Jemar Tisby’s presentation on his new book, “The Color of Compromise,” forces the church to review its history around racism
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) hosted an event on Thursday with author and public speaker Jemar Tisby. The event was named after Tisby’s book, “The Color of Compromise,” which discusses the church’s problematic stance on racism throughout U.S. history.
According to Tisby, the American church has always been complacent in racism. This complacency is noticeable throughout slavery and lynchings, which were justified under a Christian society. In modern times, this complacency can be seen within the Black Lives Matter movement, which is a continuation of the civil rights movement led by people like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tisby argued that while overt acts of violent racial terrorism exist, such acts could only occur in a society that is complacent to racism. By refusing to acknowledge the crimes against Black people, or to actively seek reparations for descendants of slaves, Tisby said the church is still complicit in racism which oppresses people to this day.
“Complicity gets to the idea that even though you may not be the one intentionally or specifically perpetrating the crime or the act of racial terrorism or racism, your silence, your apathy, your pacivity creates an environment where those things can occur,” Tisby said.
Although the name of his book is “The Color of Compromise,” Tisby said there are actually three symbolic colors that represent this issue: green, white and red. Green is representative of the greed that was the catalyst for slavery. White represents white supremacy which was used to justify the abuse of people of color. Red stands for the violence and bloodshed that came from the previous two issues.
While these issues are deeply rooted in America’s past, Tisby said they are also noticeable in our present world. The concept of race, for instance, is one that has oppressed every group in the US, according to Tisby. This includes white people who had to give up their ethnic identities such as Russian, French, German or Italian, for a favored “white” narrative which drained them of culture, making everyone the same. In this way, Tisby said, the same principles that stripped diverse dark-skinned people to “black” also hindered the growth and culture of complex white people.
“In so many communities, that connection to their ethnic and national heritage got cut off so you didn’t have the foods, you didn’t have the traditions, you didn’t have the culture, you didn’t have the clothes, you didn’t have the language — you traded all that in for ‘whiteness,’” he said.
Tisby said one way modern white Christians could dismantle social constructs of race is by reclaiming their native culture, embracing diversity and letting go of their “white” identity that has been embraced as a social ideal.
“The problem is, ‘whiteness’ can only exist in contradistinction to ‘blackness,’” Tisby said. “So what happens is when you embrace ‘whiteness,’ even unintentionally, what you’re doing is embracing anti-blackness as well.”
The lecture ended with a question and answer session between Tisby and the audience. Many audience members were disturbed by the stories of lynchings, and how racial terrorist groups like the KKK used the Bible to justify their violent actions. Among the most popular lines of question was what the church could do to fix their issue with racism moving forward.
Tisby said there were many ways the church could help its Black brothers and sisters, including advocating for monetary reparations that would help Black men and women secure better education and housing, hiring diversely in clusters instead of one or two people at a time, and educating themselves by attending history museums and reading books about the issue.
While Tisby emphasized the importance of this advice, he added that the only way the church will change is if it wants to change.
“I don’t think we have a ‘how to’ problem, I think we have a ‘want to’ problem,” Tisby said. “If I gave you 30 seconds to write down a series of anti-racist actions, I bet you could do it. You would say things like, ‘Well, we need to diversify our leadership, we need to offer financial reparations and we need to give scholarships and we need to look at this issue of gentrification.’ You could name many, many, many actions you could take. The question is: Why aren’t we doing it?”
More than half of attendees were faculty and staff, although several students also attended. English professor Patricia Brown compared Tisby’s lecture to that given by Derryck Green in the Honors College earlier in the week, which advised people to “move beyond race.”
“I thought this was a refreshing talk given the very disturbing talk that was on campus on Tuesday by Derryck Green,” Brown said. “… This was a stark contrast to that. This was more realistic and accurate, understanding of race and race relations.”
Freshman clinical psychology major Jonnathan Gomez was among the most engaged attendees, taking notes of Tisby’s speech throughout the hour. Gomez reflected on his experience with race and how it connected to Tisby’s lecture.
“It made me look at how a Black man’s perspective is different compared to mine — because, me, I’m Mexican. I’m kind of stuck in the middle,” Gomez said. “I don’t have that form of direct experience that someone from a Black culture might experience in a society like this. So I’m kind of hidden from all the negativity, so it opened my eyes to new perspectives.”
In addition to being an author, Tisby is also the president of The Witness, a black Christian collective that focuses on issues of religion and race, among other issues. He is also a cohost of the “Pass The Mic” podcast.
Tisby attended other events on campus throughout the week, including Friday morning chapel, where he spoke of racism and lamentations in the church.