Little Brown Boy

Overcoming subtle racism in our hearts

01/20/2025

Mark 2:18-22 The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to Jesus and objected, "Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins."

Do you know that I did not always think I was a little brown boy? I know that sounds silly – just look in the mirror and you can see who you are – but hear me out. I came from India when I was seven years old, and attended St. Theresa’s Catholic School in Little Rock. All my classmates were little white German kids with names like Kordsmeier, Beck, Gangluff, Euckmann, Moix, etc. There weren’t any other little brown kids in my class, so I began to think I must be like them, too.

And just looking in the mirror did not solve the problem. Just like people who suffer from bulimia or anorexia are often very skinny in reality, but when they look in the mirror they see themselves as over-weight in their minds. So, too, I am obviously a little brown boy but when I looked in the mirror I only saw a little white German boy. We often see what we want to see, not how things are in reality.

In high school my family went on a vacation to India, and I remember being shocked that all these Indian people looked like me. I remember saying incredulously to my brother, “Hey, we could be related to all these people!” I suddenly discovered that I am a little brown boy. And that is a good thing: to know who you are and feel proud of it. Why? Because that is who God made you. And as the very profound theological bumper-sticker says: “God don’t make junk.”

Today in the United States we honor the memory and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As you know he was a champion of the civil rights movement, and was assassinated on April 4, 1968 at the age of 39. Two things stand out to me about his legacy: (1) he employed non-violent means to promote civil rights for people of color.

And (2) he delivered an iconic speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial called, “I Have a Dream.” How fitting that President Abraham Lincoln who promulgated the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves should be looking over MLK Jr’s shoulder as he delivered that speech. Here is how that speech began:

“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later, the Negro is still not free.” And then Dr. King went on to list the many ways African-Americans are still shackled in discrimination and injustice.

Today I want to point out that even though much progress has been made to end racial injustice, much work still remains to be done. One area to work on is overcoming the unconscious racism I felt when I first came to America. What do I mean? While I attended St. Theresa School I felt it was better to be a little white German boy instead of a proud little brown Indian boy.

And I think that feeling of unease with being ethnically or socially different still plagues our society. For example, sometimes I see African-American women who are newscasters on prominent networks and they wear their hair like white women do. Now, certainly everyone is free to wear their hair however they please.

I wish I could wear my hair like white women do! But might there not also be whispering a subtle and sinister voice in their heads that echoed what that little voice said in my head: “It is better to look like a little white girl than to look like a little black African-American girl.”

And by the way could that sinister little voice also echo – speaking slightly differently – in the heads of white Americans? Perhaps it says, “Why don’t those little brown and black boys and girls look, behave, talk, and think more like us white boys and girls?” In other words, besides the racism that lurks on the political and social levels, we can detect a subtle racism in our own hearts. We must recognize and overcome that interior racism, too. Why? Because “God don’t make junk.”

Let me share how MLK Jr ended his immortal speech: “And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God’s children, Black men and White men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!