VCC Magazine Spring 2019

Naming Our Past, and Claiming Our Future A Hope For Racial Reconciliation In Virginia By Justin Earley

ago became a more hidden racism of urban legal policies—ones that we still wrestle with today. Second, we can confess. When it comes to either faith or psychology, we tend to understand the power of naming past wrongs. Trauma cannot be understood and healed until it is spoken. Whether participating in a slave trail walk or by reading and sharing articles like this, we can and should publicly name and confess our past. Claiming Our Future

I would wager that very few of us—regardless of race—can boast of perfect pasts, absolutely clean of racial slur, insensitive remark, or ill- conceived comedy. Third, we can recommit ourselves to individual and national “sanctification” as a process of growth and not of purification by purging. Who of us can cast the first stone? This story first appeared on Mark Biddle’s blog, “Mostly on the Bible,” at markebiddle.com . He has a dictate in theology, and is a teacher, a minister, and the author of seven books. Practically, we can start with learning. Consider reading Brian Stevenson’s Just Mercy , a powerful tapestry of stories detailing the racial problems in our criminal justice system. Consider joining the Virginians for Reconciliation in reading the Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, to better understand how the outright racism of centuries Continued from previous page Four hundred years ago a ship landed in Jamestown, Virginia, marking the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in present-day America. Three hundred and seventy-one years later, in 1990, Virginia would become the first state to elect an African American governor, Douglas Wilder. By 1860, Richmond, Virginia had become the epicenter of the domestic slave trade. Forty-two years later, Richmond would also become the home to the first African-American woman to charter a bank in the United States—Maggie Walker. William Faulkner once wrote that the past is never dead—  it’s not even past. In this sense, to be a Virginian means to live with a complicated, living history. We have been instrumental in the systematic oppression of human beings, but we have also been—and can continue to be—a place of hope for a new future. I am a Virginian, and I am also someone who hopes that by naming this past, we can claim a different future. This is why I joined theVirginians for Reconciliation, a volunteer citizen group committed to confronting Virginia’s past racism, and creating a future of racial reconciliation. As our Commonwealth approaches the 400th anniversary of bringing African slaves to American soil, I invite you to consider how we can be courageous about naming our past and be even more courageous about claiming a new future. Naming Our Past First, in order to pursue racial reconciliation in Virginia, we must look our history straight in the face, and name it. There is a false narrative that imagines we can live a history-less future. As if it was possible to erase history’s effects by ignoring. The only problem with this is that it’s completely impossible. Like a cancer hidden in the body, ignoring history is to allow it to take over, and destroy the future too. To be a body politic is to be a body. We are connected to each other whether we like that or not. Our history is not all of who we are, but it is a fundamental part of it. The Virginia we have today is a product of its past—for good and for bad. The evils of the institutions of slavery and racism live on in our own systems. How else is it that we end up with a place where blacks represent 19% of Virginia’s population, but 58% of the incarcerated population? How else do we end up with black children having a 20% lower pass rate on standards of learning tests than white children in the same places? I do not believe that a Virginia which serves only some of its citizens is a Virginia worth our pride, or worth perpetuating. Fortunately, we do not have to. It is both possible, and necessary, that we confront our past in order to change our future. What We Can Do

But we cannot stop there. It is one thing to voice a critique of our history, it is another to voice a hope for our future. I suggest Virginia must give full voice to both. When we only critique the past, we enter into a deformed version of racial reconciliation that collapses into national self- loathing. This is where we endlessly condemn each other for not understanding enough but have no words of hope for future change. We become collectively afraid to speak, for fear we will not be culturally sensitive enough. Just as we can be paralyzed by ignoring the impact of our history, we can be equally paralyzed by failing to imagine possible futures. And just as it takes courage to collectively name our past, it takes even more to claim a new future. Imagine a Virginia that was not just the origin of America’s legacy of slavery—but also a pioneer of racial reconciliation. What if the capital of the Confederacy became the capital of criminal justice reform? What if the epicenter of the slave trade became the model of education for all children? What if the history that haunts Virginia at the same time makes us uniquely situated to provide a way forward for our nation? What We Can Do To start, we strive to create a culture of forgiveness. I would suggest that at the heart of our criminal justice system, we need a hope of rehabilitation so that a wrong does not condemn you forever. We should also offer the same thing to each other in public dialogue. Many of us—if not all of us—have racist legacies in our past. There are things we have said or done or supported that were awful. But after confession must come forgiveness. We get nowhere from crucifying each other over and over. Both our criminal justice system and our pubic ethic needs to hold out practices of restoration. Second, we can practice crossing local divides. For some people I know, this has meant picking a neighborhood or school accordingly. For others, that has meant being involved in a volunteer cause that puts us in diverse settings. We can all cross small lines, and when done collectively, that is no longer a small thing. Becoming Virginians The capacity to hold a deep critique and a deep hope is what it means to be fully human. It is also what we need to be fullyVirginian. We need to collectively shoulder the burden of our past. But we can also carry it into a new future. Both of these are possible—and both are the task of racial reconciliation in Virginia. Justin Whitmel Earley is a business lawyer, speaker and author who lives in Richmond. His book, The Common Rule, Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction , is available through InterVarsity Press ( www.thecommonrule.org ).

V

V

V irginia C apitol C onnections , S pring 2019

16