God Made Me Hug two White Ladies!

The title of this blog explains exactly what this blog post will talk about. Yes, God made me hug two white ladies at a panel discussion on racial reconciliation! Before I get into that story, I think I should give you a little background information so that this will all make sense. So, I am from Cleveland, OH (whoot whoot) and when I say Cleveland, I mean CLEVELAND. With that being said, I live in a predominantly black neighborhood, I went to Cleveland Public Schools with the population being majority black and all my friends have been black (and one blasian). Until I went away to college, I never mingled with people of other ethnicities and I didn’t really watch movies or listen to music by people of other ethnicities so my perspective of people culturally different from me was very limited. When I was 15 years old, I began an afterschool program that was afro-centric based. This meant that our lessons, field trips, projects  etc, all had an African context or history behind it. This was to teach children and teenagers about African history because our society, for the most part, begins our history with slavery. With me attending this afterschool program and growing up in an all-black neighborhood and attending all-black schools with my all black friends, I had no interest in learning about or even being in relationship with people of other ethnicities. I did not see the importance of it if I'm going to be honest. 

Now, my mother would often tell me “not all black people are your friend and all white people aren’t your enemy”. But because that was not reinforced in my day to day life and I had no personal relationships with white people, it was hard for me to understand that concept. I can now say that before I was saved, I had negative views about white people. I was not trusting of them based on history and current racial events. As I grew more knowledgeable about systematic racism, I grew more intolerant of white people.

This continued until December 2015. I went to a conference called One Thing which is hosted by the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, MO. First off, this conference was amazing! There were so many different workshops about many different topics. On one of the days, I decided to attend a conference focused on racial reconciliation. This was [G6] and still is a hot topic due to police shootings, killings and racially motivated attacks that have been going on for the past five years. As expected this workshop hit capacity immediately and the speakers were amazing. It was a conversation that needed to be had by a diverse panel speaking to a diverse audience. As I was sitting there listening to the panelists speak, one of them began speaking on what it means to lament and how there’s an entire book in the Bible about it hence the book of Lamentations. As he was speaking I began hearing sobbing coming from behind me. There were two white ladies sitting behind me crying/ lamenting. Now I’m a little awkward lol so I didn’t quite know how to respond but as I’m sitting there I hear a loud but distinct voice tell me to turn around and hug the ladies behind me. I knew the ladies were white because I saw them sit down behind me before the workshop began. I tried to ignore the voice at first but yall know how God is. He will keep speaking until you do what He says! Once the workshop ended, I turned around and hugged the two ladies. That was honestly the first time I initiated a hug with a white person. They were crying so hard because they were touched by the workshop discussion but on a deeper more personal level, their hurts were broken for black people. Black people who had been the victim of racism and black families who lost loved ones due to someone else’s ignorance. They were happy to hug me and to be able to connect with me and through touch, share their sorrow for my people.

They were probably some of the nicest, kindest and sweetest people I had met in a long time and I appreciated their gentleness and willingness to understand our side and our issues.

Even though it was extremely awkward to hug them, I’m glad I listened to God in that moment. It helped to change my own biases and negative perspectives and it deepened my understanding of love and of Christ.

I cannot say that I am a totally changed person in this regard because it’s hard to change what I’ve experienced in my 22 years on this earth BUT that experience did soften my heart and allowed God to use me in a way He never had before and I’m glad to have been the vessel.