The Social Justice Ministries Council of the Harvard Unitarian Universalist Church has been discussing the possibility of placing a banner on the church meetinghouse that would read “Black Lives Matter. Let’s Talk About It.” If the banner is approved, we hope it will begin a conversation.
We know that some people see the Black Lives Matter movement to be anti-police. We certainly do not intend the proposed banner that way. I have a good friend who is the widow of a state police officer who died in the line of duty. We appreciate and respect the important, difficult, and dangerous job done by the police. We believe that our local police are sensitive to racial issues. Members of our Social Justice Ministries Council have met with Chief Denmark to let him know we appreciate the job he and his officers are doing.
Some people object to saying “black lives matter” because, of course, all lives matter. I’ve heard this recently from a family member who dismissed the movement saying, “They just want special treatment. All lives matter.” I said, “Of course all lives matter. But imagine you go to the doctor with a broken arm. The doctor tells you, ‘All bones matter, so we will treat all of your bones the same. We can put you in a full body cast, or give you no cast at all.’ You say, ‘That’s nonsense. I don’t need a full body cast. I just want you to deal with the bone that is broken.’”
Or if your house was on fire, you would want the Fire Department to come to put out the fire. But what if they took the attitude that “all houses matter,” so they aren’t going to give your burning house any special attention? Sure, your house is on fire. That’s a shame. But don’t all houses matter equally?
So yes, of course all lives matter. But in many ways our nation has been behaving as if some lives don’t matter as much as others. Last year a string of deaths of black people by white hands shocked our nation. Some of those killed were Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, and nine black people who were shot and killed by a white man during a Bible study group at Mother Emanuel Church.
These killings, which have happened with frightening regularity, are just a symptom of the problem. Frankly, I had expected that after the civil rights laws of the 1960s we would become a nation where black and white people had the same educational and economic opportunities. Sadly, that has not happened, and many of us are just starting to learn why that is.
Benefiting from inequality
It has taken me a long time to understand how I, as a white person, have actually benefited from racial inequality. My hometown is Detroit, Michigan, where I lived from birth to the age of 13. Our neighborhood and my elementary school were 100 percent white. My family attended an all-white church in an all-black neighborhood. When I thought about it, which wasn’t very often, it did seem odd to me that one neighborhood was completely black and another was completely white.
One thing that I didn’t know about as a child was the practice of “redlining,” the practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate an area where banks would not make loans, or if they did, they charged a higher rate for “risky” loans. Where wouldn’t they make loans? In the black neighborhoods. Communities far from inner-city neighborhoods were outlined in green and noted as “Best.” Because banks wouldn’t make loans in redlined neighborhoods, residents there couldn’t get a home-improvement loan or build a new house on an existing lot in a black inner-city neighborhood. This made it inevitable that such neighborhoods would decline.
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 officially outlawed such practices, but President Nixon did not provide presidential support. He described his policy as “benign neglect.” He declared that government could not force suburban desegregation or racial integration. In doing so, he secured many suburban votes but worsened the issue of housing inequality by not supporting enforcement or subsidized housing programs to help desegregation.
The relegation of African-Americans to certain contained neighborhoods continues today. The cycle of neighborhood disinvestment followed by gentrification and dislocation of the minority has made it more difficult for African-Americans to establish themselves, build equity, and try to break out into suburban neighborhoods.
It is all too easy for those of us who are white to not see or acknowledge the ways in which we have benefited from systemic racism. The effects of this system are more clearly seen by the people it harms. Whether or not the Harvard Unitarian Universalist Church erects a banner reading “Black Lives Matter. Let’s Talk About It,” the time for such a national conversation is long overdue.
The Rev. J. Mark Worth is the interim minister of the Harvard Unitarian Universalist Church.
