evangelicals

White Privilege or Just Privilege?

~ brandon ~ Leave a comment

Much has been said lately about white privilege. The rise in racial tensions brought about the revelation that WASPs have an invisible advantage over minorities. When I hear this I immediately think of some questions from my own life:

  • Was it privilege to grow up in a converted attic?
  • Was it privilege that I couldn’t afford to go away to college so I stayed home, worked, and earned a general studies degree at a community college?
  • Was it privilege that my wife and I both worked while I earned a Master’s degree?
  • Was it privilege when my parents went bankrupt starting their own business?
  • Was it privilege when that business survived through hard work and determination?
  • Was it privilege when my wife’s Popou came to the US with nothing in the 1930s?
  • Was it privilege when my father-in-law put food on the table by shoveling coal into blast furnaces at U.S. Steel?
  • Is it privilege that I work three jobs to feed my kids?
  • Is it privilege that making ends meet includes no date nights, rare family outings and even rarer vacations?

While privilege of various kinds does exist, the privilege being attacked by some evangelicals today isn’t actually white privilege. It is privilege that has more to do with socio-economic factors than it does with the color of one’s skin. If we are ever to put race problems behind us, it may be wiser to stop attributing every difference to race and look for other, plausible explanations for differing outcomes.

Immigration

~ brandon ~ Leave a comment

We have 1st generation immigrants in our congregation.  They came, legally, from Mexico.  As I’ve gotten to know them, they have little respect for illegal immigration.

I know a Pastor in LA, an immigrant himself.  He’s shared with me the frustration he feels when he preaches in english (to a hispanic congregation) and when he suggests illegal immigration doesn’t follow the Christian ethic.  He’s shared the hostility he’s experienced from other immigrant Pastors who don’t agree with his convictions on legal immigration and assimilation.

Today I read this.  I have to say, I don’t get it.  To support amnesty for illegal immigrants (regardless of their home of origin) seems to be rewarding criminal behavior.  I know the arguments, I just think they all ignore this clear concept:  if you reward bad behavior, you get more of it.  This is precisely what has happened.  In the 1980’s Pres Reagan granted amnesty to illegal immigrants.  Now we’re discussing doing it again.  So, apparently, our immigration laws are meaningless.  Sneak in, keep your head down, and eventually you’ll be forgiven.

I wonder if my immigrant friends are the only legal immigrants who don’t understand this push to reward illegal immigration.  I wonder if other legal immigrants are asking themselves what the point of following the rules was.

Of course, as CNN’s article makes clear.  Even for the Evangelicals, it is not really about love–it’s about politics.

But evangelical leaders are also working to convince Republicans that the party will lose Hispanic voters — a fast-growing bloc — if they take a strident line on immigration.

The Southern Baptist Convention‘s Land said that Hispanics, like non-Hispanic white evangelicals, generally take a conservative approach to social issues like abortion and gay marriage, but that they often vote for Democrats because of the immigration issue.