HOW RACISM HAS AFFECTED BLACK PEOPLE PSYCHOLOGICALLY- Church Today interview

CT: How do you think that backdrop of
racism affects young black people
psychologically? Does it affect your sense
of belonging or self-esteem?

Ben: First of all, we need to define what
racism is and isn’t. If you look at racism as
just name-calling then you can deal with it
as: ‘that person doesn’t like me because of
the colour of my skin’ and ‘I don’t like you
because of something about you.’

But if you look at racism as a structural
and systemic issue – which actually is
about power – then you see that for years,
systems and institutions have benefitted
from the majority culture exploiting the
minority culture, and that is something
much deeper and much more concerning.

This is disproportionately played out
against people of colour and in all walks of
life – in the educational system, the criminal
justice system, the stop and search
statistics, management positions, in the
police and unfortunately in the Church.

When you realise that there is this
structural, systemic and insitutional racism,
something that you can’t always see but
can feel, then that can have an impact. If
you are a young black boy or girl, even if
someone doesnt use the ‘N’ word directly
at you, you will hit a glass ceiling or a
locked door at some point and experience
racism. And you will see discrimination in a
way where you can’t quite work it out, but
you know it’s there.

For some younger black people now, they
might not have experienced some of the
overt racism I experienced growing up in
the 90s, and that’s a good thing. But the
question now is: how do we break through
to the next level? How do we get into those
leadership positions? How do we know that
we’re not being discriminated against by
institutions?

I think that kind of racism is still present
and therefore I think, psychologically, it can
cause problems, including impacting on
your confidence and second-guessing
yourself. It can even induce feelings of
anxiety because in some way you can feel
like you are battling against this wall and
you can’t quite work out where exactly it
comes from but you know it’s there.

I want my book to give black people in that
situation the language to articulate what
they are experiencing and that includes
within the Church. The Church should be a
place of unity, hope and integration – not
just diversity but integration and inclusion.
And as Christians, we need to be in a
position where we can have these
conversations and give black people the
tools to explain and express what they’re
going through without the fear of being
called aggressive or of having a chip on
their shoulder – which we sometimes get
when we bring up these conversations.

CT: Tell me more about your experience of
growing up in a white-majority church?
Was there any tension there?

Ben: The church I grew up in was white-
majority. I think our family was the only
black family there and I am now one of the
pastors of a church in New Cross London
that is 70% white. So, for 40 years I have
experienced white-majority church culture
and I suppose the tension in that is that,
with all the best will in the world, there are
these moments when you come up against
that wall I was speaking about earlier.

At times, the black people in my churches
have just felt ‘outside’ of church
community or have at times felt ‘othered’
or experienced what’s known as
‘microaggressions’ – a term used for brief
and commonplace daily verbal,
behavioural, or environmental indignities,
whether intentional or unintentional, that
communicate hostile, derogatory, or
negative prejudicial slights and insults
toward any group, particularly culturally
marginalized groups – the comments that
can be a bit offensive and make us feel
uncomfortable or suddenly make us
question what that person actually thinks
of us.

When ‘othering’ builds up, you start to ask
the question: ‘Am I really welcome here?’
You might be experiencing
microaggressions multiple times
throughout the week at work and if you are,
then the last place you want to experience
that is in your church – the very place
where God says in Revelation that there
will be every tribe and every tongue
worshipping together. Maybe in reality, it’s
not every tribe and every tongue.

Someone could just say, ‘Well, that’s your
view as a person of colour.’ But let’s look
at the leadership representation and you
will see that wall again. Why do we not see
people of colour in the worship leadership
or the pastor or elder positions?

I’m still not seeing a fair representation of
what I look like in the top positions of the
Church. That all starts to make you think:
‘is this the right place for me?’ ‘Do they
really care?’

And if we look at what pastors are
preaching from the pulpit, are they really
addressing the things that really directly
impact my community and the things that I
as, a black person, am worried about?
For example, we know that hate crime has
gone up around 70% since the Brexit
referendum and that this is more likely to
affect people of colour. Well, what does the
Bible say about justice and immigration? I
want to know how I can contextualise the
Gospel to empower the minority and if I’m
not hearing those conversations – in
addition to the lack of representation in the
church leadership and the ‘othering’ – then I
start to think: ‘is this the right place for
me?’ ‘Do you, the majority culture, care
about what I am dealing with?’

And that’s before we even talk about the
Church’s complicity in the transatlantic
slave trade, which for some of my non-
Christian friends who are people of colour,
is one of the reasons they say they’re not
going anywhere near a church: ‘We’re not
going there because you guys are still
worshipping a white Jesus.’