A message from the Dean - 5 June 2020
Dear Friends,
I’ve had flash-backs this last week. I’m old enough to remember the terrible race riots that broke out in the USA during the summer of 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Black America erupted in protest. Nor can the race riots that broke out in London, Liverpool and Manchester in 1980 be forgotten. They were all symptoms of a profound and complex social ill: racial prejudice and the insidious forms of oppression and discrimination that come with it, and the tensions and resentments that get vented by destruction and arson. The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers is the latest in a long line of brutal arrests and police actions in the USA: the cold-blooded shooting of a young jogger, Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and a medical technician, Breonna Taylor inside her home in Kentucky. In the UK we cannot forget the damning conclusions of the official enquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence in Eltham, South London, at the hands of racist thugs and the ensuing, but chaotic, police investigation which led to the Metropolitan Police being accused of institutional racism. Rioting and unlawful police aggression feed off each other. Race relations in the USA and the UK have different histories and pathologies, but none of us can be unaffected by, what seems to me, a persistent social sin: the myth of white supremacy and the subordination of all other races to white rule or white culture.
President Obama commented a week ago: “This shouldn’t be “normal” in 2020 America”, alluding to another incident in which a white woman in Central Park, New York, threatened to call police on an African American bird watcher. “We have to remember”, the former President said, “being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly “normal” – whether it’s while dealing with the healthcare system, or interacting with the criminal justice system, or jogging down the street, or watching birds in the park”. Unarmed black Americans are shot and killed by police at a rate three times their proportion of the population. Social sin isn’t changed by handwringing, it gets healed by truthful analysis of history, events and facts, and allows victims and perpetrators to reconcile on the basis of mutually acknowledged truth. This was the painful but necessary work that South Africa had to undertake as it emerged from the apartheid era. Archbishop Desmond Tutu chaired the Justice and Truth Commission that investigated some of the worst atrocities and casual brutalities of what had become a police state. There was no future for South Africa without public repentance and the ending of oppression caused by white supremacy.
Why speak about this in Lichfield? Several reasons: the City gives it name to a Diocese that is as diverse ethnically, culturally and religiously as any in Britain. It’s also easy for us, living in a near “mono culture” in leafy Lichfield, to become insulated and insensitive to people of different ethnicities, nationalities and cultures. We used to think racial stereo-typing was OK. We even made jokes on that basis but play back some of the comedy of the 70s and 80s and now it just sounds pathetic and dated. But racism, if it is unchallenged, gives rise to casual remarks and biased attitudes that are deeply offensive. Both my daughters and one of my sons has suffered racial abuse in Lichfield. Would you believe it? One, because of blonde hair and blue eyes, was assumed to be Polish and told to go home and stop stealing “our” jobs. The other two, inheriting their mother’s Mediterranean good looks, were quizzed about their origins, and assumed not to be “from round here". Living in racial and cultural bubbles can be toxic and suffocating, and that’s why the Church of God needs to resist social and racial prejudice: it demeans us all, it’s a failure to recognise the inalienable dignity and worth of every human being, and, in an ever-shrinking world facing some mighty challenges, we have every reason to collaborate with and understand one another.
What as a Cathedral can we do? Well, several things. First recognise who is missing from our worship, our events, our volunteer body, our congregation. Secondly, we have in the past sponsored and hosted Black History Month – what’s to stop us doing it again? Thirdly, we have sponsored in the recent past an exhibition of calligraphy of world faiths, a small step in helping us see beauty in other faith traditions. Should we try hard to incorporate more multi-faith understanding in our programme in future?
Fourthly, what about our own bias and prejudice? We probably all need the prompt that “unconscious bias” training gives us to repent of ingrained attitudes and assumptions and help us change. Should this be something we make routinely available? Fifthly, the Christian Church is a place of welcome and spiritual hospitality to all. Can we find the time and opportunity to listen and appreciate what it is like for people of colour to live in our society? What are their experiences of social attitudes? How do they make a living? What are their hopes? What obstacles do they have to navigate that white people don’t? I was once given a T shirt that had a wonderful logo: “Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by colour”. If these became available would we all be prepared to wear them?
Sixthly, as members of one human family, can we learn from the wisdom of the great-hearted, those who have been through oppression and have learned to love their enemies? Try this saying of Nelson Mandela and see if it inspires:
“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite”.
Finally, to return to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the wave of protest and concern it has sparked with unwelcome violence and rioting too, I think the voices of those who are hurting really need to be listened to. We would extend that basic act of kindness to anyone in pain or bereavement. It’s worth not rushing to judgement but letting the voice of the hurt and traumatised emerge. Here is one such voice I came across in the last weekend’s papers from Brittany Packnett Cunningham, co-founder of the Campaign Zero Movement against police violence in the USA.
“Black Americans are experiencing this moment as an experience of overwhelm. There is danger lurking in every corner right now. We are dis-proportionately dying from COVID-19, we are a disproportionate amount of front-line essential workers, we are a disproportionate amount of the people police are arresting due to social distancing regulations…we are obviously a disproportionate amount of people being killed by police, we are also being killed by white vigilantes. The experience is one that threatens to shrink your whole word, because in every direction you turn there is potential for unexpected danger or death”.
Let St Paul correct all our fears about race and difference: “When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory…In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!” (Colossians 3:4-11)
With my love, prayers, and blessings
Adrian