Polls, Sports Movies, and A Look in the Mirror

Earlier in the summer I posted a poll question on this blog that asked the question,

“In what aspect of reconciliation are you most interested?”

There were four answers from which to choose and you could choose more than one. The four choices are listed below with the % of those voting who selected each choice.

·         Between people & God                                           (100%)

·         Between husband & wife                                       (40%)

·         Between different races & ethnicities                  (80%)

·         Between rich/powerful & poor/marginalized       (40%)

With the amount of visitors to the blog, I was surprised that only five (5) people took the time to check one or more of the answers and one of them was me! What is the risk? Was the question really not that important to most readers or did they just not see it there in the right hand column? Perhaps it didn’t show up well when viewing this blog from a mobile device. Or maybe everyone is still in election overload from last fall. I don’t really know. Help me out here! I would love to get a conversation started on this topic. The poll has since closed and has been moved to the bottom of the right-hand margin of this blog; however, I have reopened it as they say in Beijing’s Silk Street Market “Just for you today my special friend”, in case some of you totally missed it and want your voice to be heard.

While I have you in a thoughtful frame of mind, please take a second to answer then new Cultural Intelligence poll question at the right margin regarding major league sports and their treatment of different ethnicities and cultures. It seems like so many of the great sports movies deal with this issue (Remember the Titans [football]; Glory Road [basketball]; The Jackie Robinson Story, and 42 [baseball]; Miracle [hockey]) but how do they stack up against each other and why?

Sports are often a reflection of how we relate to others whether we like it or not. So how are we doing? Have we learned anything from movies like these? Here are a three memorable scenes among many. Sometimes we can say yes to something we watch or read but it doesn't really change the way we live and look at others. The Bible says,

   “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

   But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:19-25 --ESV)

It would seem to me that there are times when God’s truth is powerfully communicated through moments like these that help us to remember what we look like in the mirror and spur us to be doers of the word.

 

Remember the Titans: Attitude Reflects Leadership

Watch Julius' eyes when Gary says, "I think you're nothing..." and then watch Gary's eyes when Julius makes his point towards the end of the clip. Do you see the lights of mutuality coming on?

 Glory Road - "What you Smokin?"

An interesting dialogue between Bobby Ray the talented but realistic player and the idealistic coach who didn't know how hard the road would be. Watch as he doesn't let Bobby Ray walk away from an opportunity. Honest and sincere.

 42 - "Maybe Tomorrow We'll All Wear # 42"

Back story is this was a bold and decisive gesture by the veteran star Pee-Wee Reese after he learned what it was costing Jackie to play. He stands up to the dominant culture of his hometown and send his family and fans a message. Jackie gave him the courage and the opportunity to do that. Note the change in the tone of the crowd from the beginning of the clip to the end.

Feel free to place your vote in these two polls and to add a comment below as well. Perhaps suggesting your favorite culturally intelligent sports movies for a future poll? We all have something to learn from one another...

"One of These Things is Not Like the Others" Isn't it?

The 4-Cs of “Other”

When we look at someone else and perceive them as “Other” as not the same as us, as not as valuable, not as smart, or as good as we are, it is usually because of one of what I call the 4-Cs of Other. See if you agree with me that when we evaluate people and place them in the “Other” bin it tends to be because of one or more of the following—

• their Color (race and ethnicity),
• their Culture (language, customs, etc),
• their Creed (what they believe or don’t believe, how they vote), or
• their Condition (socio-economic status, physical health, mental health, job or role, and other current circumstances).

One of these things is not like the other...
but which one?

      When we judge groups of people based on these criteria we have taken the first step in self-deception. Whenever we do this we tend to think that we are better than they are, but sitting in judgment upon them we continue down that path. The late John Howard Griffin indicted this process of seeing others as merely less developed versions of ourselves as the beginning of racism. “Racism begins when we draw up an indictment against a whole people merely by considering them as a whole [as] underdeveloped versions of ourselves, by perpetuating the blindness of the stereotype.”^[1]

Having escaped the Nazi death warrant placed on him for smuggling Jewish teens out of France he joined the U.S. Army and was sent to a remote island in the South Pacific where he was immersed in a very different culture than he had previously experienced. He had to overcome his prideful tendency to see the islanders as less than himself.

Initially, he viewed the natives as “primitives”—as Other. But after he was unable to navigate jungle trails, and had to rely on a five-year-old child as a guide, it became obvious “that within the context of that culture, I was clearly the inferior—an adult man who could not have survived without the guidance of a child. And from the point of view of the local inhabitants—a valid point of view—I was Other, inferior, and they were superior.”[2] 

The pernicious pride of Self can be manifested in any or all of the 4-Cs. Just because we are not prone to one type of prejudice does not mean that we are free of all of it. We may quickly recognize the common humanity and equality between races, but show economic bigotry that is surprisingly harsh. Or perhaps we don't care about finances but if someone disagrees in any way with our core beliefs and values we are quick to vilify them. These attitudes need not be expressed in an antagonistic or bigoted way, for they often ooze out in a paternalism that assumes that they, the Other, need our intervention on their behalf.

Pride deceives us so subtly that we think we are not like them, and perhaps even thank God for it…like when we read about the Hollywood A-lister’s latest addiction or drive past the persistent panhandler at the freeway exit. Jesus Christ confronted this arrogant attitude of the Other in the parable of the Pharisee & Tax Collector in the Gospel of Luke.

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)

A second downward step follows where we not only diminish the other by our stereotyped judgment, but we objectify him to use him for our own purposes. I suppose that I could call these selfish actions we take, based on the 4-Cs the 5^th C... Control. “Objectification” is when we treat other people as objects and we do it far too often. Though all humans are created in the image of God, we excuse our downgrading them based on our internal and infernal 4-C evaluations. This never honors God, nor accurately reflects the love of Christ, but rather it grieves the Spirit.

Jesus has not called his followers to a place of control, but to love one another. The work of Christ removed the divisions that once were in place, so why do we keep acting like they still matter?

To the Galatians, Paul wrote,

 “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27-28)

 

And to the Ephesians, he further wrote,

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. (Ephesians 2:11-16)

Griffin, in applying these teachings specifically to the issue of race might just as well have been addressing all of the 4-Cs (or 5) when he wrote, “I believe that before we can truly dialogue with one another”—says Griffin in “Beyond Otherness”—we must first perceive intellectually, and then at the profoundest emotional level, that there is no Other—that the Other is simply Oneself in all the significant essentials.”[3]

Let’s pitch our pitiful collection of Cs (Color, Culture, Creed, Condition, and Control) that we so often use to further our own kingdoms in order to pursue Christ (the “C” who makes us all one) and the furtherance of that Kingdom that will never be shaken.

Let the conversation begin!

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[1] Griffin, John Howard; Bonazzi, Robert; Terkel, Studs (2006-04-01). Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition. Wings Press. Kindle Edition. Location 3484.

 

[2] Griffin, (2006-04-01). Kindle Edition. Location 3520.

 

[3] Griffin, (2006-04-01). Kindle Edition. Location 3734.