blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native peoples is another

3. ENVISIONING OUR

sign of institutional racism.  Abortion rates are much

higher among the poor and people of color than among

FUTURE: HOW MIGHT WE

the middle class. As a result of abortion, the United States

DWELL TOGETHER? 

is a far less diverse place.  Racism is also visible in

The Gospel compels us to love our neighbor as ourselves,

imprisonment and in the administration of the death

to abandon patterns of seeing those who are racially or

penalty. There are a disproportionate number of blacks,

culturally different from ourselves as strangers and to

Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans and low income

recognize them as our brothers and sisters. Even those

persons from all ethnic and racial groups on death row.

who have suffered at the hands of others, individually or

 [Such] defendants are more likely to be sentenced to

collectively, must pray to overcome hostility, forgiving

death than white defendants, for the same crimes.  Other

those who have offended them and asking forgiveness

areas where institutional racism finds a home are in health

from those whom they have offended. We must embrace

care, education and housing.

one another as formerly estranged neighbors now seeking

INTERNALIZED RACISM

reconciliation.

You have heard that they were told, love your neighbor

Many blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans

and hate your enemy. But what I tell you is this: love your

are socialized and educated in institutions that devalue the

enemies and pray for your persecutors; only so can you be

presence and contributions of people of color and

children of your heavenly Father, who causes the sun to

celebrate only the contributions of whites. Because of

rise on good and bad alike, and sends the rain on the

their socialization within the dominant racial and cultural

innocent and the wicked...There must be no limit to your

system, people of color can come to see themselves and

goodness, as your heavenly Father's goodness knows no

their communities primarily through the eyes of that

bounds (Matthew 5:43 45; 48 and Luke 6:27 31; 35 36).

dominant culture. They receive little or no information

Again, when the learned Pharisee asked Jesus what was

about their own history and culture and perceive

the greatest commandment of the law, he replied:

themselves and their communities as  culturally

deprived.  Seeing few men and women from their own

You shall love the Lord your God with all your

culture or class in leadership roles, they begin to apply to

heart, with all your soul and with your entire mind.

themselves the negative stereotypes about their group that

This is the greatest and the first commandment.

the dominant culture chooses to believe.

The second is like it; you shall love your neighbor as

yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend

INDIVIDUAL RACISM

on these two great commandments (Matthew

Unlike spatial and institutionalized racism, which are

22:34 40 and Luke 10:25 27).

more public in nature, individual racism perpetuates itself

quietly when people grow up with a sense of white racial

Maintaining current patterns of ethnic, cultural, racial and

superiority, whether conscious or unconscious. Racist

economic isolation and hostility tarnishes our call as

attitudes find expression in racial slurs, in crimes born of

Church to be a universal sacrament of salvation.

racial hatred and in many other subtle and not so subtle

Consciously changing these patterns returns us to our

ways. People who are horrified by the Ku Klux Klan

fundamental identity as a community called to universal

might quite readily subscribe to racial stereotypes about

communion with God and with one another.

people of color.

Poor, middle class and upper class people of all cultural

A. DWELLING WITH GOD IN

groups often demonstrate feelings of prejudice toward

ORDINARY LIFE

people of a different national, cultural or economic

We meet God in the created, visible, tangible

background. Some adopt a  skin color, racial hierarchy 

surroundings of the home, the neighborhood and the

both within and outside their own cultural group. When

workplace. We encounter God in and through our

individuals automatically award superior status to their

spouse, children, brothers and sisters, the family next

own cultural group and inferior status to all those outside

door, the shopkeeper on the corner, our teachers, the

it, they are acting as racists.

stranger on the street. In short, we meet God in and

through people of every color, ethnic background,

religion, class and gender. God is active in and through

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