Let's take a quick look back in history!
In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II. By 1941, they had invaded and occupied 9 countries, forcing their narrow view of the world upon many European countries. The most insidious of these ideologies was "Hitlers Final Solution", what we know better as the Holocaust. Germany would enact unspeakable horrors on the Jews and anyone else whose lifestyle didn't fit into their tidy worldview.
History has rightfully demonized Hitler and the Nazi regime for what they did to the world and specifically to the Jews. But if we take a broader, more objective view of what happened, it wasn't entirely unusual. For hundreds of years, European countries had been reaching out to all corners of the earth, finding other nations and peoples who were weaker than them, and taking away their land and their way of life. We call this Colonialism.
co·lo·ni·al·ism /kəˈlōnēəˌlizəm/
noun
the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
This is what most European nations had been doing in Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, and all over the world. What the Germans did in Poland, Denmark, and France is the very same thing that the British and then the Americans did in our own country. They used powerful violence to dominate the native population and force their views upon them. In the process they killed hundreds of thousands through violence, starvation, and disease. This is exactly what the early Americans did to the Native American population.
It's not a pleasant way to look at history, but it doesn't make it less true. And while the Germans did terrible terrible things to the Jews, it didn't last for generations. No, the winners of the war elevated the Jewish people, gave them their support, and even their own land, which had been lost many years ago.
Here's a sad truth about what happened in American colonialism- we didn't stop at taking the land away from the natives and forcing our way of life upon them. We also "purchased" hundreds of thousands of lives from African nations and forced them into slavery.
But where the conquered Europeans and tortured Jews had the British and Americans and other allied forces to free them, the Native Americans and black slaves had no one to set them free. When the Jews were restored to their own renewed nation, the displaced black lives, even when freed from slavery, were forced into segregated ghettos and heavily oppressed. Where the Jews found liberation, justice, and compassion, the black Americans found no such kindness, but saw new forms of oppression at every turn.
Here is a sad fact- America really has done very little to repair the damage done to our own people by hundreds of years of colonialism and its generational repercussions. So little, in fact, that we often forget how powerfully this history has impacted the events we see unfolding today.
As a white man seeing it all unfold, I often feel a strange dichotomy. On one side, I want to see peace and restoration to society through greater justice and rights to people of color in our nation. But moments later, or even at the very same time, I feel offended by language used by today's Civil Rights movement. I sometimes feel as if I am made to be the aggressor and the enemy because of my whiteness, or that I'm being told that what I've earned in my life was not earned through hard work and sacrifice, but was just given to me because of my white privilege.
It's easy to be offended by all of this. It's easy for me to say "Well, I'm not the enemy, I've not done anything wrong, I wasn't raised rich, I don't have any power at all! I shouldn't have to apologize for being born white!"
But the better part of me, the part I know has been born through the love of God, tells me to look past the offense and see what's on the other side of it. Yes, there are critical voices out there that I can choose to take offense with, but if for a moment I can understand that I am loved by God, and that His love compels me to love my neighbor, I might be able to try to listen beyond my offense to hear a bigger story.
A story that is filled with pain, injustice, and centuries of inequity. A story of a whole people group who have been told since the founding of our nation that they are less than because of their skin color. A story of a people that still feel that is the message our country tells them today, and screams into their ears everytime a black life is ended in cold blood and there is no justice.
Can we for a moment find enough peace in Christ to listen in love to a story that is different than the one we tell ourselves, a story of a slow holocaust that was never recognized, never repaired, and in some ways never ended?
I'm trying to speak to people like me, white moderate/conservative Christians, who cringe at phrases like "white privilege." I've never felt all that privileged. Like the Creedence Clearwater song says, "It ain't me, it ain't me/ I ain't no millionaire's son, no no/ It ain't me, it ain't me/I ain't no fortunate one."
But I also have to recognize that I didn't grow up in a neighborhood where police would stop me because I fit a certain description. My parents were never made to feel that they weren't welcome in any neighborhood. I always went to good schools that were properly equipped and staffed to provide me with a good education. Sure, nobody had the money to pay my way through college, but I've also never had to wonder if I didn't get certain opportunities because maybe the guy in charge was a racist.
We need to let go of our own offense, put down our insecure guard, and recognize that equal opportunities and equal justice really have not been offered to all in our nation. Maybe recognizing that there's no question as to whether or not my ancestors were enslaved or oppressed in any way really is a privilege, when compared to the incredible damage hundreds of years of inhumane oppression has done in the world and in our nation.
And then, in love, maybe I can look beyond the deep generational pain of someone else and see a heart pleading with God for justice, for an end to the pain of oppression. I can try and do what little I can to promote justice for all in my small corner of the world.