On Good Neighborhoods

I recently found this post from Chicago Unheard back from mid-January. Its title is "White People: Here’s Why Moving to a “Good School” in a “Good Neighborhood” Is Racist."

It's going to make some people uncomfortable. If that's you, can I just tell you something? ...that's okay.

We don't have to be comfortable. In fact, getting UNcomfortable might be a prerequisite for change here.

Some takeaways:

• Being born in a "bad neighborhood" and going to a "bad school" can completely rob a child of upward mobility.
• Living your life in a neighborhood like that, which is devoid of investment and presents no options for growth, limits a Black child's opportunity just as much as "Colored Sections" did in the Jim Crow South.
• As white people self-segregate, the opportunity and good schools become even more concentrated, and Black people often do not have access to those benefits. 
• There doesn't need to be a "No Blacks Allowed" sign on your town for that to be the practical result.
• Your decision to concentrate your life, the education of your children, and your property taxes in an area that is already full of white people and opportunity only serves to further segregate people with less privilege.

A Prayer To Unlearn

I wrote this prayer in response to seeing a lot of Bible verses used on the internet to indicate that all we need to do is pray and our hearts should not be troubled. I disagree with this. I want my heart to be troubled because I desire to understand what has been, and is being, endured by other people. I do not want to sit in an ivory tower, clutching a Bible and feeling comfortable. May we all pitch in and do the real work. For those who pray, this is a prayer that asks God to help us unlearn what the world has taught us and lean into the pain.

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Lord, thank you for lighting a fire within me to understand the racial inequities in our world. Please continue to open my heart and mind to others' pain. I pray you would never let me stop learning about what has been endured by those whose shoes I have not walked in.

I ask you for the courage to speak out against those who propagate racism, even when those people are close to me. That can feel so hard to do, Lord, but do not let me place my own comfort above the change that is so desperately needed. I pray that you would speak through me when those conversations arise so that my words may be thoughtful and free of distraction.

Father, I know that I can only become part of the solution if I remove the beam from my own eye. I pray that you could expose my heart to me and help me root out the prejudices that this world has ingrained within it. Lord, please lead me to the parts of me that must be examined in order to grow in the direction of change.

In Jesus' name I pray, Lord. Amen.