We MUST Have the Conversation

In the early days of America, there was a conversation happening. There were Founding Fathers who were against slavery and did not think it was wise to start the country while it was legal to own humans. Sadly, the country was split on this and even though they spoke their mind, a compromise was made and they decided to move forward with creating our country while my ancestors remained enslaved. A country that boasts of freedom and that “all men are created equal” chose to create a country that did not give freedom to all human beings. Somehow, even the most noble founder who did see some value in the lives of the African captive, did not value their lives enough to refuse to settle for having a country where the abomination of human chattle slavery could exist.

The founding documents were written in such a way that reveals a hope that maybe the conversation would continue and eventually this land of the free would make this right. I see these documents as open-ended. I imagine George Washington and others thinking through the immoral nature of holding slaves, maybe mentioning as they sighed, “So what are gonna do with these slaves?” and just kind of shrugging their shoulders while they procrastinated doing anything about it. It would take hundreds of years and thousands of lives lost before freedom would come. Our country literally had to rip the lives of the captive out of the south’s cold dead hands. The Civil War was probably the bloodiest war our country has ever seen. Even those who fought on the side of the Union weren’t necessarily all abolitionists. Those who fought for the Union saw a much bigger picture that involved salvaging the economic decline of the country, so ending slavery was a way to sort of “cut its losses.” Our country did not just fight to end slavery. Evidence of this, is that even after the war was won, it would take another couple of years to free every captive. After that was done, it would take about another 100 years to end Jim Crow, so that Black people could have some form of equal treatment. When Lincoln tried to engage in a conversation about what to do with the newly freed people, John Wilkes Boothe sat in the audience listening and then went on to plan his assassination. MLK tried to have the conversation and he was assassinated, along with Medgar Evers and Fred Hampton and the list goes on. Every time anyone tries to have this hard conversation about what to do with the race problem, they are murdered, jailed, or labeled as an enemy of the country and dismissed. Now in 2023, our country is still struggling with having the conversation.

The reason why we are still struggling is because we are making the same mistake that we keep doing over and over and over again. We put off the conversation, like the Founders did and here we are, still fussing about the same thing. We silence the conversation. We silence those seeking to facilitate the conversation. Why are we so afraid to have this conversation? The church especially struggles. Instead of just having the conversation, we conjure up every Black person we can find who validates why we should not have the conversation. “See look that Black pastor who hates CRT thinks we shouldn’t have the conversation! So why are Black people still fussing!?” We spend all of this energy trying to prove why we shouldn’t listen to Ibram X. Kendi, instead of just trying to find a Biblical way to just “come and reason together.” We demonize every person who tries to have the conversation as marxist, communist, socialist, woke, or whatever. Refusing this conversation is not saving our country. It is not preserving our sacred churches. It is not treating the cancers of hate, bitterness, and division that continue to fester in our church communities. Resisting the conversation is not working.

Conversation is an instinct breathed into us when God breathed into us the breath of life. He started the world by having conversations with Adam and Eve. The world was divided when we stopped being able to talk to one another at Babel. Even though God allowed that, it is not his desire for his people to be divided. We have a common literacy founded in the Holy Scriptures that should be able to bind us together by His love and that gives us the tools we need to have this conversation that our Founders refused to have. Even though your favorite preacher or politician is telling you to REFUSE to have this conversation and to REFUSE to listen to people of color who are sincerely crying out in church communities to have this conversation, they are wrong and they are afraid. The Founders were afraid to have this conversation, because they worried that they wouldn’t get most of the states/provinces to sign off on that first primitive Constitution. Process that for a minute. They were literally afraid to start a free country because not everyone in the country really believed all people should be free. Whew….just thinking about that hurts my soul. Seeing how tragic the Civil War was, made America afraid to stand up against Andrew Johnson and others who sought to keep America in a state of oppression and division, especially after seeing Lincoln murdered for…trying to have the conversation. The fear of death, the fear of NOT being supreme, the fear of somehow losing your place as the center of this country and the world….so many fears insight a war against having the conversation.

