Religion – Page 35 – Warren Throckmorton

Tony Evans, White Privilege, and the Two World Policy

Tony Evans Interview — Screen capture from Dallas Theological Seminary interview

Tony Evans raised eyebrows several weeks ago when he said the African-American family was “a lot stronger” during slavery than now. He later issued a statement saying “slavery was “ungodly, unrighteous, and unbiblical.” However, he maintained that Black families today have “lost some of our unity” in contrast to Black unity during slavery. While we disagree about the stronger slave family, I appreciated Evans’ efforts to address his earlier remarks.
Evans had other things to say in that Dallas Theological Seminary interview. Although I appreciated the fact that the conversation was happening at all, I have to take issue with something else that Evans taught in the interview. Talking about African-Americans adapting to “the White world,” Evans said:

It’s not an equitable adaption because it’s not the same situation. And so that’s just a reality. Now you can fight about it but that’s the way it is. And since that’s the way it is we need to learn spiritual truth that enables us to do that and not fight against that reality. That becomes a growth opportunity for both sides.

With this quote and in the rest of this segment, Evans provided a pretty good description of White privilege. Begin watching at 14:16 into the video:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/KyBrnK_c1O0?t=14m15s[/youtube]
Transcript (from Dallas Theological Seminary’s page):

Dr. Evans: Well you do have to fight against it because you are – and a lot of times swimming upstream against background history, what your mother and daddy taught you, what your experiences have been, if you had negative experiences with a minority and you’re Anglo, that’s gonna color that. You know so and we also have to understand there’s a real reality here and that is African-Americans have to function in a White world. You know, your work is going to typically be in that world and you have to, you don’t have a choice. You have to do business in that world.
So but the Anglo world rarely has to function in an African-American context. It does it because it chooses to. African-Americans do it because you have to. And that dynamic colors a lot because Anglos are much less acquainted with my world. I’m much more acquainted with their world because I have to be. And therefore that colors the perspective and that colors who the power brokers are because you know, for my ministries to survive I have to be heavily dependent in our national ministry on stations that I don’t own and have limited influence in, and for people I need to engage them in a way that doesn’t so offend them that they’re not willing to support me even though I’m African-American because that is the world in which we live. So you always as an African-American dancing a little bit.
Dr. Bock: You’re negotiating with a majority culture.
Dr. Evans: You’re negotiating with a major – now for other African-Americans who are offended by that and some are offended by that and I get often called an Uncle Tom. Well you know the question is do I want to stay where you want me to be or do I want to stay where God has called me to be? And to do that you do have to negotiate without compromising truth or principle.
Dr. Bock: Yeah you know it’s interesting. Most or many Anglos I think who live in our culture don’t understand what it is to be in a minority culture. I will say there are pockets where this can happen. And that is if you – as my children did. My children went – we chose to put our children in public school. They were a minority at Hillcrest High School here in Dallas. I mean they were, there were like 170 languages, there was only a 12 percent, I think it was 12 percent Anglo population in the school.
Everyone else was either from Latin America or they were African-American or they were from another foreign country. It was a real mix. And my kids got the experience. I actually thought it was a terrific experience for them of what it was like to be in a minority, what it was like for everyone around you to be different. My equivalent of that experience was when we moved to Germany.
We moved to Germany I didn’t have the language, or at least not very well. I mean I could order food and do some, but didn’t really have the language. I would go to a PTA meeting where our kids were in schools in the German schools and be struggling to get the language. I knew what it was like to be Hispanic in an American PTA meeting and not really know English. You know I experienced what that’s like.
And there is a negotiating is also a word but there’s also a coping that you have to go through. There’s adjustments about here you have all these thoughts in your head and what you’re thinking but you’re not able to express it and connect with people in the midst of it, that kind of thing. And you realize you’re on a different page and you’re coming from a different place and all that goes into – there’s a frustration with not being able to really show who you are in the midst of some of this.
Dr. Evans: Absolutely. You have to adapt. People have to adapt all the time to different scenarios. The difference is that because African-Americans have to be in the White world and therefore have to adapt, and Whites don’t have to be in the Black world and therefore don’t have to adapt, the adaption is not equal.
Dr. Bock: That’s right.
Dr. Evans: It’s not an equitable adaption because it’s not the same situation. And so that’s just a reality. Now you can fight about it but that’s the way it is. And since that’s the way it is we need to learn spiritual truth that enables us to do that and not fight against that reality. That becomes a growth opportunity for both sides.

I agree with Evans that White privilege exists, but I disagree with him when he says we should “not fight against that reality.”
Evans knows that the adaptation of African-Americans to “the White world” is “not an equitable adaption.” However, he doesn’t seem to challenge it head on. He says that Blacks have to adapt to the White world, even saying African-Americans are always “dancing a little bit.”
When I first heard this, it bothered me. The more I thought about it, the more it seems to me that this way of thinking could too easily become an apologetic for White privilege. Although I agree that too often White privilege is real, it should not be. However, Evans appears to oppose fighting “the way it is.”

Now you can fight about it but that’s the way it is. And since that’s the way it is we need to learn spiritual truth that enables us to do that and not fight against that reality. That becomes a growth opportunity for both sides.

If I understand him correctly, I disagree. I don’t want to live in a White world. I live in God’s world where, according to my beliefs, privilege is not given because of the color of one’s skin. In contrast to Evans’ message, I believe we do need to fight against “that reality.” I can’t imagine any spiritual truth that should enable acceptance of White privilege. The growth opportunity is in confronting and opposing the harmful status quo.
Bruce Hornsby had it right in the song “The Way It Is”

Some things will never change
That’s just the way it is
Ah but don’t you believe them

Remarkably, Evans suggests that his success as an African-American radio personality has come, in part, because he has not offended “White world” station owners.

