HOW TO GET BEYOND RACIAL TENSIONS THAT PERSIST IN AMERICA
by Carol Petersen Columnist
Intelligencer Journal/New Era
May 3, 2008 Saturday
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Are there issues, situations or events so dark, so horrible, so evil
that they are impossible to recover from?
There are victims of childhood abuse who are forever scarred,
who struggle every day for the rest of their lives with issues
of self-worth. There are Vietnam vets living on the streets who
have spent 40 years looking backward at the war, robbed of their
lives. Crime victims often battle Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for
years, reliving their attack over and over, emotionally crippled.
Good counseling aims at helping a victim deal with past events,
with the goal of processing what happened, coming to some measure of
understanding, then helping the counseled move on.
Ideally, the trauma can be put in some manageable perspective, dealt
with in a healthy way, insights can be gained, and the counselor can
help this person open his heart and mind to new possibilities. Learning
to leave the past firmly in the past, help can be provided to give
this victim the freedom to view the future with hope again.
Are there national, international or global events so shocking or so
inhuman that reconciliation is forever impossible?
Human history is punctuated with heinous, cruel, shocking, nauseating,
inexplicable atrocities. Just the past two centuries have been marked
by wars of epic proportions, the Armenian genocide, ethnic cleansing
in the Balkans, atrocious genocidal events in Rwanda and now Darfur,
constant strife in the Middle East, the Holocaust in Nazi Germany,
and rising numbers of deadly terrorist attacks.
Slavery is the United States’ national disgrace. Legions of
politicians, activists, sociologists, organizations and the courts
of justice at every level have tried to untie the Gordian knot of
race relations.
There has been progress. Constitutional amendments and Supreme Court
decisions, along with the Civil Rights Movement, have brought us a long
way. Yet, the candidacy of Barack Obama and the recent well-publicized
rants of Jeremiah Wright have brought to the surface a lot of unsettled
racial issues, a lot of very old baggage and ugly emotions and hateful
expressions among whites and blacks.
If a victim of childhood abuse begins every counseling session starting
at the beginning time after time, verbally reliving each abusive
event over and over, and for 20 years talks only about the abuse,
there will never be healing. The counseling will serve to bind this
person to their past, to keep them locked in the prison of victimhood.
I wonder if the same is not also true of slavery and race relations.
Jeremiah Wright and Black Liberation Theology cannot set
African-Americans free by keeping their churches, their people,
focused backward, beginning every discussion with rehearsing the
evils of slavery. Constantly, weekly, venting anger and hate and wrath
which whips a congregation into angry resentment is not an effective
way to change the world, nor give people a future and a hope. It just
keeps them victims.
A true reverend, a man serving Jesus and his flock, would be telling
them that God loves them, and that God, through Christ, has forgiven
them. He would be teaching them that the people who receive the love
and forgiveness of God are called to love – to love God, to love one
another, and to even love their enemies. He would be challenging
those who have been forgiven to forgive – to forgive one another,
and to forgive even their enemies.
And he would remind them that Jesus, innocent of any crime, as He
was being executed, set the ultimate example by praying, Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.
A true reverend would remind his people that we are called by God to
be different from the world, to overcome evil with good.
Perhaps the way to racial harmony is to acknowledge the immense sin
of slavery, experience forgiveness from one another, put slavery
to rest in the past, turn our backs to a settled past, and face the
future together as one people.
Then we can begin every discussion with problem-solving creativity,
moving toward what all our people of every race need to ensure a
strong, united, more perfect union.
Petersen is a freelance writer, artist and photographer from Lancaster
Township.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
