kidnapped, put in chains, brutalized, mistreated, abused, raped — there was daily humiliation and degradation, the violence of slavery. That kind of abuse and mistreatment finally ends in 1865 after the Civil War, after the ratification of the 13th Amendment. And instead of seeking revenge or retribution or violence against those who had enslaved them, emancipated Black people said, “We’re going to make peace here. We’re going to make community here. We’re going to commit to education. We’re going to commit to voting. We’re going to become ideal American citizens.”

When you think about all of the brutality and violence and abuse that Black people suffered and they still were willing to live in harmony with those who had abused them, it says something remarkable about the power of “we.” They believed in an America and they got no credit for that. What they got instead was more abuse. There were over 2,000 lynchings between 1865 and 1877. One of the most violent periods in American history.

And yet, for 100 years, they still believed enough in the American idea that they would continue finding ways to contribute. You saw those contributions in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. And then when they got back from war, they’d be targeted for violence by white supremacists who feared their American military service might cause them to believe that they were an equal. What Dr. King and Rosa Parks and others do in the 1950s and ’60s is so rooted in a commitment to the American identity.

To me, the model that African Americans have established with this country is that even when things are not good we invoke this idea of an American identity. It means that we absolutely have to be willing to acknowledge the things that are harmful, that are injurious in the American South. The entire American South benefited from the institution of slavery — the entire United States did. The rail lines that allowed those companies in the North to become industrialists, the industries that gave rise to all of that growth during the first half of the 20th century — all of it had its roots in this forced labor stolen from Black bodies.

We have to understand that to really be honest. There is no way of saying “they did that.” If we’re going to claim American citizenship and American identity, there has to be a willingness to say “we” just like there’s that willingness to say “we” when an American does something great.”

From Vox Interview with Bryan Stevenson on How America Can Heal

Understanding the Continued Legacy of Slavery 

The conversations we have in this country about racism and its bitter fruit, to the extent we have them at all, are polarized and fractured. So how do we engage our fellow Americans in a conversation about America’s foundational sins?

It begins with understanding what actually happened. The taproot evil of American slavery wasn’t involuntary servitude or the forced labor.  The taproot of slavery was the ideology that Black people are less deserving, less worthy, less human, less evolved than White people. 

Again, Stevenson: 

If you understand that’s [White supremacy ideology] the true problem of slavery, then it becomes easier to understand how we don’t really end slavery with the passage of the 13th Amendment. In 1865, my view is that slavery doesn’t end — it just evolves. Because we never deal with the fundamental character that made enslavement so horrific, which is this ideology of white supremacy.

If you understand that’s the true problem of slavery, then it becomes easier to understand how we don’t really end slavery with the passage of the 13th Amendment. In 1865, my view is that slavery doesn’t end — it just evolves. Because we never deal with the fundamental character that made enslavement so horrific, which is this ideology of white supremacy.

Once you understand that, then you can continue to see that legacy play out in the disenfranchisement and exclusion of Black people from jobs in the North and West in the 1950s. When banks don’t give Black people mortgage loans, they don’t help veterans who are Black move into the middle class. You begin to see it in the ’70s and ’80s when we declared this war on drugs and we target Black communities. You see it in the ways in which police violence manifests itself.

And once you understand that, you begin to understand that you are implicated in this story. You are implicated in this moment that we live in where the smog created by our history of racial injustice is still in the air and we’re still breathing it in and it’s corrupting our world view, just like it corrupted the world view of people before us. So it does begin with that understanding.”

From Vox Interview with Bryan Stevenson on How America Can Heal

…the smog created by our history of racial injustice is still in the air and we’re still breathing it in and it’s corrupting our world view, just like it corrupted the world view of people before us.

Reckoning with the Truth: The First Step Toward Healing

How do we move toward racial healing in our nation? What does this look like in practical terms?  It begins by  reckoning  with the truth. 

When people are genuinely engaged and recovering from human rights abuses, it always begins with a commitment to truth-telling first. We can’t jump to reconciliation or reparations before we reckon with the truth. And this reckoning with the truth must be done across every dimension of American life. Every entity, every institution has to reckon with the truth and its own historical complicity in the problem of racial injustice.

For me, this begins first and foremost with the American Church. Where was (and is) the Church complicit in overtly or covertly allowing racial injustice to flourish in our nation? Jemar Tisby answers this question powerfully in his book, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism.  I highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to better understand the Church’s complicity in our nation’s sin of racism. Just a few sample quotes from the book gives us food for thought:   

Harsh though it may sound, the facts of history nevertheless bear out this truth: there would be no black church without racism in the white church.

Color of Compromise, p52

Black people immediately detected the hypocrisy of American-style slavery. They knew the inconsistencies of the faith from the rank odors, the chains, the blood, and the misery that accompanied their life of bondage. Instead of abandoning Christianity, though, black people went directly to the teaching of Jesus and challenged white people to demonstrate integrity.

Color of Compromise, p31

Through reading this book, we realize that if we built the walls on purpose, we need to tear down the walls on purpose.

Lecrae, from the Foreword of Color of Compromise, p10

We don’t have to go outside our own churches and institutions to uncover our racist complicity. In fact, a great place to start is to begin with our own truth-telling. We can tell our own story about the ways in which our churches and organizations were (and often still are) complicit to racial sin and inequity. 

For example, the denomination that I am ordained with – the Assemblies of God – has a clear history of racism in our founding. And, unfortunately, “what is in the roots can be seen in the fruits” to this very day.  But it is not just the Assemblies of God that must come to a reckoning, the Southern Baptists and many other Christian denominations have their own stories to face.

Again, Bryan Stevenson, offers wise counsel on how we need to reckon with the truth within our own circles first.  “…it begins with the truth-telling, because when you start telling the truth, you recognize things. For me, the question is: What is the truth of our institution as it relates to the history of racial inequality? It’s very, very concrete. How do we frame an investigation into the truth of our history? What is the truth of our history? What is our institutions’ role? What is our community’s role in allowing this landscape to be created that is so shattered by racial injustice and white supremacy?”

So, for me the first place to look is within my own Church first, then the broader Church in the U.S. Judgment always begins with the house of God. But this kind of reflection and confession needs moves beyond the Church to all strata of American life: colleges and university, corporations, banks, and federal and state governments.

Black history is important in and of itself but it is also essential if White people are to better understand their own history. Taken and woven together – Black history and White history – make up the power and responsibility of the American “we.”