I think now of the moment President Barack Obama sang the opening refrain of “Amazing Grace” while delivering the eulogy for the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, senior pastor of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Of course, I have no idea what was stirring in the president's heart at that moment, but I wonder now as I did then in 2015 what "amazing grace" was he experiencing in the hour he first believed? What was John Newton, the former slave trader and writer of this most beloved of church hymns?
Depending on who you talk to, Newton wrote the words in 1772, after being miraculously saved from drowning at sea and converting to Christianity.
It would take some 34 years after leaving the business, but Newton would eventually renounce his former slaving profession and apologize for having taken so long to make his sentiments public.
“It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection for me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders,” he wrote.
There is no question in my mind that none of us sees the same thing all the time.
As I’ve read reaction to the Race and Religion series that launched recently, that has never been more clear to me. Some of us view slavery as simply a thing of the past and the resulting racism as “a figment in someone’s mind,” “the go-to excuse” when blacks don’t like the outcome.
Perhaps it’s just easier to believe in the fallacy of a “post-racial America.”
To be sure, we have a mess on our hands or should I say in our hearts.
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I remember clearly white pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck denouncing President Obama when he linked the 2009 arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates by Cambridge police to racial profiling. Beck said it revealed Obama’s “deep-seated hatred for white people.” And Limbaugh said Obama was “trying to destroy a white policeman.”
And yet they explain away every indication of racism in President Donald Trump, ignoring his equivocation after the march in Charlottesville, his immigration policies that cage little children and his ongoing attacks on black activists, athletes and more recently congressmen and women.
I know how that happens.
One reader, in response to the second day column on systemic racism, offered this: “Quite simply blacks commit crime at a higher rate than whites. While blacks are sometimes accosted for being black there are far fewer places a black person can go with a risk of violent assault for their color than there are for whites. While you may argue that point you cannot argue the rate of black on black murder.”
He isn’t alone in that line of thinking. Racism is OK because black people commit more crimes than whites.
Then there were those who appreciated the effort, just not some of the facts, including when the slave trade began and how many first landed here.
One of my fellow church members, Joe Beasley, for instance, wrote to say I didn’t tell the whole story.
Instead of beginning with slavery, he said, “Bishop Claude Alexander should have at least (gone) back to 1493 when Pope Alexander VI, in collusion with the monarchs of Europe, promulgated the ‘Doctrine of Discovery,’” which has played a role in U.S. law, and “is … responsible for the annihilation of the native Americans throughout the Americas. It is very ironic that these people were slaughtered in the name of Jesus Christ!”
Beasley went on to say that while the denial of benefits to African Americans who served in the Second World War is significant, even more significant is Field Order 15 signed by Gen. William T. Sherman and approved by President Abraham Lincoln but vetoed by President Andrew Johnson.
“This Field Order granted our people a separate nation consisting of 400 thousand acres running from South Carolina to Florida, and 30 miles inland! This was at the request of 20 African American Ministers in Savannah, Georgia after meeting” with Sherman. This land — which was to be divided into parcels of not more than 40 acres for black families and likely led to the expression “40 acres and a mule” — was eventually returned to the Southern planters who owned it.
RELATED: Why racism isn’t your fault but it is your problem
Some of my harshest critics didn’t write to me at all. They sent emails instead to AJC Editor Kevin Riley, some he shared with me. Some he didn’t, but I can assure you, as disappointing as I find some of them, I appreciate them all.
I’ve known for a long time, not everyone sees the world as I do.
As much as I wish Race and Religion were the definitive answer to what is surely ailing this nation, I’m neither wise nor powerful enough to make that happen. I’m sure of that.
But as I’ve always tried to do in this space, what I’ve tried to do even in this series is to leave you with hope.
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
From day one, I heard from readers, like Anjetta McQueen Thackeray, a friend and former colleague from my days at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Jeffrey Henning of Marietta, who welcomed the discussion.
“This could not have come at a better time,” Thackeray told me. “I am part of a racial reconciliation study group at my church. I struggle with conflicting feelings about my anger at what is going on in the world and the love I am supposed to show as a Christian.”
Many like Henning, in a post to the This Life with Gracie Facebook page, thanked me for the series.
“As I read part one, I thought about the novel, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ I read for the first time last week for one of my theology classes,” he said. “Stowe lays the reason for the continued institution of slavery at the feet of the unconcerned Christians. I didn’t think a book 160 years old would move me so. Your article is doing the same.”
Dozens more sent emails.
I heard from Max Lipscomb of Atlanta, who said: “I’m quite sure some of your older white readers will not be too happy with you for exposing an old wound, but as we see every day in America, this conversation is badly needed and you are right it needs to start with the church! When people say I didn’t own slaves or I’m not a racist, all these things are true but what’s missing is they profited off the mistreatment of Africans through slavery all in the name of the bible!”
When I asked if I could quote him and use his name, he obliged, adding: “Because of your series, I’m going to continue my AJC subscription they are about to cancel.”
Perhaps now, Kevin Riley won’t have my head on a platter.
Lamar Harold wrote too, saying, “your series was so enlightening, inspiring and well written … my applause to you for a masterpiece of journalistic excellence.”
And finally, one reader summed up all of my hope for Race and Religion: “As a God fearing white male, you have highlighted scripture that forces me to re-evaluate my whole thinking on race relations. I’ve never considered myself a racist as I have often hid behind ‘I don’t care (about) the color of the man as long as he takes care of his family’ and I have lived that way. However, this thinking is flawed in the eyes of Jesus. I still am prejudiced toward men who don’t support their family. Nor do I speak Jesus into their life. I’m guilty. Upon self-evaluation, while my (opinions) have kept me from being actively racist, I have not been actively anti-racist and in not doing so I have dishonored God and I have sinned.”
There’s no way of knowing how many of you were impacted by Race and Religion in this way, but this I know: God’s word is “sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit … is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Unsure of his amazing grace, start there and see.
Find Gracie on Facebook (www.facebook.com/graciestaplesajc/) and Twitter (@GStaples_AJC) or email her at gstaples@ajc.com. And read the full “Race and Religion” series at www.ajc.com/staff/gracie-bonds-staples.
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