I am not white.

Today, we had the area director for northern spokane come to our Young Life class, his name is James Jones, and he came to talk about multicultural ministry. He’s also this 240 pound black man. He talked about a lot of things, and one of the activities he had us do, was he had a list of 40 “indicators for success”, the more things on the list that you have, the more likely you are to succeed in life. They were also things that would typicially happen in a middle-upper class family. (my interpretation). Just to reiterate, I go to Whitworth College, a private school in Spokane WA thats pretty homogenously white upper class.

james started reading off the list, and for every thing he said that you identified with, you would take a step forward. everyone went pretty far across the floor. one guy had 39/40.

i didn’t. it kind of made me laugh though, because for a while, i’ve just been wanting to proclaim to the world “look at Me. I am different. see Me, who I am” and then tonight, I didn’t take as many steps as basically everyone else in the room. I went to a high school where the majority of people spoke a different language than i speak in my home, the majority of the teachers were a different color than me. my grocery store (by my house) doesn’t sell my favorite kinds of food (all things hispanic). and all these things.

And afterwards, it hit me. I am ME. I am who I have chosen to be, and I am beautiful in Christ. But I got to make those choices, I got to choose to live the way that I did in High School, and I loved it. But at the same time, with the society the way it is, that social mobility doesn’t exist for all social classes. its so ridiculous how many stereotypes and thoughts that you don’t even think exist, but they do.

James gave us a list of scripture, and one stuck out at me. Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”

And thus, starting today, I am not white any more. I refuse to let a stupid thing that i have no control over control what people think of me. I will not think of all Whitworth people as stupid upper class ignorant fools because they are white. (yes, i was getting to that point in my head). I will hang out with people who have a global perspective in life, because I like to find out more things in the world. I will drink wine with the international students, relaxing listening to reggae, not because i think i have to to fit in (i don’t. at all) but because thats what I want to do. because I think that is a part of the future Me.

I will stop wishing I was Hispanic. I will stop wishing I was African, I will stop wishing I had dated Josh so I would appear more multicultural. I will stop trying to reclassify what “white” means in the context of myself.

I will be Me. and I don’t even know who that is yet. but sometimes I have a vague inkling. And I will be Loved and Accepted by the people who matter. And I will love irregardless. I will love extravagently. I will love radically. but most importantly, I will love.