When being a "NALT" Christian ally isn't enough
When I was in college I was involved in some anti-racism discussions. I had been born and raised in the South and, though I had plenty of examples of everyday racism surrounding me, I had always believed in racial equality. I believed that I was a good anti-racism ally.
One day some of us were working on some plans for an upcoming event when the conversation turned to those of us who were white and working against racism. One white student proudly proclaimed, “I do this work because I want to show people that not all white people are racist. Not all white people are like that.”
Over the course of the next hour or so, our African-American colleagues gently changed the discussion for us. Instead of doing anti-racist work in order to prove that we are “not all like that,” maybe it made more sense to do this work in order to simply promote racial equality, and to let the people whose voice had been suppressed for so long finally get to speak their own truth?
