The other day I was in a village, walking from house to house talking with people. A little boy made a motion to shake my hand, and after I shook it he laughed and said it was like touching the hand of God. I felt a sharp stab of pain pierce my heart and a sudden feeling that I might throw up. It’s because I look white, isn’t it? Do they think God is white? They probably aren’t the only ones. I had this same pain when I came home from Chad, Africa last January and the customs officer checking my paper work told me “to be careful going to those countries because I was worth more.” Worth more… as if we can attribute values to human life based on the privilege that has been extended to them. My heart has broken time after time as I have watched as my teammates/ squadmates of different ethnicities not be granted the same welcome as the “white people” in our group. Racism is a real, world problem. The repercussions may not be as immediate or as noticeable as human trafficking or world hunger but they are just as deadly…. as evidenced by recent outbursts of violence in the US.
I sat across from Jenny Hensman, the founder of Mind the Gap Africa, an organization designed to take in orphans and abandoned children. I was curious as to how she came up with the name for her organization. She told me that in London, there are signs everywhere before you get onto the railways that say “mind the gap”. She said she wanted to remind people to “mind the gap” between the rich and the poor, between white and black, between privilege and poverty. This conversation, along with the experiences I mentioned in the previous paragraph, has led me on a journey to attempt to understand the cultural gap that exists between cultures and nationalities. Why do they exist? And what can we do to ‘mind the gap?’
Why does it exist?
Racism, white privilege, or whatever you want to call it is a lethal combination of pride and a distorted perception of the sanctity of human life. There is a certain pride in every human being which wants to project that my culture, my way of living life, my religion, my heritage, is the most important. It’s appropriate for those things to be important to each person, but when they start being projected as standards that large groups of people need to accept as their reality, it becomes disproportionate. The idea that one person can have more or less value based on their education, social status, skin color, country of origin, or native language is a detrimental belief. It denies the understanding that all men and women are created equal, and it instead makes the human race to be nothing more than glorified animals being selected for adequate milk production or phenomenal breeding qualities. These ideations create division between people groups and societies. They can even lead to genocide if they’re not corrected.
Minding the Gap
Admitting that a gap indeed exists is one of the first steps in helping to build a bridge over it. Taking steps to foster in our own minds and hearts the attitude that every life is important and having the humility to admit that our culture is not the only culture that has value are also foundational in creating healthy, working, cross-cultural relationships. But even having the right attitude isn’t enough. We need people with good understanding and attitudes to attempt to build bridges over the gap in their own communities. Do you have friends that are a different culture than you? If you do, that’s great. Maybe you can ask them questions to better understand their heritage and find ways to celebrate that with them. If you don’t, that’s a good place to start. How do you respond when derogatory comments about people of lower socioeconomic backgrounds or different skin color are made? I would encourage you to appropriately, and respectfully speak up. These are some ways I feel that we can start bridging the gap.
Let’s face it. On earth, there will never be a time that there will not be a gap. I don’t know what it’s like to carry a five gallon bucket of water on my head from a stream and climb up the side of a mountain to my home. I don’t know what it’s like to live in a cardboard box with everything I own on a bicycle. I don’t know what it is to worry about having enough food to feed my children, or be refused service because of my skin color. But I do know that every person I meet is immeasurably valuable and worthy of love. And I am confident that as people everywhere unite in celebration of life and love authority will be issued to good, and evil will flee.
