August 24, 2020
The Day I Realized I Am White
I clearly remember the first time I realized I was white. I was the seventh of eight children, growing up in the same town my mother had grown up outside Philadelphia. When my younger sister was born, my parents hired Belle, a woman from our town, to help take care of us. Belle had a daughter named Donna who was my age, and we would often play together while her mom worked.

One day, the circus came to town. Donna told me about a trip she was taking with her Baptist church. Her eyes lit up when she described the trip—she was going to ride on a big yellow school bus into the city and she would eat cotton candy! Our mothers agreed that I could join Donna. I remember being so happy when I climbed the big stairs of the school bus that Sunday afternoon. 

Donna and I had a wonderful time. We ate cotton candy and thrilled at the circus acrobats. Three hours after we left we climbed down those tall school bus steps, ready to tell our moms everything. When we reached the little throng of parents, I remember hearing Belle and my mom chuckling about something and I sensed it was about Donna and me. We said our goodbyes and Donna and her mother walked home to their house on Division Street. (That was the actual name of the street; as I would learn later, it was the informal division of the town into the black section and the white section). When we were in the car, I asked my mother what she and Belle were laughing about. She said they were amused when they saw us trooping down the school bus stairs after the others because I was the only white child on the school bus. 

What was an affectionate joke for our mothers was a shock for me—until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that Donna and I were different. Coupled with the unwelcome shock was a sad sense, even to my five-year-old mind, of permanent loss. That is why I still remember that day so clearly. It was when I learned about otherness—otherness based on color, and circumstance, and geography. The otherness that now sometimes determines who lives or dies when infected with coronavirus, or who doesn’t make it home when stopped by the police. What I learned that day was never unlearned. My friend Donna, with whom I had played for hours and hours, was now different to me, and that recognition of otherness could not be taken back. It was the start of a long road of separation in our lives.

That is why today I know, deep in my soul, that separateness, bigotry, and racism—explicit, implicit, unintended, banal, divisive, or dangerous—is learned, and witnessing to Christ means for white people a long, long task of unlearning. I pray that as we embark on our Sacred Ground program in the fall, we will indeed engage in what I call “blessed unlearning”—that we will recognize, more than our differences, how alike we are as children of God.

As Bishop Curry says so well in his book, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus:

“Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live, a place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive; built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace; here the love of Christ shall end divisions: All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.”

Julie Nutter
If you feel called to explore issues of race and faith in a supportive study group this fall, please consider joining Sacred Ground, an eight-session program beginning September 14 (via Zoom) at Holy Comforter. Questions? Contact the Rev. Ann Gillespie or Norma Williamson. Learn more HERE.