Playing Race Cards in the Church

This past weekend I took fifteen high school and young adult students to a Word of Life basketball tournament in the rural town of North Branch, Michigan, on the east side of the state. Besides our students, only one other team out of thirty-eight was comprised of mostly African-American players. By far, both our teams had the most talent, but anger won out causing many of our students to lose the mental aspect of the game. Consequently, neither team made it to the finals.

In the last game, one of my students named Ed loudly blamed his skin color as the reason for the ref calling so many fouls on him. For whatever reason, throughout the tournament our teams had twice as many fouls called against us than against any other team. Immediately, several white people from the audience vocally berated him for his comment. One man even lashed out at him, calling him “boy,” a major cultural taboo for Caucasians interacting with African-Americans. Even when I intervened, they defended their actions, not heeding to my appeal. Finally, in order to silence them, I strongly warned them to back off my player. At the same time, I did not let Ed off the hook. I pulled him out of the game and scolded him for playing the race card no matter how unfair it seemed. After the game, I found out that the white folks weren’t the only ones who would not listen. Several of my students were so emotionally rattled that neither Davien nor I could help them work through this issue until a few days ago.

By the way, I am not going to cry foul play for what happened in North Branch. My students played lousy defense and lost their heads when things didn’t go their way. When they surrendered their mental toughness, it was all over for them. Moreover, this situation could have been a character-building opportunity for them. What a chance for our students to overcome an enormous obstacle, even when it seems as if everything was against them!

Nevertheless, now that I’ve had a chance to mull over this situation, I wonder how my fellow Caucasians would have felt if the roles were reversed. What if every referee, every Word of Life leader, and parent in the entire tournament was black? What if only three teams playing were Caucasian, thirty-five teams were African-American, while the majority of calls made by the referees favored the African-American teams? Might the white players feel the same way? Out of frustration, would one of their players have “played the race card” when everything seemed overwhelmingly stacked against them? I guarantee they would be just as acute to the situation as were my students.

This has also caused me to pondor extensively about how the early church handled ethnically charged conflicts such as this. How the Greek-speaking people complained that their widows were being ignored by the majority culture within the church. How the church responded by appointing seven godly Greek-speaking deacons to oversee their feeding program so that the elders could devote their time to prayer and the preaching and teaching of God’s word. How their redemptive awareness and sacrificial love for one another became the catalyst for addressing the problem, rather than ignoring the issue at hand. How maybe if the WOLifers want a diverse group to preach the gospel to, building relationships with urban ministries, recruiting a few godly people of color to referee games or as the special speaker might be a starting point for including groups such as ours.

In response, I will be shooting off an e-mail to the WOLifer missionary who organized the event. Their leaders showed an extraordinary amount of love and patience with our groups so I am cautiously optimistic that they will be receptive to any ideas we may bring to the table. As we work to resolve certain racial issues, I pray that no one in the future will feel the need to stoop down to the world’s standards and play the race card.