Fwd: This wouldn't happen in a rich, white community

Amen

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Race Is in the Air We Breathe and the Water We Drink by Jim Wallis How would you feel if you realized your children's water was being poisoned, and your government didn't seem to care? That's the story of the parents of 8,000 mostly poor and black children in Flint, Mich., (which means most all of the children in urban Flint) that has finally hit our media front pages. The evening news I am watching as I write warns the parents of Flint not to bathe their young children in city water. But the fact that most Americans realize this would never happen in affluent white Michigan suburbs (or any other white affluent communities in our country), still doesn't penetrate our very souls. This fundamental contrast between black and white experiences in Michigan, just north of my home town of Detroit, points to the structural racism that is still the primary moral contradiction of American life. The news about Flint is just the most recent consequence of America's Original Sin, the title of the new book we have just launched. The poisoning of the majority-black population of the city is a product of a system failing the people of Flint on many levels over a long period of time. To really start unpacking the historical roots of the crisis, you have to go back to slavery itself, which debased the humanity and devalued the lives of black people from well before our nation's founding; followed by the Jim Crow era of legal segregation, discrimination, and violence against black Americans, which resulted in early 20th century migrations of black people from the segregated south to urban manufacturing centers of the northern United States. When they got there, they found cities without legal segregation, yet with de facto segregation and discrimination alive and well in both white attitudes and systems. The arrival and growth of black populations in northern cities was followed shortly thereafter by white flight to the suburbs, aided by discriminatory housing policies that effectively prevented the vast majority of black people from joining them and blocked the financing of black homes even in the cities. As manufacturing jobs left cities like Detroit and Flint over the years, unemployment soared, property values declined, and the people who remained found themselves trapped in poverty in cities whose tax revenue was eclipsed by the services these cities are responsible for providing for their citizens. The result? Drastically inferior employment prospects, inferior education, both leading to higher crime, and inferior health outcomes for people of color in many urban centers across the country. Racial ghettos, it must be said and understood, have never been an accident, but are the results of public policy. This is a necessarily short but accurate explanation for a very complex confluence of systems that together represent structural racism. In my new book, I explain in greater depth how some of this came to be, the history behind it, and the moral challenge it presents especially to people of faith.  READ THE FULL ARTICLE Forward Share Comment ADVERTISEMENT   OUR LATEST Dr. Larycia Hawkins on the 'Inquisition' at Wheaton and Why She Wants to Stay (by Sandi Villarreal) "I think that on very hard issues and questions, we all often want certainty. But that's not the purpose of the Christian liberal arts — it's to think through and live in the tension of very difficult questions, including theological questions." 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ADVERTISEMENT   FROM THE MAGAZINE Can You Hear It? (by Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble) Hip-hop, spoken word, and the voice of prophetic ethics.   RESOURCES America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America  Racism is truly our nation's original sin. Jim Wallis' newest book offers a prophetic and deeply personal call to action in overcoming the racism so ingrained in American society. He speaks candidly to Christians — particularly white Christians — urging them to cross a new bridge toward racial justice and healing. ORDER NOW! ADVERTISEMENTS Are you an author? Reach our loyal readership by advertising in Sojourners magazine. Click the link above to learn more about this special, cost-effective advertising opportunity. Turn this moment into a movement. Support Sojourners today! The world, more than ever, needs leaders changing the conversation and providing a new way forward. 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