Am I a Racist?

Current events should cause us all to do a bit of soul searching.  Several incidents in my life when my conscience was pricked are coming to mind.

When I was a child, I was rarely left home alone, but on those unusual and unavoidable occasions, I was always instructed to keep the door locked and open it for no one.  We lived outside the city in a rural area where houses were far apart.  One day when I was alone, I heard a knock at the door.  A well-dressed black man was outside.  There was a window in the door so we could see each other.  He called through the door that he was having car trouble and needed to use a phone.  I shook my head “no.”

He said, “Oh, honey, I wouldn’t hurt you.  Please let me use the phone.”

I shook my head “no” again and moved out of sight of the door feeling terrible.  Did the man think I had refused him because he was black?  I had been sternly admonished to open the door for no one, so his color was irrelevant, but he didn’t know that, and I felt terrible.

After I had become a registered nurse, I worked one summer between college years at a hospital in Buffalo, New York.  I worked with a number of black LPNs and aides that summer, and we also had black patients.  There were not enough RNs to go around, so on the night shift, I covered anywhere from two to six floors for medications, treatments the LPNs couldn’t do, and assessment of situations in which they needed help.

One night I was called to a floor where a black lady was complaining constantly.  The staff on the floor knew her from a prior admission and said she was a difficult patient to deal with.  I do not remember whether the LPN and aide on the unit were black themselves or white.  I went in to try and settle her down and determine if anything was seriously wrong and her complaints legitimate.  She said she was becoming paralyzed and couldn’t move her legs.  The problem was that when I left the room and returned a few minutes later, she had changed positions, so I had trouble believing what she said.  I concluded that she had some mental health issues. It was an unpleasant night with no good solution to her seeming distress.

When I arrived on that floor the next night, she was gone.  I asked if she had been discharged or transferred.  No…she died this morning.  My heart sank.  My immediate thought was that I had not believed her because she was black.  When I expressed that I felt terrible for not believing she was genuinely in distress, I was told, “Don’t feel bad.  When she said she couldn’t breathe, there were two doctors standing there who were convinced she was holding her breath.”  She died right in front of them.

I suspect the woman did have mental health issues, and she already had a reputation with the staff, but I was still troubled.  Had I allowed her skin color to influence my judgment?

When my children were little, I took them to a pediatrician’s office where I had opportunity to interact with several of the nurses.  I had a favorite who was obviously intelligent, soft spoken and very kind.  One day I received a phone call from a professional acquaintance.  She was in a position to hire a Registered Nurse and had been informed that she needed to hire someone black to even things up at the institution for which she worked.  She said, “I understand there is a black nurse at the pediatrician’s office where you take your children.  Can you tell me her name?”

I paused and thought about it….a black nurse?  After a few seconds, it dawned on me.  My favorite nurse was black.  I had never consciously thought about it.

That nurse and I became friends.  One day we somehow got on the topic of traveling with our parents when we were young.  We both had the experience of our mothers packing our meals for days of travel and sight-seeing, but for different reasons.  My family could not afford to eat out in the days before McDonalds.  Her family could never be sure they would find a place where they would be allowed to eat.  I felt such sadness for her and a keen awareness of the differences in our experiences.

I hate what has happened and what is happening in Minneapolis right now.  A black man is accused of passing a counterfeit bill (which at this point isn’t proven), he does not resist arrest, and a cop with previous accusations of undue force, pins him down and basically kills him in plain sight of people who are begging him to get his knee off the black man’s neck.  What?!  How can this be?

Cops have a very difficult job.  There are some bad folks out there…black and white…with whom law enforcement must deal.  There are bad cops.  There are also good cops whose job is made more difficult by the bad cops and by violent responses to the actions of those baddies.

All the sensitivity training and regulations in the world won’t solve the problem.  The problem lies in the human heart and mind.  Only God can solve that.  Jesus died to redeem us from all types of sin…including racial prejudice.

May the Holy Spirit prick my conscience when I am tempted to deal with anyone in the context of their skin color or social status.