RESPECTING A RACIST

Benson Prigg

Dr. Mel Leaman and I are colleagues at Lincoln University, the oldest historically black college/university. A few years ago, he presented an idea about the impact of racism on teaching students. As we interacted that day and since, we realized that both those infected and affected by racism may teach unknowingly with racist notions.

In his Spring 2006 DreamSeeker Magazine comments, Mel, who invited me to respond to his article, shares early life experience of his parents as Mennonite missionaries that in retrospect points to the subtlety of racism. I have chosen to respond by focusing on an early experience of subtle racism with a kind Mennonite "missionary."

The essence of my childhood has infiltrated my adolescent and adulthood stages of life. The essence consists of my religious upbringing. My initial religious experience stemmed from the missionary efforts of Mennonites. The good missionaries provided needed support for and to my family. They were good people with a good heart but unknowingly conditioned by American racism.

Theirs was a conditioning that seemingly prevented me from dating one of their daughters and seemingly prevented me from embracing African-American cultural behaviors. It was a conditioning that prevented me from seeing that good people can be tainted by a diseased environment and an unquestioning upbringing.

They were missionaries but not gods. I recall an incident involving two white farmers that helped me to see that good people can be tainted by racism.

Running, ducking, diving, not to mentions the squashing sounds of a tall, young, angry, blonde son of a dairy farmer trying to get me generated a giant image in my mind. I knew he needed me to work at the farm that day; there was whitewashing of walls, stacking of hay bales, cleaning of bull pens, and milking of cows to be done.

However, I had received a better job offer. If I told this son of the dairy farmer that I quit, he would be furious, and I would be forced to overwork. I had no time for his rage; I just wanted to be rid of him. Yet he was a few years older and few inches taller than I, which made facing him intimidating.

Feeling like a defeated biblical David, I hid in the basement, where I could hear but did not want to see my assailant wanting me to work on his farm. I had another farm to go to. He, they, would be mad, I was certain—but I had had enough. Somewhere deep in the basement, I could not release the boulder of heaviness until my hunter left my family’s homestead of less than an acre.

I had worked on the dairy farm since about age 10. It gave me a place to escape from my little tiny home shared by nine other siblings and two parents. We lived in a two-bedroom house with a non-functioning bathroom, a functioning outhouse, hot water due to a small two-burner kerosene stove, and lots of land. It was not ours.

Thoughts of going elsewhere besides school and church sometimes served as the only means to get away from this hut situated in a vast space. Working on the farm of a white family living on a road named after the family was the only other means of escape from a degree of poverty. Their son who was pursuing me was the youngest of the sons but much older than I was. He could be a bully. He could be a bully with his height. He could be a bully with the color of his skin. And when we fought at the intersection of his "family’s" road and another road, I was physically conquered, if not mentally.

Not all white, tall people were bullies. I worked for another farmer, a poultry farmer. He was a kind, older gentleman whose character was consistent, as was evident in the long relationship he and his family had with my parents and siblings. He was my pastor who became my employer. A Mennonite who had compassion, he tried me out as a worker. He knew I was working for another farmer but also knew I had to make a decision, because I couldn’t just work a few hours for him.

The decision between two white employers—and whether to be a worker or an overworked worker—had to be made. I liked the sound of a Christian boss, one who had shown benevolence toward my family more than once.

I confess that I saw obvious racism in the first employer, but it took me much longer to see and work through the subtle racism of my second employer. I am glad that people are more than their social disease and that some, such as my pastor turned out to be, are better able than others to be healed of it.

Racism is a social disease that infects one people but affects all people. Some white people, European Americans, resent and reject being seen as infected by racism; however, this is one of the symptoms for most racists. Being called a racist elicits the same reaction from whites as is experienced by non-whites when called heathens. The problem is that one is true while the other may be very false. And that some can’t see their condition as well as others can.

The nature of this social disease as well as the varying abilities to confront it in oneself are evident in two anecdotes. The one is from Kalamazoo College. The other is the account of how I finally became aware of and worked through my pastor/employer’s racism.

My students at Kalamazoo College, an historically private white college, were the cream of the crop in their academics but, like many of my colleagues, they were blind to how racism had infected them.

They were soon awakened to it as they sat in either my American Literature course or my U.S. Ethnic Literature course. One was required of English majors while the latter was an elective many chose to enroll in. These students did not necessarily choose me for American Literature. This became obvious with the student evaluations of the teacher.

While in class, it appeared that all was going well between teacher and students. Opportunities to think, write, read, imagine, and express were made available throughout the quarter. I knew that their African-American professor’s high expectations were surprising to the students; after all, what could such a professor require? They smiled in my face, so I accepted that all was well.

