one anecdote, DiAngelo recalls a moment when her own thoughtless racist behavior is brought to her attention. She approaches the woman she wounded to work for repair. She listens, she acknowledges, she commits to change, she makes restitution, as far as was possible, and says “thank you.” And then she recalls , “I ask Angela if there is anything else that needs to be said or heard so that we may move forward. She replies that yes, there is. ‘The next time you do something like this, would you like feedback publicly or privately?’ she asks. I answer that given my role as an educator, I would appreciate receiving the feedback publicly, as it is important for White people to see that I am also engaged in a lifelong process of learning and growth.”16
Like DiAngelo, Jesus is an educator: “Teacher” is the title to which he most frequently answers. As an educator, the inclusion of this story is important, because in it he shows us how to receive criticism, even rebuke, when we have engaged in racist behavior. When reading this story from Mark, Jacob Slichter noted admiringly, “He had the courage to do his learning publicly.”17 Unfortunately, such courage is rare; but if we hope to learn how to listen for Black lives, we must claim it.
When we contrast, on the one hand, how simply, directly, and readily Jesus receives criticism for his racist behavior, and, on the other, the convoluted contortions interpreters use to explain his racism away; when we consider our own reluctance to acknowledge and name his behavior as a kind of racism, and how this reluctance blinds us to the actual Good News of the story (that is, that the woman receives justice, that Jesus repents and changes, and that it is possible for us to do the same), then we must consider this conclusion: White fragility not only keeps us from talking meaningfully about racism; it also keeps us from hearing the gospel. We court a double danger when we allow White fragility to deafen us; when we let it stop us from listening for Black lives.
For Black people, this danger is measured in harassment, lost jobs, broken bones, and worse. For us, the danger comes in the possibility of spiritual death. As Bonhoeffer notes:
He who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words.18
Thus, it can be rightly said, if we are to preach for Black lives, indeed, if are to preach at all, we must first learn to listen for Black lives. And this involves following Christ’s example, putting aside our defensiveness, and receiving the witness of Black voices, whatever tone they take, as the manifest grace of God in our lives.
1. By his own acknowledgment, Bonhoeffer’s radical understanding of discipleship was profoundly shaped by his time as a member of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, and the teaching of its then pastor, the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell. Sr. Dr. Reggie Williams documents and explores this connection in his book Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014).
2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: A Discussion of Christian Fellowship (San Francisco: HarperSan-Francisco, 1978), 97.
3. Robin J. DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018).
4. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 129.
5. W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Souls of White Folk,” in Darkwater: Voices Within the Veil (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co, 1920), 29–52.
6. James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), 123.
7. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 57.
8. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 69.
9. John Macarthur, Macarthur Study Bible New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 1475.
10. John Gill, “Commentary on Mark 7:4.” The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible, 1999, accessed September 07, 2018, https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/geb/mark-7.html.
11. Holly J. Carey, “Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman: A Case Study in Inclusiveness,” Leaven 19, no. 1 (2011): article 8.
12. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 121.
13. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 123.
14. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 112.
15. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 112.
16. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 139–40.
17. Jacob Slichter, personal communication, April 18, 2019.
18. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 97–98.
ACTS 16:25–26; ISAIAH 60:20–23
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.
Sometimes opportunities just show up and I had the privilege of being part of a pilgrimage organized by the Washington, DC, chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians to civil rights sites in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma, Alabama. Those who participated were called “Ambassadors of Healing.”
While I had been to some of these sites over the years, there were new museums and memorials that I wanted to visit. Also, going with UBE presented a wonderful opportunity to be among Episcopalians and our friends; it suggested a spiritually
