This blog is written as an assigned response to Paul Louis
Metzger’s post, The
Rabbit Hole Revisited.
"Bump, Set, Spike, Block, Dig, Pass, Side out!"
In addition to a few run-of-the-mill dominant-culture white
Americans, our volleyball group is made up mostly of foreign nationals and
first-generation immigrants. In the last year, our small group has included
regulars, semi-regulars, and visitors from at least 15 different ethnic and
national backgrounds— Taiwanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Salvadoran, Mexican, Greek,
Turkish, German, Japanese, Korean, Tongan, Hawaiian, Swiss, Guatemalan, Indian, and Laotian.
What does a game like volleyball have to do with revisiting “rabbit
holes” and working towards racial unity? Perhaps not much but perhaps more than
one might think. I will do my best to build this metaphor—a volleyball team—while tying it to what Dr. Metzger has written.
Let's begin by looking at the distorting influence of the “rabbit hole” as
Metzger writes,
“Some friends of mine and I have spoken of the rabbit
hole of race relations. I have often experienced vertigo when trying to address
power dynamics involving “majority” and “minority” cultures, for lack of better
terminology. So often, I don’t realize my privileged status as a white man in
the United States and the American church and what that so often entails for
minorities.”
While I understand
the power dynamics Metzger writes about, up till now I have had my issues with
this metaphor. I am pleased to report that I have finally seen how this
metaphor relates to race relations. In fact, there is something called Alice in Wonderland
syndrome (AIWS),
AIWS...is
a disorienting neurological condition that affects human perception. Sufferers
may experience micropsia [seeing objects smaller than they really are], macropsia
[seeing objects larger than they really are], or size distortion of other
sensory modalities. A temporary condition, it is often associated with migraines,
brain tumors, and the use of psychoactive drugs.
This condition that affects human perception might very
easily be describing racial perceptions. Do we see other races as less than they
really are and our own as greater than it really is? Sometimes ethnicities that
have been oppressed or ignored by dominant cultures come to see themselves as
less than the people that God created them to be. In volleyball, as in racial
reconciliation, it would be very hard to be effective while suffering from AIWS!
Volleyball is very much a team game and at the rec level (6
v. 6) one that involves continuous rotation of positions. One person cannot
specialize (e.g., outside hitter, setter) but must play every position in turn.
A team with more than one weak spot is liable to lose. However, I have noticed
that in our group you are not judged by where you are from. What matters is how
well you play as part of a team. Some combinations work better than others. Sometimes,
after watching a couple of missed touches, some more advanced/aggressive players
may tend to overplay the positions of less confident players because they
expect them to not make the play. Usually, this frustrates the newer player and
results in a badly hit ball.
These same players with less developed skills and a lower
confidence level tend to blossom when playing next to someone who respects them,
encourages them, and doesn’t try to play their position. They show more effort
and confidence when the team’s confidence is placed in them and may quickly
begin to play up to the level expected by the team. People know the difference between when they are
being patronized and when they are invited to fully participate as teammates.
In addition to a few run-of-the-mill dominant-culture white
Americans, our volleyball group is made up mostly of foreign nationals and
first-generation immigrants. In the last year, our small group has included
regulars, semi-regulars, and visitors from at least 15 different ethnic and
national backgrounds— Taiwanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Salvadoran, Mexican, Greek,
Turkish, German, Japanese, Korean, Tongan, Hawaiian, Swiss, Guatemalan, Indian, and Laotian.
I try to use my "white privilege" to argue line calls, but it
rarely works. We did not start out to be an intentionally multi-ethnic group,
but over the last couple of years a number of our founding members moved away
to plant churches and pursue mission opportunities, then as college students
left for school the need for players increased. Through word-of-mouth and
personal invitations, our group became wonderfully diverse. For some reason, they
allow this slice of aging Wonder Bread to continue playing with them… I am
glad. Our identity as a group is that we play volleyball as a group of equals, and as a young German
engineer said after our game tonight, “I have come to really like this group!”
As a text I have been reading puts it,
“Multiracial
congregations can serve as gathering spaces where whites and persons of color
begin to see and relate to each other as human beings…
To
this end, a multiracial congregation with egalitarian relationships between the
races offers the best opportunity to learn about other cultures.”[1]
While I don’t sense a lot of racial tension in my increasingly
integrated area, I recognize the counter-intuitive direction God’s plan takes—life
through death, honor through humility, cleansing through confession, strength
through weakness, and up through down, just to name a few. If that is what Metzger means
by “going down that rabbit hole” then
I am following. When I play volleyball I find I need to spend considerable time
on my knees or face-down on the floor for the sake of keeping the ball up and
the volley going. I'm usually pretty sore the next day. It's not so different from real life after all.
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with
sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For
as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same
function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members
one of another. (Romans 12:3-5)
[1] DeYoung,
Curtiss Paul; Emerson, Michael O.; Yancey, George; Kim, Karen Chai
(2003-04-22). United by Faith: The
Multiracial Congregation As an Answer to the Problem of Race (p. 129, 133).
Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
