Race

Just after a bombshell hit the immigrant community – the pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona – I had the chance to sit down with Rev. Ricardo Tavarez for a cup of coffee. We talked about immigration, hospitality, racism, ministry, and Arpaio. Check out our conversation to see why, a month later, this decision still has deep implications for the immigrant community and our country. Here are some highlights of our conversation.

In September 2016, the Government of Canada launched a ‘National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’, after decades of advocacy from Indigenous groups. Its mission is defined by three goals: finding the truth; honouring the truth; and giving life to the truth as a path to healing. These goals parallel the power of Biblical stories that reveal the truth of human relationships, demand that the truth be honoured, and call humanity to healing through repentance and justice.

I have a confession to make.

I've been leading a group of white Christians for the past 6 months in unlearning our white supremacy. We've met once a month to do the hard work of looking our own racism in the face and calling it out, together. And I haven't really talked about it.

I’ve recently read three books which have helped me to become aware of my privilege. They can help us recognize how white privilege has shaped social structures, opportunities, and hopes – not only for white people, but for people of colour, as well.

On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln during the civil war, took effect. The news eventually reached Galveston, Texas on June 19th, 1865. The proclamation opened up the way for the unraveling of the institution of slavery in the United States. For generations, African Americans have faithfully celebrated “Juneteenth” as the ultimate day that signifies freedom for them.

If you grow up with some privilege, you probably don’t recognize it. Unconsciously, you take your “what is” for the furniture of the universe – “just the way things are,” not only for you, but for everybody else. Sure, you may see on television or via social media evidence that people in other places face bad situations – war, famine, natural disasters of one sort or another.

I want to tell you about friends of mine, Harouna and Marie Issaka. He is from the Hausa people, and she is both Hausa and Mori, ethnicities of their native Niger. They have followed Jesus through situations that I can only imagine, and I learn more about what it means to follow Jesus through them.

A few weeks ago my sister was visiting me and I excitedly wanted to play her some new music that I’ve really been enjoying. She listened and enjoyed it too. But she also raised a concern with me. She had been with me a few days and almost all the music we listened to was made by men. As a musician herself, she told me more about some of the struggles women face in the music industry.

And I realized I was part of the problem. The diversity in my music collection is not great.  

Most Thursdays, I spend my afternoons at a local halfway house and healing centre, created to prepare Indigenous men for the transition from federal prison to the street. I walk through two sets of glass doors, up a short flight of stairs, and into the sweet smell of sage grass and fried food. Indigenous parole officers, administrators, and parolees mill around a front desk, filling out paperwork and discussing their plans for the weekend. Of the dozen or so people around me, I am the only one with white skin. Brown skin is the norm here, and my whiteness makes me an outsider.

I believe that God has a plan for everyone, but sometimes that fact alone doesn’t feel very comforting. I came across the Youth Ambassador of Reconciliation Program when I was struggling with God and his plans for me. I had just graduated from university and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my degree, or if I wanted to work in my degree’s field at all. I had decided to just take a year off to “figure it out” when I heard about this opportunity to go live among the First Nations in Kitchenuhmayoosib Inninuwag (KI), a remote reserve in northern Ontario.