Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-08-17
Monday August 17th, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Some Thoughts on Race in America/
Summer, 2020
Dr. Tom Ulen
When I was very young, my mother hired a wonderful black woman named Irene Reese to help her keep house and, I now realize, to watch after my sisters and me. I had lunch at home with Irene almost every day of my grade school life. I loved her, and she loved … well, she put up with me.
I went to a wonderful high school in Indianapolis that was 60 percent black. I played sports there, had marvelous teachers, and created some harmless mischief. My classmates and I, black and white, had very close bonds. We loved one another then, and we love one another still when we gather for our periodic reunions. In high school I must have been aware of the fact that there were differences between aspects of my black friends’ lives and aspirations and those of my white friends and me. But in the fog of shared affections and simply trying to grow up, those differences were not as salient as our similarities.
I lived in a very political household in which we discussed the indignities and travails of the poor and the black. In 1964 I was the youngest delegate to the Democratic National Convention. There I learned that Mississippi’s Democrats had dispatched an all-white delegation to the national convention. I was told that that delegation systematically opposed sending any black delegates, and that struck me as wrong. I admit that my understanding of the controversy was elemental, but it was heartfelt by me and the many others who protested, peacefully and successfully, by spending the night at a sit-in on the Atlantic City, NJ, boardwalk in support of the seating of a biracial delegation from Mississippi. And that was the beginning of my awakening to the fact, hidden by a delightful, happy childhood, that there were serious racial issues in our beloved country.
It’s 55 years later. I’ve had the great blessing of a charmed adult life of love, success, and generally good health. I’ve been deeply troubled by the fact that since high school, my contacts with blacks have been sporadic and, except for Little League, professional. What I have learned about race has not come directly from life experiences. It has come mostly from the news, reading, academic study, and listening to the experiences of people who have had to endure unimaginable indignities simply because of the color of their skin. And although I recognize that there have been important improvements in the black community over the course of my life, there are still many miles to go.
The more that I’ve thought about it, and the older I’ve grown, the more stunned I have become at how old and urgent this problem is. It began in 1619 with our first shipment of slaves and continued with our dehumanizing treatment of African-Americans (the majority of whom were born here, rather than imported in chains, as early as the 1670s). That has been the great stain on this marvelous country’s history. It even affected the nation’s founding: The South would have left the Constitutional Convention unless the new constitution counted each of their slaves as three-fifths (!) of a person for the purposes of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives (even though those “three-fifths persons” could not vote and got no benefit whatsoever from their governmental representatives). We nominally and officially stopped this maltreatment after the Civil War with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution. And yet until the 1960s some states flouted those amendments by, for example, requiring black people who wanted to vote to correctly guess the number of jelly beans in a large jar. Amazingly, most white applicants guessed correctly. Note, please, that our mistreatment of blacks in this country lasted almost 250 years (more, if you count the Jim Crow era after the Civil War). We have only renounced that treatment – and done so half-heartedly – for 165 years.
Why has it taken so long to wash the stain of slavery from the nation’s fabric? Part of the problem, I would suggest, is that most of us are removed from daily or frequent reminders of the lingering problems that the black community endures. We move in circles that barely touch and almost never overlap the circles of our black brothers and sisters. So, if we learn about what more needs to be done in addressing the stain that slavery has left on our society, we learn only at arm’s length, through dramatic events like the videotaped murder of George Floyd or the shootings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Rashard Brooks.
But the problems go deeper and are more persistent and traumatic. Consider these statistics. Homicide is the leading cause of death for black men under the age of 35. Half of all the roughly 15,000 homicides in the U.S. each year are African-Americans. That means that since the year 2000, there have been over 144,000 black homicides, most of them young people. There have been more homicides by gunfire in Chicago so far this year (433) than occurred all of last year (307) and over 300 of this year’s victims were black. The black unemployment rate is now and almost always has been double the white unemployment rate. 25 percent of the over 165,000 deaths from covid-19 are African-Americans, who make up about 13.5 percent of our total population.
Is there any question that if these statistics described almost any other group in our society (including majority whites), they would grab the attention of everyone and demand immediate solutions? Of course they would.
We can help, in ways large and small. First, let’s acknowledge the problem. Second, let’s think creatively about what we can do to remove this stain from this country’s otherwise marvelous record. And third, let us remember our greatest reason to help: We are Christians, and “They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.”
Let’s begin. Now.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?
News:
The congregation met yesterday via Zoom and elected to the Session Greg Cozad (class of 2021) and Michael Hogue (class of 2022) to fill unexpired terms. The nominating committee will present a slate of officers (Elders and Deacons) for the class of 2023 this fall. Please be in touch with them if you have ideas about those whom God might be calling to serve.
Welcome our newest members! The following members of the confirmation class were welcomed into church membership on Sunday:
Heather Lowe, Cecilia Vermillion, Ellie Laufenberg, Emily Young, Monique Masengu
Tuesday, 8 am, Men’s Bible Study
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
Good Word:
1 John 4:7-8
(New Revised Standard Version) Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Let us pray:
Grant unto us, O God, the fullness of your promises.
Where we have been weak,
grant us your strength;
where we have been confused,
grant us your guidance;
where we have been distraught,
grant us your comfort;
where we have been dead,
grant us your life.
Apart from you, O Lord,
we are nothing.
In and with you
we can do all things.
AMEN.
(United Church of Canada, Service Book, 1969.)
Much, much love to you all.
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
