American culture today isn't what it used to be. In many ways we have made great strides, but in others we have taken major steps back. We now live in a society where even the hint of a racially charged statement will get you a week's worth of slander across every media outlet. We swapped inclusiveness for "equality." Rather than respecting our differences and allowing them to be a part of our lives and our interactions, we have become a society that maligns anyone who says anything that can be misconstrued as racially ambiguous. A great example of our society's incessant attacking is what has happened the past couple days with Steven Adams.
Steven Adams is the starting center for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Steven is 22 and he grew up in New Zealand. He is the youngest of 18 brothers and sisters, and his father passed away in 2006. After their game last Monday, he was asked about the difficulty in guarding Steph Curry and Klay Thompson (Two black guards from Golden State).
This was his response:
Later that night Steven Adams apologized for his answer, calling what he said a "poor choice of words". Adams stressed the differences between American language and culture with New Zealand, "I'm assimilating mate, still trying to figure out the boundaries. But I definitely overstepped them tonight." Within minutes of the interview reactions to Steven Adam's comments were all over Twitter, Facebook, and the sporting news outlets, a couple of which are shown below.
The response from much of the media (which is majority white) followed the same pattern. Getting angry at Adams for offending African-Americans. The amazing thing is the majority of people on twitter accusing Adams of responding were not African-American. Many of the African-American responses that I found look like the ones shown below.
The black community actually didn't really show much anger. In fact, they were speaking out saying Adam's comments really weren't offensive at all, knowing he is a foreigner still adjusting to American undertones and that in New Zealand that comment would not have been taken as racially charged. Another thing to point out is nearly every black sports commentator, from Shannon Sharpe to Michael Wilbon, also gave Adams a pass for what he said.
To stress the difference in how New Zealanders use English versus how Americans use it, here is a commercial featuring Steven Adams that has become quite popular during the past season.
While the commercial is just pure gold, it illustrates a great point that we tend to miss. Words means different things to different people at different times. I don't mean to speak as a postmodern, meaning that the color red is blue today just because I say it is, but that many of the things we say have different connotations to people based on upbringing, heritage, and experience. I bet the word "monkey" has taken on a whole new meaning for Adams after today.
We as people are nearing the dangerous cliff where we are unable to converse about any difficult topics because we cannot empathize. It is simple as we cannot hear because we do not listen. Our views can't change or grow because the only opinion we take in is our own. Take this Fox News interview, although any interview from them, CNN, ABC, really any news outlet would do.
Our society's difficulty in differentiating between racism, real "don't hire him because he's the child of a slave or the product of white trash" racism, with the "oh my goodness I need my safe space" 'racism' of today comes from a deeper problem of not being able to process our differences. We see it everywhere.
Without the ability to grow it will be impossible for us to move forward as a people. The second greatest commandment in all of Scripture is to love your neighbor as yourself. The problem with society is the church is called to be the example, the most unified of all people, but that is far from the case.
As Lecrae said, "The most segregated time of day is Sunday service." The rest of the world looks at the church and sees black churches, white churches, even non-denominational, the list goes on and on! We look no different from anything else! Christians are called to live as one body, Christ's body, here on earth until he returns. How can a hand function if it refuses to work with the rest of the arm? How can someone run if their feet refuse to carry the weight?
You want to fix racism? You want love to really win? Then go help a friend in need. Go serve at a homeless shelter. Go listen to someone you don't agree with. Before you can treat your neighbor as yourself, you have to see your neighbor as yourself.
You want change? Then be it.