I especially feel this fear and it grieves my heart. I think of the Society for Classical Learning and how right after George Floyd’s murder, they invited me, Angel Parham, Aaron Howard and others to HAVE THE CONVERSATION. I still am moved by the beautiful time that I had. I met Eric Cook and Keith Nix and others, men of God that I felt in my heart were truly Godly and genuine people. We were trying to carefully move together in fellowship to have this conversation. You could fear the trepidation, but I honestly felt the love. I felt like together we could actually carefully, lovingly, BIBLICALLY have this conversation FINALLY. The following year, I noticed a slight shift or reticence, but still we were able to have the conversation. Me and Angel released our book. We were interviewed on the stage thanks to Classical Academic Press, but this time there was no real space where all of our diverse voices (Black, White, etc.) could engage. Each year after, the space became less open to having the conversation. Eventually, that email I would get from Eric stopped. I was not invited to the planning meetings. I emailed seeking to understand and was told “We are going in a different direction…” That warm space where Keith Nix, a couple who had created a new way of having the conversation that caused us to discuss ethnicity instead of race, Aaron Howard, myself, Angel and others was no more. There were no real spaces where diverse voices could play an integral role in facilitating this conversation. Before long, White school leaders who serve diverse communities were chosen to have this conversation and the only way I was welcomed to present is if a White male intereviewed me on the stage. I was not welcomed to speak without that supervision or without being segregated to help someone who was asked to lead a pre-conference session (always a White male who had started a school in a diverse community). I do not believe this shift happened out of malice or even racism. I actually believe that the leaders of SCL still want to have the conversation and they want to invite people of color to help lead that effort (and the effort should be joint), but like the Founders feared losing the country, maybe the leaders of SCL feared losing the organization. So history repeats itself. Fear set in. A desire to self-preserve took precedence. The SCL that was progressing forward shifted and chose to, like the founders, resist really bringing change by having the conversation. Maybe they heard I was a marxist or socialist or secretely favors CRT and chose to believe that instead of answering the emails or workshop proposals I have sent. Maybe there was a secret meeting about “What do we do about this conversation and Anika?” And they shrugged their shoulders and chose to procrastinate for now, because the work of classical education is so much more important than having this conversation. The founders thought eventually things would just work themselves out. Maybe they too think this will happen. My prayer is that God would give our leaders courage. I know it is hard and it is scary. I don’t label people as racist for refusing to have the conversation, because man looks at the outward appearance and God looks at the heart. Sometimes Black people think we are the only ones who struggle, but White people do too. History has also shown us that Whites who chose to have the conversation often experienced a consequence for taking that stance. I am sensitive to that. Racism continues to hurt and hold all of us captive…if we let it. The shutting down of the conversation is a strong force that has been growing in strength, like some monster from the depths of hades since 1776 (or maybe a little before). I pray for courage for our leaders and I continue to love all as I pray and move forward with having the conversation alone with whoever is willing to engage.

Frederick Douglass believed that the conversation was the only way forward and Martin Luther King did too, because they understood that our democracy was created through people with differing perspectives, having a conversation. When I study the history of racial healing in America, those that were brave enough to facilitate the conversation, were the most successful at bringing lasting change. The church can lead this effort. We have everything we need found in the Word of God. In the beginning was the WORD. God started the world through SPEAKING. He is the GREAT CONVERSATIONALIST. If the church could effectively and BIBLICALLY have this conversation, maybe we would heal. Maybe through us having this conversation, grounded in the Word of God, we can be a model for the world on how to have this conversation. Then maybe we would heal. We can trace from the founding until now that it is impossible to suppress the conversation, its desire to exist is comparable, or maybe stronger than the desire to suppress it. It cries out for all of us to engage with it, and continues to fight through every century that we resist its call to come and engage. No matter how much your pastor, favorite politician, school leader, spiritual advisor or whoever tries to stifle the conversation it will continue to cry out and until we engage, our churches will not heal and neither will America.