Black History Month

In the last months I didn't get down to writing new articles for my blog. This article is not new either - I wrote it exactly one year ago.

In a CNN interview with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during his visit to Washington in February 2022, he was asked why Germany, with our particular history, had not joined the political boycott of the Winter Olympics in China on the grounds of human rights infractions. Germany had never planned to send politicians to the games and saw no reason to join a boycott. Scholz patiently answered the question (twice) by explaining that his country has passed supply chain legislation that will be more effective than any boycott.

As Germans, we have learned from our history and as we face new anti-semitic challenges from right-wing groups we know that we cannot ignore the terrible crimes committed in the past. We need to educate each generation about the horrors committed by the Nazis. As a Holocaust survivor, Max Mannheimer said, "You are not responsible for what happened. But you are responsible that it never happens again." We have to take this seriously.

I know that racism thrives in many places around the world and despite all our efforts to curb racism it is a growing threat. People who do not have sufficient information are scared of losing their privileged lifestyles.

Not having experienced it myself, I did not know anything about what life was like for black Americans in the Jim Crow era until I started reading about it. I suspect that many Americans don’t know much more about it either. Just like we in Germany have to teach our children about the holocaust, American children need to be taught about the racist history of their great country. Americans should take this seriously so that the horrors committed will never happen again. Discrimination is raising its ugly head and has never really been stopped. That is why Black History Month is so important by showing the valuable impact of black Americans. I wish more white Americans would pay attention to it.

Before I saw “Hidden Figures” I could not imagine what it would be like not to be allowed to use any toilet in the vicinity of my workplace. Before I heard about Rosa Parks I didn’t know that black people had to sit in the back of a bus and get up for a white person. Before I read the “Little Rock Nine” I did not realize how dramatic it was for black kids to go to a decent school and how families were harassed. Little by little, I found out how black Americans were treated as second-class citizens in the South, not being allowed in certain parks, having to use different entrances to cinemas, and not even being allowed to try on the clothes they were buying. They were refused voting rights, jobs, and bank loans just because of their skin color. The lynching of innocent people is so horrible that it turns our stomachs. Gynecologists doing their anatomic studies and experiments on slave women reminded me of what I had learned about Dr. Mengele. All of this calls to mind how the Nazis first made life unbearable for Jews with all kinds of restrictions and then planned extinction.

So why would Jake Tapper remind Chancellor Scholz of German history without sparing a single thought about his own country’s history? Where is the difference? We do not have the right to point a finger at another nation as we all have the same problems with our own racism.

But should not at least the church be free of racism? Our society is becoming more and more fragmented. In Germany, we hear a lot about integration as a means of building a functioning nation. All the different cultures should live together with respect for each other. We have ethnic churches and I understand that people want to hear God’s word in their language and cultural setting. But the authenticity of our worship experience should not be dependent on our skin color or culture. Even our churches are becoming more fragmented, with people wanting to live in their ideological bubbles.

I suppose that anyone who grew up in the church must have been told Bible stories in Sabbath School illustrated by felt cutouts. The ones I knew were designed in a typical 1950s style, particularly recognizable by the way the figures were dressed before putting on their white robes in heaven. What struck me was that all the figures were white.

When we were preparing to serve as missionaries in Africa in the 1970s I was looking forward to teaching Sabbath school to all those little black children. I realized that I would not be able to use those felts, and when I found a system designed by Annie Vallotton called Plasticographe  I decided to invest in the material. It consisted of several plastic backdrops and a whole ring book with plastic figures of humans and animals and graphic forms in all basic colors. None of the figures had faces. I wanted the children to identify with God within their own culture and to identify with a God who had created them in His likeness. It was a creative way of illustrating stories without racial distinctions. The system is unfortunately no longer available.

Do you remember the song, “Jesus loves the little children….”? I wonder if it is still being sung in our Sabbath Schools. I hope we love the little children of the world as Jesus does. And not only the sweet little children, but all the people whose skin colors are different from ours. Red and yellow may no longer be politically correct ways of referring to other races. But with my Plasticographe, I used all the colors of the rainbow to illustrate God’s children and how he loves us all without distinction.

Paul wrote to the very multicultural church in Ephesus, calling them to unite as one church body. Maybe we should heed his counsel and look for unity instead of fragmentation. His words are worth considering:

 “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” Ephesians 4:3-6 NIV.

Photo: Pixabay free