“Do You Have White Shoulders?”
One day I wanted to buy my wife a gift she would really appreciate. So off to the local mall I went. Beverley loved a particular perfume called “White Shoulders.” Entering in the J.C. Penny store I walk right up to the counter and the young saleswoman turns and promptly asked with a warm smile, “can I be of assistance?” I looked her right in the eyes and said, “Yes. Do you have “White Shoulders”? The young lady was a very dark African-American. Her smile disappeared and she cocked her head slightly as she stared back at me with a questioning glance. If had she voiced her response out loud it would have been, “Did you just ask me if I had white shoulders? Oh, no you didn’t!” At this point my jaw dropped and a felt a wave a flaming heat sweep across my face. Embarrassed I began to explain with rapid stuttering replies, “I mean the…the…the… perfume called ‘White Shoulders.’ I wasn’t asking about your shoulders. I’m married. This is for my beautiful wife…she’s white. Not that your not or your shoulders.” She flashed a grin as she quickly placed upon counter three different sizes of the perfume I requested. Having paid I left as quickly as possible. Evidently when I got home my face was still red because my wife asked me if I was feeling okay. As an after thought I realized the lady at the counter was joking with me about the whole thing. She had her little fun at my expense. Not that I blame her. It was funny in retrospect.
By no means do I consider myself a racist. After all I was baptized at the “colored” congregation in Mansfield, Ohio by a Texan who preached for Hispanic congregations. I was raised in a home were racist remarks were strictly forbidden. Fortunately, I grew up without having these prejudices instilled in my young mind. Others were not as blessed. Once our congregation had a mixed race couple. His skin was vary dark and her skin very light. One Sunday morning an elderly sister in her early eighties asked to speak with me in my study. She asked me if there was anything unscriptural about the marriage. I explained that there was nothing wrong with it at all. At this point she confessed that it troubled her. She was raised in east Texas by a very devout Christian father who told her that such relationships between “colored men and white girls” was wrong in the eyes of the Lord.
This form of racism was common in the south even among congregations of New Testament Christians. I knew a minister years ago who was preaching at such a church in the deep south during the sixties. He had been working with a “colored” family in town and had invited them to Sunday morning services. The elders got wind of this and had two deacons stationed at the door to send them to another congregation on the other side of town where they would “fit in better.” The preacher’s response was to get up in the pulpit that morning and deliver a blistering sermon against racism. After services had ended and the members had cleared out, the elders called him aside and simply informed him that his services as a preacher were no longer needed at that congregation.
This racism in the New Testament church is well documented in articles found in periodicals of the past. One well-known preacher wrote, “(The negro) simply cannot compete with the whites. It is cruel and vicious to try and make him do so” (Gospel Guardian, vol. 23, p. 8). Another attempted to defend his racism.
“…I believe in the relative superiority and inferiority, respectively, of the white and black races…The amalgamation, blending and miscegenation of the two will mark the utter ruin of the nation. It will be an irretrievable ruin, with moral, economic, social, intellectual, and yes, national and international consequences ensuing in wholly irreparable harm…Why have I written as I have done? Primarily, in response to a provocation wrought by the charge that I am a White Supremist. This is one thing with which I have been charged, to which I plead guilty…This belief is not the product of prejudice, but one created and sustained by the evidence, but one existing competent to support such a conclusion” (Gospel Guardian, Vol. 23, p. 19,20).
Over the past several decades much of these racist attitudes have been eliminated from New Testament churches around the country. Furthermore laws prohibiting races from using the same drinking fountain, schools, being made to sit in the back of the bus or marrying someone of a different race have ended. This is not to say that the sin of racism is no longer a problem in America. Some has called the Sunday morning hour of worship: “the most segregated hour of the week.” Our nation went to war over the matter of abuse of a particular race in the 1860s. Yet racism continued to exist for another one hundred years. Yet, neither the Civil War or the Civil Rights Movement has removed racism from our nation. Racism is not a matter of skin, but SIN. All manner of sin will always be around as long as God allows this planet to exist. Racism is not just an opinion or a preference. It is a sin. One of the first examples is found in Numbers12:1,2: “then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman.” Miriam and Aaron challenged Moses unique position to lead Israel at least partially because he had married a woman of another race. Ethiopians were known for their dark skin. Their attitude incurred the wrath of God and “suddenly Miriam became leprous, as white as snow” (Num. 12:10). In effect God was saying: “Miriam and Aaron if you do not like the dark skin of Moses’ wife how would you like the white skin of a leper?” Truly, God hates racism. There are several scriptures that relate to this topic this:
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
“…there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11).
“But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:9).
Also note Acts 17:26 where Paul is preaching to the Athenians on Mars’ Hill. Concerning God he told them “and He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.” Modern medical science has shown that there is no difference between the blood of the various races. Another biological fact also shows the falsity of just others based on skin color. Humans possess only one skin color: brown. The pigment found in our skins cells is called melanin. The more melanin the darker the skin. Mankind is not white or yellow or black or brown or red. We are all have the same color of skin just different shades. In fact, it would make more since if people were prejudice against each other over hair colors. Whereas there is just one color of skin pigmentation there are three different hair pigments inherited by humans.
In recent years many good men and women (who are free from any prejudices against a race) have been falsely accused of racism. Even those in the Bible have been accused of this sin. What is racism? According to Oxford Online dictionaries it means “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior” and “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” However, note this last definition would cause the apostle Paul to be considered a racist. In his letter to Titus Paul quotes from the Cretan prophet Epimenides. Paul told Titus concerning the people of Crete, “one of them, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons’” (Titus 1:12). It is hard to believe this statement because Epimenides was Cretan. The point is, whatever Paul’s intentions were in quoting this, he was an inspired apostle. The Holy Spirit is not guilty of glossing over the Paul’s supposed racism.
As much as I wish it were not so, racism will always be a sin practiced in this world against one another. Just as murder, adultery, stealing, etc. are sins which will plague mankind till the end of time, so will all forms of sinful prejudices. As Christians we must set the example and speak the truth. All attitudes of racism must be prayerfully removed from our hearts and all false accusations of racism deleted from our lips. The one thing that can help accomplish these is for all men to learn to practice the second greatest commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39).
– by Daniel R. Vess
News & Notes
- Morning’s Lesson: The Battle Belongs to the Lord
- Contribution Scripture: Matthew 6:2-4
- Tonight is our monthly Singing.
- Brother Vess will be in Florida starting this evening till Thursday evening.