What are we supposed to do with the words Phil Robertson spoke during a GQ interview regarding race in Louisiana when he was growing up?  What’s a missional response?

Well, if you don’t want to read this whole post, here’s the quick version: In my opinion, Phil’s words about homosexuality were judgmental and hurt the missional cause of all Christians seeking to make the kingdom tangible among the LGBT community and his words about blacks during the days of Jim Crow seem to me to be uniformed and (perhaps unintentionally) racist.

If you want to read some more, cool beans!

Let’s Get It Started!

Last time I didn’t lead with Phil’s own words.  This time I’m going to:

Phil On Growing Up in Pre-Civil-Rights-Era Louisiana
“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field…. They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!… Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.” (SOURCE: GQ.com)

First of all, I need to admit that what Phil is explicitly talking about here is his own experience.  He claims that in his neck of the woods while growing up he didn’t see the mistreatment of black people and he didn’t hear them complain.  If he’s being honest, which I have no reason to deny, then I have to trust him since he is the expert in his own experience.

But even the briefest, most cursory look into the history of white-black drama in the United States would reveal to anyone that Phil’s experience is probably not all that widespread.  In fact, a few decades before Phil was born, in his own region of Louisiana, a black man was lynched.  Lynching in Louisiana was pretty common, with one source citing around 200 lynchings in the state and another source citing 339, most of which happened prior to Phil’s birth.  However, there have been at least two lynchings in Louisiana since Phil’s been around, one when he was a baby and one when he was 19 or so.

Here’s the point: Phil must have had his eyes closed or he and his family lived so far back in the woods so as not to be aware of the wider world.  Why?  Because racial violence that leads to lynching doesn’t just pop up one day.  It’s a long, slow build.  That kind of hatred is built on years of smaller abuses that, given the right fuel, will explode into the murder of an innocent person.  There’s also the possibility that Phil and his family just see the world through extremely-vivid, rose-colored glasses.

Whatever the case, the rest of the things that Phil said about blacks when he was growing up deserve some attention too.

Let’s Get to Parsing!

Now what I’m about to do is unfair and I know that.  I’m going to pick the words of Phil Robertson apart.  If he were here, he’d most likely be able to explain himself better (or at least I would hope so!).  But, given that intro, there are still some things to glean from the actual words he chose to use.

• “Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers”

This seems innocuous enough, right?  Sure.  Phil is just reporting how things were when he was growing up.  He couldn’t do anything about the situation that black families found themselves in.  But Phil’s words point to a larger reality of the mistreatment of black people during the Jim Crow era.

Phil says that everyone was a farmer where he grew up and that blacks worked for them.  Alright, first this points to a great difference in land and business ownership between whites and blacks during that time, which continues on today by the way.  But Phil couldn’t do anything about that.  He was just one kid in one family in one community.

However, notice the language that Phil uses “Where we lived was all farmers.”  Then blacks worked for that category of “all,” meaning that blacks aren’t in that category.  Is this just semantics?  Probably.  I’m splitting hairs, but language like this – language that sets one ethnic group off to the side from the norm, the “all” – is difficult to swallow for people who don’t fit into the “all” category.

•  I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash.

As a white guy I understand this line really well.  If it were me who said it, then I would be saying this in an effort to diffuse some white guilt and to make it seem like I have some relational connection to black people.  I’m not saying that is what Phil is doing, but that is kind of what this sounds like.

Beyond that we’ve got a more obvious issue: Phil associates being “trash” with being black.  Again, this could just be a sign of what growing up was like where he lived.  Maybe the only white people who associated with blacks were poor, what Phil calls “white trash.”  Even still, however, I can only imagine that a black person reading these words wouldn’t be so happy to be equated with “trash.”  I’m just sayin’.

• They’re singing and happy.

There’s an excellent book by Charles Hersch called Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans.  In the book Hersch points out that the racial climate in the South, and in Louisiana in particular, helped give rise to what became known as jazz.  Hersch draws on oral histories, old newspapers, etc. in order to get a glimpse into how jazz was born.  And part of his conclusion is that the genesis of jazz is completely wrapped up in the suffering of blacks before and during the Jim Crow era.  He makes the convincing argument that music, for them, was a way to be subversive, a way to stand in solidarity with one another against the racial injustices they were facing.

So Phil’s experience of hearing black people sing while working in the fields is nothing new and it may well have been part of a subversive movement like the one Hersch writes about.

• I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!

This one is a no-brainer.  Of course the black workers didn’t complain!  If they complained their white bosses would fire them!  Then what?  Move?  How would their kids eat?

In a classic book on oppression called Pedagogy of Oppression, Paulo Friere, identifies what others have called a “culture of silence” that occurs in situations of oppression, like the ones in the South during the Jim Crow era.  We human beings don’t tend to use our voices when we feel that doing so will be ignored, ineffective, or harmful to our own lives or of those whom we love.

• Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.

In these loaded statements there’s much more to mine.  First, there’s an implication that blacks today aren’t godly or happy because they live post-entitlement and post-welfare.  Second, there’s a further implication that entitlements and welfare are somehow inherently wrong, even though white folks receive entitlements and welfare in droves too.  And, third, there’s just this funny statement about the blues.

The blues, as a musical genre, was birthed by blacks in the South during the Jim Crow period and beyond.  The power and authenticity and rawness of the blues come from the pain of oppression suffered by black people.  It was in 1912 that blues as a major musical genre exploded with the song “Memphis Blues” by W.C. Handy, right smack in the middle of the Jim Crow era.

If the black people with whom Phil worked were singing, my guess is that they were singing the blues, literally or figuratively!

Let’s Wrap This Up!

So, were the words of Phil Robertson racist?  Yes.  That word – racist – is hard for people to hear.  I know.  It’s hard for me too.  And when I’ve said things that were insensitive and my words were called racist, I cringed and got defensive.  But racism doesn’t have to do only with my intent, necessarily.  I can say the most well-meaning thing and it can be completely racist.  Stella Ting-Toomey says it best in Communicating Across Cultures: “Thus, we confirm and disconfirm others by the words we choose” (173).  So I’m not saying necessarily that Phil was trying to be racist; but his words, nonetheless, could very, very easily be seen as racist.

 

A Lesson to Learn from Phil Robertson

So what’s the point?  Well, I think there’s a lesson to learn from all this.  We must learn to use our words carefully if we want to be missional where we live, work, and play.  If we want people from every tribe, tongue, and nation (Revelation 7.9) to come to know Jesus, then we need to speak more hospitably to all people and about all people.

But how can we do this?  What if we make mistakes?  “What if”?  More like WHEN we make mistakes!  And we will!  Here’s the best advice I have: apologize sincerely, make amends quickly, and move forward in solidarity with the offended ones.

 

What do you think?  Let me know below (but keep it civil)!