From Your Associate Executive for Racial Justice
Nevada, a three-year-old had an encounter with law enforcement. To all spectators and soccer enthusiasts, Nevada was an outstanding player. He played in a soccer league for 5-year-olds. Anyone invested in the sport would have applauded the high-level skill set that Nevada exhibited at such a young age. A three-year-old having fun, playing, being with friends, learning about society, receiving constant messaging about what is acceptable, and the unwritten rules of how to live in community, learning his place in society, and learning the world’s response to his ability, talent, and passion to play a sport. For all intents and purposes, this would be something to be celebrated: a child, excelling, having fun, being healthy, having friends, surrounded by a community, supported by his parents and loved ones. That sounds like a healthy childhood and healthy parenting.
One would think that if a child demonstrates such ability in a sport, the news highlights would be about working towards ensuring a potential future for this child playing soccer. He would not have been the first one. Countless parents and family members enroll their young ones in sports, art, music, and will go to great lengths to make sure their children have open doors if they exhibit a shred of excellence in whatever they do. So, it is not far-fetched to think and even to expect that Nevada would have been afforded the same level of dreaming, hope, disposition, and galvanizing to potentially ensure a bright future for a child. This was not Nevada’s experience. Much to the contrary, Nevada’s treatment was to be accused of being too good and not allowing his counterparts to also be in the spotlight.
Nevada’s crime: he is a black three-year-old boy in Winter Park, FL playing a game predominantly played by white children in the United States. Instead of celebrating Nevada’s gift, talent, and ability to play an amazing level of soccer, Nevada’s surrounding community called the police to have Nevada and his parents removed from the game and banned from the league. Instead of coming together as a community and considering opportunities for a future for a three-year-old black child, adults, white parents, highlighted their discomfort with their children not being in the spotlight.
Most people of color are enraged, exhausted, and know too well what Nevada faced, is facing, and will continue to face for the rest of his life in this society and in this country, the United States of America. That is the double standard of excellence. Black excellence versus white comfort. White comfort trumps any level of excellence. The number of people of color who undergo years of education and training, sustain egregious working environments, make themselves small so white counterparts don’t feel threatened, engage in passive-aggressive behavior, and still keep themselves sane, functional, successful, and excellent is outstanding.
The story of Nevada reminds people of color, particularly Black people in this country, that excellence is an illusion. Excellence only exists, and it is celebrated to the extent that white comfort is guaranteed and perpetuated. White comfort is a subcategory of white privilege, where whiteness is centered. Whiteness is centered by making whiteness the standard of goodness, morality, ethics, education, health, wealth, beauty, stability, intelligence, work ethic, labor, nutrition, and Christian faith. Individuals don’t have to utter racial slurs to participate in and benefit from whiteness. You can be in conversations and excuse the behavior of people’s behavior and actions towards others, particularly women, children, and humans labeled as non-white—people of color. You can find yourself interacting with other humans and volunteering conditions for why several members of our society act with such violence towards people of color, women, and children. Specific racial slurs are not the only metric for upholding and participating in whiteness. Whenever you feel a hint of jealousy, superiority, and discomfort because a person of color is excelling, you are participating and benefiting from whiteness. If your mind goes almost immediately to consider all the options and circumstances surrounding the fact that grown white adults called the police on a three-year-old for playing excellent soccer, you are participating in whiteness. Calling the police on a three-year-old who plays excellent soccer is not a sign of security, care, and safety. It was a power move to send the message to Nevada, his parents, and every child of color, even thinking about defying whiteness, that there is a hierarchy that must be followed and worshipped.
As self-proclaimed Christians in a nation where the term Christianity has been co-opted to mean hatred, meanness, haughtiness, hypocrisy, sexual harassment, child abuse, etc., what should we do? The work of racial justice is a work that involves self-awareness, emotional intelligence, inward reflection, and prayer. People of color know too well how self-ascribed allies read books, become familiar with vocabulary that points to racial justice, peacemaking, and human wholeness, but their interpersonal interactions, their subtle comments, and some behavior when the cameras are off tell a different story. People of color, children, women, Nevada, and his parents are human beings, humans created by God. When is it going to be enough to be acknowledged, seen, and considered human? Nevada does not need to hear the words “you are human,” “you are created in the image of God.” No, Nevada, along his parents and cloud of humans labeled as non-white need for whiteness to be imploded, to be erased, so that the actual gospel of love, compassion, kindness, mercy, and care for ALL is established, lived out, and embodied.
This country has never been a Christian country, no matter how much the word was used, or the intention, or desire expressed by some through this nation’s history. God is still calling humans to embody the love, compassion, care, kindness, and grace bestowed upon us daily. Nevada, a three-year-old black child, learned very quickly in life that he is not human enough, that black excellence will always be questioned, and that white comfort comes before anything else, including his safety. What are we doing to change the narrative? What is God’s call to us, believers in a Christ who was boundary-breaking, status-quo disrupter, accompanier of outcasts and undesirables? The work of imagining, embodying, and bringing about an ecosystem where each human is made whole requires daily inward reflection, deconstructing and decolonizing toxic internalized messaging, daily prayer, relentless communing, and humility and commitment to ongoing learning. May we live by the promise that “we can do all things through God who strengthens us” (Philippians 4:13).
Let us pray:
Imaginative and wise Creator, thank you for the stirring of the Holy Spirit in our lives. May we be courageous to embrace the chaos we created with the courage to create healthy ecosystems where your creation can be whole and healthy. Guide us as we walk in strength, embody compassion, and practice love. Remember us when we engage in the transformative work of healing, support, accompaniment, and deconstructing. Reorient us to you, your way, as we work towards dismantling oppressive structures. Fill us with your creativity as we lay foundations for basic human dignity to flourish. Remain with us now and forever. God, in your mercy, receive our prayers. In the name of our redeemer and co-inspirator, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Peace and blessings!
Ruth-Aimée (Root-Eh-méh)
Ruth-Aimée Belonni-Rosario
Associate Executive for Racial Justice
248-752-3697 (cell)
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