Unapologetically Changing Series: An Introduction

I grew up in a predominantly white suburb. I went to a predominantly white high school and then on to a predominantly white university. I was surrounded by people who looked like me and thought a lot like me. I was clueless about the richness of life that I was missing.

I was clueless about the richness of life that I was missing.

During those years I had no earthly idea how little I knew. About anything. Don’t deny it. You know what I’m talking about. I can’t believe I’m the only one who thought I knew everything about everything. It was around age 30 that the paradigm really started shifting for me.

My husband and I decided to adopt and that started a typhoon of worldview change in my life.

We adopted internationally and were required to walk through a host of transracial assignments before bringing our boys home. And I took those assignments seriously. Very much so. We had to put ourselves in the position where we were the minorities and write about how that made us feel. We had to read books, watch videos, take a class…

But the one thing they didn’t cover in any of our training was the racism our children would have to deal with growing up in this country. I naively thought America was past that. Obama was president, right? We had to be past it. It didn’t take me long after our first son came home to discover America wasn’t even close to being unified or past “it.”

And so I decided that for my boys’ sake I needed to be more educated about race in America and not in a transracial adopted family kind of way… in a “I’m the mama of two black boys in America” kind of way. And if Mama Bear isn’t ready to fight this battle with them and for them then what in the world kind of right do I have to be their mother?

There was so much I just didn’t know…

There was so much I just didn’t know…

Over the next few weeks I’m going to share a few things I’ve learned about race in America over the last five or six years. I’m going to share some books I have read that have been incredibly helpful. I will point you to some podcasts. I will share some current events that play a role in this conversation.

Most importantly I’m going to be candid. I will probably stumble over words at times. I will probably mess up some vernacular. I will most likely show my ignorance.

Make no mistake about it though, we can not fear this conversation. If our hearts are genuinely in the right place we must not be afraid of saying the wrong thing. We must learn. We must have this conversation. We must look it in its eye and do the hard work of unification. It’s important that we do.

Maybe you’re asking me why it’s important that we have these conversations, after all you don’t interact with people who look different than you that often. According to a study just released by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and The Atlantic, many Americans still don’t interact on the regular with people who are different than they.

It makes me sad to think about living my life without knowing people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, ethnicities, etc. My life is richer and my worldview has been changed by interacting with people from all walks of life.

So on my blog over the next few weeks we’re are going to have a loving conversation about racial unification in America.

I’ll leave you with this—the story of Vernon Dahmer.

Mr. Dahmer lost his life in 1966. You can read the story at the link above. But his children are still alive. His wife Ellie is still alive. America is not removed from the hatred and evil from that period of our history. It’s ramifications are still here. Emotions are still raw. And it is our job to care.

Check back in on Friday for the next post in the Unapologetically Changing series.