Countering Racism through Encounter
by Susan Rose Francois, CSJP
Human beings and human community are hardwired for connection and love. This predisposition to right relationship is mirrored even in the systems of interdependence we observe in God’s creation. The same air, sunlight, and rain nourishes each of us as we encounter the grand design of life-giving relationships. Until we don’t.
Human beings and human community are sadly also prone to breaking the connections between and among us. Racism—predicated upon the lie that some persons are of more/less value than others because of their skin tone or ethnic background— is a persistent tragedy of destructive disconnection.
The false narrative of racism is not only embodied through acts of personal prejudice. In our racialized society, privilege is granted to some and burdens placed on others based on their skin color or ethnicity. Racism, as a social sin, relies on our individual and collective cooperation with this distorted view. One path to disrupting racism is through encounter.
A Story of Encounter
In the first six seasons of the popular British television series Call the Midwife, viewers are introduced to the compassionate care provided by the sisters and midwives of Nonnatus House in Poplar, a neighborhood in the East End of London. It is the late 1950s/early 1960s, and Poplar is rapidly changing. Immigrants from various parts of the Commonwealth—the Indian subcontinent, Africa, and the Caribbean—arrive each day in this working-class neighborhood, seeking a brighter future for their families. It is also the advent of the National Health Service, and medical care is provided to all, regardless of class, ethnicity, or race, by the all-white, mostly middle-to-upper-class medical staff.
Season seven sees the arrival of a new midwife, Nurse Lucille Anderson. She provides the same dedicated compassionate care as her white colleagues. As a recent immigrant from the Caribbean, she also faces racial prejudice. “I’ve had patients who won’t let me touch them,” she says, “because they think the black will rub off on their skin.”
Nurse Anderson faces this challenge daily, staying to true to her calling with integrity. When Sister Julienne, the superior of the house, tries to spare her the pain of having to care for a patient with a racist mother, Nurse Anderson persists in expressing her own human dignity. “It’s not up to you to decide how much unpleasantness I can bear,” she tells Sister Julienne. She points out that if Sister Julienne removes this patient from her care, it will appear as if she approves of the mother’s attitudes. Sister Julienne assures her she does not approve of such attitudes.
Before she can go back out on her next rotation, Nurse Anderson has tea and conversation with one of her colleagues at Nonnatus House, Nurse Valerie Dyer. Nurse Dyer, who grew up in Poplar herself, apologizes for the way Nurse Anderson has been treated. “I’m embarrassed and ashamed to think that one of mine would treat you in that way,” Nurse Dyer says. She goes on to share the story of her own experience of prejudice, earlier in her career, by superiors who looked down on her working-class background. The two women share their pain and are paradoxically strengthened through this encounter of solidarity.
When Nurse Anderson sets out to visit her patient, who suffered a stroke after giving birth, she first encounters the patient’s mother. The mother has been facing gossip and rumors herself: that she is to blame for her daughter’s condition because she forced her to work in her beauty parlor late into her pregnancy. Before heading upstairs to care for the daughter, Nurse Anderson stands up for the mother in front of the neighbors, making it clear that no one is to blame. Later, when Nurse Anderson and the mother care for the patient together, it is clear that the tenor of their relationship has shifted. Discord and hatred have been moderated by connection and care through true encounter.
In Our Own Backyard
Each of us has opportunities in our daily encounters to foster right relationship through the power of love. Sometimes these moments are personal, like the story of Nurse Anderson. Other times, we are called to use our privilege to support right relationship on a more systemic level.
My mother taught me this lesson at a young age. Before I was born, during the same era as that depicted in Call the Midwife, my mother used her own privilege to advocate for fair housing laws. My parents were among the first residents of Belair at Bowie, a housing development in Maryland. In 1963, when she learned that the developers refused to sell homes to potential buyers who were African American, my mother encountered others who knew this to be wrong and joined protests in front of the model homes, where she carried her picket sign and marched alongside black and white activists.
While it took five more years for the 1968 Fair Housing Act to be passed before this unjust policy was reversed, it took decades for integration to take hold in my hometown. As a result of those unjust housing policies, I grew up in a mostly white suburb.
My mother wanted her children to encounter diverse groups of people. She also knew that it was important to use her privilege to disrupt unjust systems. For this reason, she chose to shop for new clothes and shoes for her children in a predominantly black neighborhood. When I was applying to Catholic High Schools, she encouraged me to attend a school with a racially diverse student body. She taught me the power of encounter to challenge racist systems meant to keep us apart, but also, and just as important, to transform our hearts.
The call to build right relationships invites us to risk the revolutionary power of encounter. This is by no means a quick fix, but rather a life-long journey. Should we accept the challenge to embark on the path of healing divisions and fostering connection, our understanding of community, and our hearts, will be expanded. In the words of Pope Francis, “When there is an us, there begins a revolution.”
This article appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of Living Peace.