…that colors who the power brokers are because you know, for my ministries to survive I have to be heavily dependent in our national ministry on stations that I don’t own and have limited influence in, and for people I need to engage them in a way that doesn’t so offend them that they’re not willing to support me even though I’m African-American because that is the world in which we live. So you always as an African-American dancing a little bit.

I want to know more about this. What has Evans had to dance about ? What has he had to do and say to avoid offending White station owners? We need to know more about this, not sweep it under the rug.
I understand that White privilege exists, but I don’t believe that White privilege is the way it ought to be. I call on Rev. Evans to reconsider and issue another statement, this time denouncing acquiescence to this two world policy.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/cOeKidp-iWo[/youtube]

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Was Tony Evans Right About the Stronger Slave Family?

On his Facebook page,* The King’s College professor Anthony Bradley, keeps this issue alive by asserting that Tony Evans was right to say that African-American families were “a lot stronger” during slavery than now. Although he didn’t break much new ground, Evans later clarified his remarks.
Bradley referred to an excellent book by Herbert Guzman and said:

Here’s the deal. Tony Evans was largely correct. The black family was stronger during slavery *and* Reconstruction. It’s simply not true that slavery was characterized by slave families being split up. While that did happen it was not the norm. To make Evans’ point stronger, the black family was also better off during Jim Crow. It was the 1970s, thanks to LBJ and Nixon, that the black family went South. The people up in arms about Evans must not know that much about the history of slavery in this country.

It is tempting to say to all concerned just read Gutman’s book and leave it at that. I believe Evans and others who take his position are incorrect and I recommend the same book touted by Bradley. Gutman’s interest in his book is responding to Daniel Moynihan’s book, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. Gutman said this about Moynihan’s effort:

Although Moynihan emphasized the importance of unemployment as a cause of family disorganization among lower-class Afro-Americans, he confused the problems of poor blacks in the second half of the twentieth century with those of their great grand-parents in the first half of the nineteenth century. And he misperceived the history of both groups.

Moynihan argued among other things for what Gutman called “the slavery-specific hypothesis,” i.e., that slavery bred a culture of poverty among African-Americans. Critics of the hypothesis responded that if one controlled for income levels the racial differences in families diminished substantially. According to Gutman, critics of the slavery-specific hypothesis did not minimize the harshness and inhumanity of slavery but countered that problems in the African-American family were more related to “massive structural unemployment.” From my reading of the evidence, “massive structural unemployment” can’t be separated from white privilege and structural racism which can’t be separated from the reality of slavery.
In my reading of Gutman, he doesn’t make a case for a stronger African-American family during slavery. He addresses different concerns than which generation was stronger. He makes a case that African-Americans adapted as well as could be expected under the oppression of slavery. He demonstrated that African-Americans worked to maintain marriages and ties to children. However, he also told the truth about the horrors of slavery for slave families. No need to confuse the problems of slave families and modern African-American families with comparisons that do not illuminate the situation of either group.

* A commenter brought this to my attention.

Tony Evans Clarifies Statement About Stronger African-American Families During Slavery

About two hours ago, I received this statement apparently in response to the Christian Post article about Evans’ statements about slave families. The CP article triggered a post from me on the subject. Evans’ statement:
I never had or expressed a doubt that Evans condemned slavery or racism.
I offered my view in my post on the subject, linked to his full remarks in that post, and I am glad that Evans extended his remarks on the subject. Even though we don’t see this issue the same way, I want to thank Dr. Evans and A. Larry Ross Communications for sending this statement.

Former Faith Christian Church Members: ECFA Owes Us a Public Apology

After Faith Christian Church dropped membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, the point person for former FCC members involved in providing testimony to the EFCA, Rachel Mullis, expressed her disappointment with ECFA’s decision not to publicly release the results of the investigation.
Now joining in is another supporter of former FCC members, Sandy Wade, who said in a comment on this blog:

FCC took the cowards way out and so did ECFA. They obviously feel no moral obligation to protect the Christian community, and they have no interest in telling the truth. Their only public comment was to defend the FCC organization. You would think that after making such public remarks in their defense they would want to complete their investigation and release their findings. Cowards, they owe us all a public apology!

Wade makes a great point. The ECFA publicly defended the church before doing any kind of investigation. Given that the ECFA went out on a limb in the press to defend FCC, it seems reasonable to think they comment publicly now that they know more.
Former member Connie Cohn of Tucson, AZ is not impressed with ECFA’s integrity over the matter:

I believe that if an organization wants to maintain their credibility then, they must adhere to their policies and speak out when those policies/standards have not been met. They say that their mission is to protect the Christian community. To allow a church to resign in the middle of an investigation and not say anything about what was being investigated seems to make us question how respectable they are. They didn’t have to give all the details, but they could have at least said something about them leaving other than that they have decided to resign. They have a responsibility to the hundreds of people who left FCC and are still a part of the Christian community. I, for one, am not very impressed with the integrity of the ECFA.

Another former member said:

To me it shows laziness. ECFA doesn’t want to finish compiling and publishing a report for an organization not under its oversight anymore. But to let an organization just leave in order to halt any investigation is a major loophole that shouldn’t be there. The FBI doesn’t halt an investigation when someone leaves the country and just say “oh well nothing we can do, they left”. ECFA needs to complete what they started ad make the results public so that people will take them seriously. Since this loophole exists the ECFA really isn’t protecting members and donors at all.

Marcus DiMarco
Former Member of FCC