That's interesting, but to avoid the fact of or refuse to acknowledge someone's skin color is to still identify that person's color as bad or as inferior thus dehumanizing or rendering that person's existential experiences as invisible or invalid. You come in a different package than I do and your experiences reflect the package you have lived in. If I am to accept you and love you as my sister in Christ than I should be able to love you in the skin you are in and with the socio-cultural context that you bring with you into the relationship, whatever they might be, granted they are ethical. I do not say when I look at you that I don't see color because that is ridiculous. I want to see your color, your experiences, your culture, and even your faults and frailties because in seeing all of these attributes of your total package I see not only you but all that God has created in you.
The problem I believe, is labels and particularly what those labels mean within the socio-structure of our country. The historical socio-structure of this country has succesfully managed to associate colored skin with inferiority, criminality, poverty, and ignorance. Whites who wish to depart from this structure feel they can do so only by not seeing color at all and this is incorrect because it does not change the overiding socio- structure, in fact, by ignoring someone's color it legitimizes the notion that their color is bad and needs to be avoided. Racism will never be solved in this way. What should occur I believe, is an entering into each other's total experience, this requires work, hard, long work, and time. Entering fully into someone elses existential experience means searching to appreciate the differences which God has created in each and every one of us and understanding that those differences in each other are in fact good.
I agree with you -- I don't think we're saying different things. I just think that we need to be careful to honour the identities people claim for themselves, as much as that is possible.
And yes, that is much harder work than labelling and categorizing those around us. :)
The problem I believe, is labels and particularly what those labels mean within the socio-structure of our country. The historical socio-structure of this country has succesfully managed to associate colored skin with inferiority, criminality, poverty, and ignorance. Whites who wish to depart from this structure feel they can do so only by not seeing color at all and this is incorrect because it does not change the overiding socio- structure, in fact, by ignoring someone's color it legitimizes the notion that their color is bad and needs to be avoided. Racism will never be solved in this way. What should occur I believe, is an entering into each other's total experience, this requires work, hard, long work, and time. Entering fully into someone elses existential experience means searching to appreciate the differences which God has created in each and every one of us and understanding that those differences in each other are in fact good.
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And yes, that is much harder work than labelling and categorizing those around us. :)
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Peace.
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