Hey all. I have deleted my post "Ian Smith: A Humanistic Reevaluation" as of August 6th, 2019 because I no longer believe in anything I have written in that post. I watched in horror as I witnessed the memory of Rhodesia being used to fuel the racism-driven violence in Charlottesville, El Paso, and nationwide. Dylan Roof massacred a black church congregation who welcomed him to their worship night with open arms, bearing a Rhodesian flag patch on his shoulder. Hundreds of white nationalists, some of them also bearing the Rhodesian flag patch, marched against the belonging of black people in Charlottesville. Now that my understanding of history has greatly matured, I realize that you absolutely cannot separate the two. I absolutely cannot in good conscience defend white supremacists who derived their livelihood from oppressing black bodies who were the indigenous peoples in the region.
The only reason why I have not done this sooner is that I neglected this blog out of lack of interest since 2016. However, the El Paso shooting is a witness to the power of online posts to cause violence. While the Ian Smith post did not directly incite violence, I realize that bad ideas can encourage acts of macro violence in the long run.
I'm not doing this to cover my ass. I'm doing this as a visible sign of my repentance and a seal of my commitment to serving black and brown bodies.
I am a very different man from the boy that I was three years ago. Three years ago, I built my identity around being the perfect minion of an incredibly abusive and manipulative man. He manufactured persecution by forcing the people under his care to undergo excessive calisthenics and ingest various hot sauces. I recall watching in horror during the final retreat of my senior year as this man forced my Friday group to ingest a cocktail of shrimp sauce, vinegar, bbundaegi (silkworms), and other substances not meant for human consumption...just because they were late. This man was also emotionally manipulative, and he turned me against the young women who would later become my greatest friends and allies my freshman year of college by classifying their legitimate complaints as slander and gossip.
Simply put, all I learned was how to steal, kill, and destroy in an authoritarian fashion. This led to an atmosphere where authority was not to be questioned because they were supposedly appointed by God (a couple pieces of fancy paper from a "Christian college" does not a pastor make), speaking up was not vocally encouraged, and positive conflict resolution styles were not taught. It didn't help that you could get away with calling someone the n-word or the other f-word (they were, however, very vigilant about swear words). Race was not something taught at my church. I didn't know that God affirmed ethnic and racial identity as a creation meant for us to obey His command to spread throughout the earth. I didn't know that while God did affirm ethnic churches as safe spaces, He does desire integration eventually--in Heaven, all nations will be praising God together.
I spent the better part of senior year of high school and freshman year of college unlearning my racist tendencies. I am still unlearning today. In my multiethnic Christian fellowship on campus, I am learning how to talk about race in a God-centered way. My inexperience has led me to hurt many of my brothers and sisters in the fellowship, but they know that I am trying to change and are supporting me in growing as a child of God. I am also learning that Jesus was a man of justice. As a brown man under an empire, Jesus wasn't necessarily a political revolutionary, but His actions were an even louder statement of how God wants His kingdom to look. Unlike contemporary men, Jesus did not expect the women he served to cook for him, but just to listen to His words (and told off Martha when she played into her gendered role!). Jesus did not accept the racially and gender-stratified hierarchy within the temple but destroyed the stations of money-changers who cheated pilgrims who simply wanted to sacrifice to God. Jesus reached out to Samaritans and a Canaanite woman and provided physical and spiritual healing when His culture told Him that they were trash.
If Jesus is a man of justice and if I claim to follow Him, then I need to repent of the various ways in which I have been unjust. I am also reconciling with those who I have hurt because of my deep-seated bigotry, both in high school and in college. This post is also one of those ways.
I want to invite you to join me in hating my own sin first and ask you this: how have you been complacent in or have even perpetuated racism in your own life?
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