Being in a community of faith should feel safe and welcoming.
It should not ask you to put up with racism.
I was in a training for worship leaders the other day, which was thick with unspoken messages. I think one way I can be a good ally is to speak those messages out loud, in hopes that this will start conversation. We can't end racism as allies, but we can name it when we see it.
Spoken message: Presenters should wear "solid colors," because "patterns are distracting."
Underlying cultural message: People in sari's or First Nation or African dress or loud suits would be quite uncommon in the pulpit, except as an exotic touch, an exception to the rule. If you want approval when you speak, dress as white, older people dress when they go to church.
Spoken message: "Diction is very important if you want to be heard."
Underlying cultural message: If you have an accent I understand easily, I will be comfortable. If you don't, I may get angry or ill-at-ease as I have to strain to understand you. Unsurprisingly, there were no people of color with strong accents in the training -- nobody with an accent had been asked or chosen for the worship team, because accents are "a problem." In plain language, this means: Despite the fact that English is spoken in many places, in many different intonations, there are right ways and wrong ways to speak English, and I'm defining what they are for this church. A spoken word always has some accent, so we must ask ourselves ...which accents do we consider acceptable? Is South African or British okay? How about the way English is spoken in Nigeria or India or Latin America? Issues of ethnicity/nationality and class come up here. The white upper-class listener's comfort is the priority. Leadership opportunities for people with a "difficult" or non-approved accent, which could include a leader of color, take a back seat.
Spoken message: "Silence is how you show respect. Clapping is what an audience does at a performance, and church is not a performance."
Underlying cultural message: Rules of decorum are universal. Silence is proper because that's what happens in certain mostly white churches. People who shout, clap, or talk in church or in worship don't fit here. Reading Ann Pellegrini or recent works on gender theory, we become familiar with the idea that in fact church and life can all have an element of performance. How could the atmosphere and purpose of church be thought about differently to encourage a more open church?
Spoken message: "Well, yes, perhaps if you're talking about a Southern Baptist church, but also that's clapping an act of worship, not clapping in response to a performed piece."
Underlying cultural message: We don't expect someone to come here who comes from a Baptist background, where they also do things like dancing, hooting and hollering. Whiteness carries a respectability requirement, and respectable people, aware of others watching them, don't worship that way. We are concerned about people disrupting our services with noise, and we need you to agree not to do that or encourage anyone else to do that. However people feel the spirit is fine, as long as they do it in their seats, silently. Also, could be translated as "I have never been to a Southern Baptist church."
"Spiritual growth" should not have to mean, for anyone, putting on a brave face through a crisis of faith as they are faced with pervasive assumptions from their "beloved community" about who they are, what they are capable of, how they celebrate in "their tradition," how they ought to speak or present, or what they ought to wear to be respectful in church.
"Being in Community" does not mean someone should have to put up with white folks mistaking you for another person in the congregation roughly the same skin tone as you are. That is not a place where "practicing patience" should be the issue, but "removing ignorance." (See microaggressions.)
"Belonging" doesn't mean that everyone but you gets to say exactly what they think, about your clothes or your accent or your presentation, while you keep your experience to yourself because it would indict the others in the room who don't understand your background, your traditions.
As a white person seeing this happen, I am not going to be patient with it.
Another person's ignorance is running roughshod in the space where a soul ought to feel safe, and when that soul cries out, it is not allowed to speak, because it might hurt someone's feelings.
Doing church must mean cultural competence, and race/class/gender awareness, or we are missing the whole point.
