This Land is My Land, This Land is Your Land

While I resisted the allure of the local AAUW’s book sale last week, I succumbed when I received the list of books required for my daughters’ summer reading and my own fall coursework.

One of the books my oldest daughter is reading in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Ms. Angelou grew up in Arkansas in the 1930s and tells the story of growing up there amid blatant racism, discrimination and abuse. I am reading her book alongside my daughter.

Living in the south, with memories of being bused across Norfolk when schools were being desegregated in the 1970s, I am not naïve about our region’s history and I know it would be foolish to say that racism and segregation have been obliterated. Racial bias has become more subtle, but our communities are still segregated. What I admit I don’t yet understand is how that changes us.

This fall, I will be taking a seminary class titled “Dismantling Racism”. In our faith communities, it commonly is recognized that Sunday morning remains the most segregated day of the week in many parts of our country. Tied into the question of how we worship with one another, or don’t, is how we live and work with one another, or don’t, and the related issues of race, segregation, discrimination and immigration. While I don’t hear or see people mistreated the way the blacks were in Arkansas eighty years ago, I know people are hurting anew now, and I hope to understand how we can care more deeply about each other as God’s children.

The first assigned book I am reading is Searching for Whitopia – An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America. The author, scholar and commentator Rich Benjamin recounts his experiences as he lived and worked in three “whitopias” - thriving communities “that have posted at least six percent population growth since 2000 [and] the majority of the growth …is from white migrants.” (Benjamin, 5) Sharing his experiences, Benjamin is careful to describe the people he encounters as three-dimensional characters. He presents stories that reflect people’s fear, hurt and anger and as the reader, you may agree or disagree, but there is no doubt that the people he meets are real living, breathing human beings, not three-eyed monsters that media headlines and soundbites create.

Benjamin’s observations echo my own: “The majority of whites in predominantly white communities across our heartland are endearing and kind….Direct interpersonal racism is no longer acceptable.” However, he tackles what goes unsaid in too many of our communities: “Discrimination and segregation do not require animus. They thrive even in the absence of prejudice or ill will. It’s common to have racism without “racists.” (emphasis mine, Benjamin 184-185)

And recognizing that actions can also contribute to deeper division, Benjamin is candid about the consequences of some of immigration policies and stances taken in the U.S. He acknowledges how numbers about population shifts have stoked fears. He writes about the vicious cycle that was set into motion when we stigmatized all Latino immigrants, both legal and illegal, though, reflecting that the indiscriminate writing off Latino youth led to indignation which in turn produced greater scorn by whites. Benjamin writes, “Whether or not our country treats these youth like its bastard stepchildren, someday they will become its full-blooded heirs.” (Benjamin, 83)

Dr. Benjamin’s statements ring in my ears, and I reflect on how his and Ms. Angelou’s words speak to our lives today. I wonder what it means for how we live together in creation, when we acknowledge that we are all God’s beloved children, and, celebrating the 4th of July and the freedom Americans have, what we mean when we sing, “This land is my land, this land is your land”.