I set up the course in thirds, one-third dealing with Realism/Naturalism, one-third dealing with Harlem Renaissance, and one-third dealing with Modernism. The criticism of the course focused on the Harlem Renaissance (HR): too much time spent on certain authors—the HR authors were listed. Dislikes of the course and the professor through opposition to HR were recorded.

What a painful awakening to disillusion! I guess these young white students felt it was their prerogative both not to study African-American-related literature and to keep this African-American professor in his place. Those I wanted to help rejected my help.

I do not fault the students directly, because they are by-products of a racist society. I just wish that some of their elders had revealed their covert racism, which was obvious to those of us often affected by their infection.

As I recalled the subtle ways of racism, I went back to my experience of working on the poultry farm for my pastor. He earned my respect by the impact his human acts of kindness had on my struggling parents, who had 10 children couped up in one small livable shack. We were like chicks in a hen house. The pastor opened up the avenues of my spirit by the way he consistently related to my family in good times—and in bad times, as when my father had a 50/50 chance of surviving a blod clot in his brain, when my family had just a few weeks because of an eviction notice, when my family needed a home but had no collateral. This pastor and his family were there to see my family through.

He earned my respect when he seemingly took me under his wings after my older brother did not work out as one of his employees. What was he expecting from my brother, a young, black male who had issues within himself, his family, and the world? What was he expecting when he hired this habitual liar and thief? I guess he believed in reforming what others would view as lowlife.

He earned my respect when he took me into his business. While working at the farm, I learned plenty about chickens. Working with chickens minimized my having a lot of time on my hands. It kept me away from my neighborhood friends who seemed not to be involved in anything constructive. It provided me a time to distance myself from ethnic peers. Chickens make a lot of noise, but they can’t lead a person into trouble. Working on the farm provided an escape where I could think and work and make some money, more than I did working on that neighboring dairy farm.

I respected this Mennonite pastor and farmer. He helped me to see the world of business and how to be Christian about it. I respected his trust in me whenever he left me in charge while he and other family members were off on some other excursion. He trusted me with the chickens, with the eggs, with the customers, and with the money. He trusted me working with his daughter. He trusted me!

I don’t know if he respected me. After I had given him years of loyal service, he hired a church friend my age. The friend was a Mennonite in that "real" Swiss-German ethnic way. He was born a farmer, a dairy farmer. I realized his years of experience with cows, but he had no experience with chickens. Yet he was given more responsibility. It seemed he was recognized as superior. I came to realize when looking at the payment books that he was getting paid more than I.

I began to question my pastor/employer’s trust in me and my respect for him. My last full year of working on the farm, I wondered for months how to approach my pastor/employer for a well-earned raise. For months I thought about his kindness, his consistent support of my family, his willingness to take me as though I was one of his own. Yet I was not getting paid what I was worth.

Eventually I approached him about the raise. His response was interesting. He said that he had already planned to give me a raise but as one lump sum, so I would have it when I went off to Rosedale Bible Institute.

While this was a sure way of having money toward school, I never understood why he couldn’t just tell me this up front. I figured, he was caught and he had to come up with something. He didn’t trust me to tell me this plan. Or did he realize he had never thought about it, and my bringing it to his attention made him guilty? I didn’t bring up the issue of my church buddy getting paid more than I did.

I didn’t bring it up until nearly 12 years later, after I got married. While I respected my pastor/employer, I told my wife of the one bothersome thing about him. His blind racism.

After sharing with my wife this burden, I went to his home. As we interacted, I told him of the thing that remained a constant heartache when I thought of him. It was painful for me to see the sorrow and tears that came from this strong man who had never viewed things from my perspective. He had never realized an action so seemingly small could be interpreted as racist. He owned his actions and asked for forgiveness.

Now I was in a position of authority which I relinquished as quickly as I received it by granting him forgiveness. My respect and trust in him were renewed that day in his living room.

This missionary who served my family was now being served by me. We have both grown up, and we respect and trust each other. However, racism does not go away with awareness; rather, it is faced because of awareness.

—Benson W. Prigg, Newark, Delaware, is Associate Professor of English at Lincoln University and lay pastor of the Kenyan Church in Wilmington, Delaware. He studied at such Mennonite-related schools as Lancaster Mennonite High and Rosedale Bible Institute as well as Lincoln University and at Bowling Green State University, where he received his Ph.D. in U.S. Ethnic Literatures. He can be reached at bprigg@lincoln.edu.