Someone I highly admired and respected recently publicly criticized a post of mine that had this picture of Jesus in it.
Why? Because Jesus was not dark enough. I can’t say for sure, but it came across as though she was calling me racist for not matching Jesus’ skin tone to what she thought it should look like.
I have no idea what to do with that. However, I feel like it’s a great opportunity to share a story of what racism REALLY looks like. Here’s an excerpt from my upcoming book. Warning! This is pretty graphic…
So much of the healing Katie walked me through revolved around the 11 years I spent, from age 3 until 14, under the authority of a very angry man. At least, I was able to get the worst part of my life over early. After getting away from him, I have frequently said, “Life can never be as bad as it once was unless I’m being held hostage and tortured.”
My step-dad, David, had grown up in Louisiana in the ‘40s and ‘50s during a time when the KKK ran rampant in the South. From the stories his mother, “Mama Cook,” told, I was under the impression his father had been a sheet-wearing member of this racist, murderous group. I never met David’s dad, as he had died before I ever came into the picture.
Mama Cook was quite the story teller, but I hate to say I had a hard time understanding her thick Southern accent. I’d lived in the South my whole life, so it shouldn’t have been an issue. At least you wouldn’t think, but dentures and drawl don’t mix well, I guess. Looking back, I regret not trying harder to understand her. Especially, since this story really caught my attention.
Mama Cook had seen and heard it all and by that, I mean she literally heard the screams of a Black man tortured and killed for something he didn’t do.
I don’t have names or dates or anything. I only have what I can recall from hearing this, as a child. Sometime possibly in the ‘50s, in or around Ruston, Louisiana, a Black man had been accused of raping a young, White girl.
According to Mama Cook, what he actually did was touch her arm, or brush up against her, at the grocery store, or something. I don’t remember why he touched her, but the way Mama Cook told it, it was completely innocent. It also sounds like the girl, herself, didn’t accuse him of rape, but one of the townspeople saw this happen and reported back to the other KKK members a story of something much worse than a harmless touch or an accidental brush of the arm.
The Klan assembled and decided this Black man “needed a killin’”, which I believe might have been a legal defense against a murder charge, at that time in the South. At least, culturally maybe.
The sheets and hoods were donned and the cowards found the innocent Black man, tied him up, kidnapped him and took him into the woods. They hung him from a tree, but that’s not how they killed him. They built a fire and heated a fire poker in it. When it was scorching hot, the poker was jammed into the rectum of the Black man as he hung from the tree.
“You could hear him scream for miles.” Mama Cook lamented. She knew he had died when the screams stopped.
It is my understanding that justice was never served to the men who tortured and killed him.
This was the kind of hate my step-father inherited. This was the kind of anger and bitterness that was taught to him and passed down to him.
David could let the “N” word slip off of his tongue as easily, quickly, and defiantly as a child would proclaim the word “mine” over their favorite toy or food, if one were to try to take it away.
He especially loved using that word while enraged in traffic.
One Halloween, I was too sick to go trick-or-treating. (Back then, I didn’t know how evil it really is.) Instead of dressing up, I was the candy distributor. I enjoyed getting to see all the costumes and loved getting to answer the door and meet people.
The doorbell rang. I opened it to find 5 Black boys about my age (I think I was 10) standing at the door.
“Trick or Treat,” they chimed.
I began distributing candy as the questions began…normal small talk questions.
“What’s your name?”
”Where do you go to school?”
“What grade are you in?”
I was answering and reciprocating in kind, when, all of a sudden, I could feel a hand on the back of my collar and felt myself being jerked backwards inside the house, as the door slammed in the faces of the 5 boys.
“DON’T YOU KNOW ALL THEY WANT TO DO IS F*** A WHITE GIRL?” David screamed, loud enough that I’m sure the boys could hear.
I was silent. Shocked into silence, but thinking, “No, that subject never came up. And what in the actual hell is wrong with you?”
I was so humiliated, but couldn’t imagine what the boys were feeling or thinking. How much did that man damage those kids in that one instance? How much hate did he sow right then and there? We had just been talking. I don’t think they saw color and neither did I, at least not until David came into the picture.
I never saw them again and I pray God stepped in and did something to negate that experience.
A few years later, a very brave, prophetic couple from our church befriended my parents. One night, they were having dinner with my parents, when they courageously told my step-dad they had a word from the Lord. I highly doubt they knew the extent of just how racist he was, but they told him God had said He was “going to take David, if he did not change his attitude toward Black people.”
By “take” I mean take his life.
Surprisingly, David was receptive and heeded the warning. He stopped using the “N” word and went quite a while without being enraged at any Black driver in traffic. Funny thing…during this time, all of his health issues cleared up. Things like high blood pressure, migraines, ulcers, a hernia all got better. Weird!
I don’t remember exactly how long this pleasantness lasted, but at some point, David forgot the warning or maybe no longer believed it. I noticed the “N” word was slipping out and the racist road rage was back. Within months of my noticing this, David was dead.
How long had David’s family been under this generational curse of hatred and racism? There were at least two obvious generations affected by it. My guess is they weren’t the only two.
Shortly after David died, my mom started attending a local Black church…probably as a posthumous act of rebellion on her part. I did not go. I don’t think I was interested in church at all, at that point.
It wasn’t long before mom’s new friends from the Black church started to visit us at the house or would sit in my section when I was waitressing at Perkin’s. (Worst uniform ever!) Her new friends were so full of love, laughter, joy, grace, and acceptance. They were just beautiful, but one stood out more than all the others. Mamie Hodges!
It didn’t matter how important a project I was working on was. If Mamie stopped by the house, I stopped everything to spend time with her and listen to this hilarious, beautiful angel. Mamie had THE BEST stories and her laugh was infectious. She brought so much light into a house that had been filled with so much darkness and I just couldn’t get enough of her.
I think she liked me, too, since she would introduce me to people as her “White baby.” LOL!
I am so grateful for the two different worlds I got to experience and for the order in which they happened. Hate v. Love. Dark v. Light. I know what the hatred of racism really looks like and I also know Jesus doesn’t look at skin color. He sees what’s inside and calls us all to do the same.
The powers that be want us divided so that they can’t be defeated. Don’t let that happen!