Grieving a Demographic Decrease
Can we give white people the space to grieve? Should we?
On Friday I got to facilitate a conversation between six ministry colleagues from around the country for our denomination's annual pastors conference. These women and men serve in very different contexts and they represent much of the cultural and racial diversity in our movement. Our hope was to model a conversation between pastors who are deeply invested in the particularities of their communities with a posture of humility and curiosity. We wanted to wonder out loud whether that same posture might allow our clergy to move toward one another during this contentious time of polarization. It was, for me at least, a refreshing and hopeful conversation; you can watch the entire thing here if you're interested.
There was a particular moment in our panel conversation that I'll be reflecting on for a while. Pastor Peter Ahn, a friend and pastor from New Jersey, reflecting on how our denomination has shifted from overwhelmingly white to unmistakably multi-ethnic, wondered what this cultural change might feel like to white clergy. In essence, he asked whether we have collectively given white people the necessary space to grieve the loss of how the denomination used to look and feel. (You can watch Pastor Ahn's reflection as well as the responses by two white colleagues beginning at 57:19.)
Now, I don't know how the idea of giving white people the space to grieve the loss of majority white space sounds to you, but I have to admit that I initially squirmed. As Pastor Ahn acknowledged, the discomfort and angst that white people experience as the demographics shift around us is but a small taste of what minoritized communities persistently experience in white spaces. Couldn't the request for space and time to grieve what is being lost as a denomination - a church, an organization, a neighborhood, a country - becomes increasingly diverse be yet another way to prioritize the immature instincts of whiteness? Yes, of course. But the more I've sat with Pastor Ahn's suggestion, the more I think he's on to something important. Creating space for white people to admit to the range of emotions and questions we experience as the culture around us becomes more diverse is a way to invite those same people to move past fearful and defensive instincts. Rather than ignoring or downplaying these anxious feelings, these spaces can acknowledge them. They can invite more of the truth to be confessed, even when those truths are messy, complicated, and generally held beneath the surface in multi-racial spaces. In other words, by facilitating room for white people to honestly narrate our experiences of loss, we have the opportunity to invite those people into the vulnerability necessary for reconciled and righteous community.
Let me suggest a few other reasons we might consider giving white people the space to grieve. First, the loss is real. The loss is also good! In our denomination, we have been working toward increasing our racial and ethnic diversity for the sake of gospel mission for decades. We have a lot to celebrate even as there is plenty of work still to do. And, as with any change, people who have been around for a while have experienced particular losses. We don't sing the same songs we used to at our pastors conference. The sermons that are preached at this conference will often make white people squirm. We no longer see ourselves represented in every single leadership position. I will argue all day long that each of these examples is a very good thing, but they also represent loss and it does us no collective good to pretend otherwise.
Second, change is emotional. As white people watch the culture around us change, we cannot help but respond emotionally. If those emotions are not given a place to be voiced and explored, they will make themselves known in some sort of unhealthy manner, often to the detriment of the diverse community.
Finally, human beings are perfectly capable of holding more than one emotion at a time. So we can admit that there is some grief that comes with shifting demographics even as we rejoice in those changes. To say that white people might need to lament the loss of a homogeneous experience isn't to say that this is the only thing we can feel. And when we create space for the more difficult emotions we will surely make space for the more forward-looking and hopeful ones as well.
Should we make space for white grief? With all the caveats and nuances, I think so. Pastor Ahn is right. For those of us engaged in the ministry of reconciliation and racial justice with white people, we need to get creative about acknowledging the hidden grief. When we do, we'll find that rather than getting bogged down in the predictable, harmful responses to our decreasing majority, we've actually begun to clear the way for the road to justice.
(Photo credit: Ekrulila.)
Here's what I'm reading these days: Becoming Rooted by Randy Woodley, An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States by Kyle T. Mayes, Theological Foundations for Environmental Ethics by Jame Schaefer, and the most recent issue of Plough Quarterly which focuses on ability and disability and is excellent.
The light and shadows caught my eye as our family returned to the car after an afternoon of sledding earlier this week. I hope your winter is as beautiful as ours here in Chicago.