Pineridge Blog

How ironic is it that on the day Starbucks Coffee shops all over the country closed down for company wide sensitivity training on race that Rosanne Barr tweeted a racist “joke” and got her top rated show cancelled.

I have heard a lot of different theories about who is to blame.  Liberals claim it starts at the top with the racist views of the Tweeter in Chief. Conservatives blame an all too sensitive “political correctness” culture. Many blame “a few bad apples” who overreact. For her part Rosanne blamed it all on Ambian.

Maybe it is human nature to find someone else to blame. After all some have said that the original sin was not eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2) but blaming. Adam blamed Eve; Eve blamed the serpent; and humans have been blaming someone or something ever since.

Sometimes we forget that the one we call savior and Lord is the same one who was condemned largely based on race. Pilate, the occupying Roman governor who convicted Jesus and sentenced him to death, did so based on Jesus identity as a Jew, a non-person in the Roman Empire. For his part Jesus did not blame his accusers but instead prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Maybe we will only begin to find our way out of the thicket or racism when we are able to see beyond blaming someone else for what is unfair and unjust and learn from Jesus to lead with forgiveness. Forgiveness that is not just saying, “it doesn’t matter,” or “I can say whatever I want and then ask for forgiveness,” but forgiveness that says, “It does matter what we say and do that is hurtful, but you and I matter more, so I choose to forgive.” Forgiveness is based on belief that love is stronger than hate. Forgiveness is meeting the worst the world offers with the best the love of God offers the world.