‘Old white people’ care about Black lives too, southwest Illinois church group says
A small group of white churchgoers gathered Saturday morning in Highland to lament the loss of Black lives to violence and to discuss white privilege.
“Even if we’re just a bunch of old white people, we’re here to do what we can,” said the Rev. Sam Foskey, 61, of the Illinois South Conference, which oversees 78 United Churches of Christ in southern Illinois.
Roughly 20 people, mostly above age 60, gathered to share what they’ve learned about racism and what they hope to achieve in the future.
The Rev. Shana Johnson, a 48-year-old United Church of Christ minister, said white churches have largely remained silent on racial issues, but that they “can become allies” to Black communities.
“We will be focusing on an awareness of how communities of color are suffering right now from police brutality and from the virus,” Johnson said. “Many of our congregations are white congregations. You might question, ‘Well, if that doesn’t connect to me, why should I gather?’ What we believe is this is a time for, especially us in the white church, that this is our problem. We have not stood up. We have been silent, and we have not walked alongside our Black brothers and sisters.”
Kay Ahaus, a 75-year-old from Trenton, lamented how she has acted like a “white savior” before.
“Instead of asking what our brothers and sisters in the Black community want, I said what I thought. But what I thought was good for them may not be exactly what they need right now and may not even be what they want,” Ahaus said. “I need to listen. I lament that I’ve gone about it the wrong way.”
Kevin Laughery, a 63-year-old from Troy, said he hopes to teach people that humans are not meant to live segregated by race.
“We have it arranged so we are with the people we want to be with, but we’re not sure about the rest. The lament is realizing this can be an opportunity for growth and we can pray that more and more people will see how strange and how inhuman it is to be so separated,” Laughery said.
The Rev. Norma Patterson, a 74-year-old pastor from Good Shepherd Faith Church in East St. Louis, thanked the group for raising issues important to her community. Patterson,who is Black, attended with her 13-year-old grandson, Jalen Dawson.
“I would like to thank you all not only on behalf of Good Shepherd Faith and the members there, but my own personal family,” Patterson said. “I got 10 grandchildren. Four of them are boys, and I want them to live. I want my sons to live. I want my brothers, I got six brothers, I want them to live, and not die.”
In addition to sharing their thoughts, attendees listened as faith leaders read aloud the names of Black people who have been killed in high-profile cases of police violence in recent years. They also stood in a moment of silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on the neck of George Floyd in May.
Floyd’s death was the impetus for nationwide demonstrations protesting police brutality and racism. For the first time, some mostly white southern Illinois and the metro-east communities saw anti-racist protests.
