City Life Starter

By Dr. Blesson Selvenesan

I grew up in India and my experience is totally different from my American brothers and sisters. I was naïve and did not understand the intricacies of racism. My parents taught me to be resilient, tough yet kind. I have read and heard about the racism and how it affected my ancestors as an Indian by the Britisher’s and by certain ‘upper caste’ elites and about the difficulties that we faced as followers of Christ. I did not know much about contemporary racism other than from news like that of South Africa. I did read about Martin Luther King and his speeches, and the experience of Mohandas Gandhi in South Africa and England. However, I always assumed it was outside of Church.

As a child, I always thought only white people lived here. Growing up, all the people I knew as Americans were white. Missionaries and megachurch pastors who came to India were white, Presidents Reagan and Bush were white, all astronauts were white, all scientists and inventors I read about in school were white, all poets and novelists and writers were white, historians were white, and all actors and actresses were white. I thought all are white in the USA except athletes (I watched Florence Joyner, Carl Lewis, and Magic Johnson) and of course Michael Jackson.

My first wake-up call of racism in America was in 1992. It was during summer vacation I was visiting an aunt who had a television. As I watched the news, I saw for the first time a man being beaten by police (I was not surprised, in India police always beat people!). But as I heard a teary-eyed Rodney King say “can we all get along? Can we, can we get along?”. I vividly remember that night as I could not sleep as these words echoed in my mind again and again. As an eighth grader, I started asking questions like what it means ‘to get along’? and heard the word ‘racism’ for the first time. I was confused, perplexed, angered, sympathized with the victims and lost my first love for the USA. Looking back, I think, I lost my innocence that day!

After I finished my doctorate, I moved to the west living in Europe and then in America, I pondered long and hard to see if I, as a brown-skinned Indian ever faced any racism. My honest answer is no! I cannot recall a time when I felt discriminated or insulted because of who I am. Maybe there were occasions, I have learned to be thick-skinned, ignore and move on or maybe people respect me because of my achievements, I don’t know. One thing I do know is racist people do exist. After coming to America, I ask one question to most black academicians I meet in scientific conferences where ever I go. Are you from the USA? I should say more than 90% of the time they say No! I was surprised and still am. Something is not right definitely something is not! I am not saying that incompetent people should be promoted, I am saying we have not done much to make incompetent people competent. I see the health disparities, educational disparities, professional disparities, crime rate, drug use rate, murder rate etc. Something is wrong and somewhere we have gone wrong. I see another strange attitude among some minorities especially among young people, insecurity, a victim mentality or the opposite, I deserve all mentality. I struggle every day to understand why? The recent advent of identity politics is not helping either. We cannot punish the present day majority for the sin of their ancestors, what we need are forgiveness and acceptance. Education may help but is not the complete answer.

One of my closest friends came to Dallas to study theology when I was still in India. I asked him about Churches here. He smiled at me and told, ‘America is divided on Sunday mornings’ and refused to answer further. I understood why when we arrived here. We would have visited more than 20 churches and it’s sad in many places. We decided to go to a place which looks like heaven and be a representation of heaven on earth with every nation and every tongue. I think color/race-based memberships are exclusive to hell.

In Leviticus, God instructed Moses to write down laws on how to perform a sacrifice during their Worship. Leviticus 1:6, it says “And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces” (ESV). Skin off my friends on the altar, color is immaterial! God wants our brokenness, our pieces not our skin! I hope we flay ourselves during our worship and flay ourselves in our Christian walk and flay ourselves for the betterment of our society. We will all live as One if we realize God created all of us in His image and Genesis 1 is common to all skin color. ‘E Pluribus Unum’ can become a reality only if we understand we all have one God and one creator.