Dear Friends,
The picture above this blog was taken in my office at Blessed Sacrament. The cross and figures beneath it are on a shelf above the desk where I can look at them often as a reminder of the work we all need to do for racial justice, myself included.
The cross is a memento from the life of the late Fr. John Lynch, whom I got to know well when he lived at St. Anne Parish, Rochester, in his later years. The figures beneath the cross are from the home of my late Aunt Teresa. A little white girl and a picaninny, close to the foot of the cross, even as Mary and the other women and the disciple John stood beneath the foot of the cross in witness to Jesus’ dying for us.
While picaninny, in its original loving sense was a term West Indian people used for their little children, the term developed an offensive cast in the southern United States, most notably between 1830 and 1880. One would think it would be gone today, but it remains as a caricature used in a derogatory and racist sense, in conversation, films and TV shows.
Why my aunt had both, never separated from one another in her home for more than 25 years, I don’t know. That’s a question I am saving for a conversation with her in eternity.
The cross is a memento from the life of the late Fr. John Lynch, whom I got to know well when he lived at St. Anne Parish, Rochester, in his later years. The figures beneath the cross are from the home of my late Aunt Teresa. A little white girl and a picaninny, close to the foot of the cross, even as Mary and the other women and the disciple John stood beneath the foot of the cross in witness to Jesus’ dying for us.
While picaninny, in its original loving sense was a term West Indian people used for their little children, the term developed an offensive cast in the southern United States, most notably between 1830 and 1880. One would think it would be gone today, but it remains as a caricature used in a derogatory and racist sense, in conversation, films and TV shows.
Why my aunt had both, never separated from one another in her home for more than 25 years, I don’t know. That’s a question I am saving for a conversation with her in eternity.
But even in this Easter season, bright with the brilliance of the Risen One, replete with the glory of springtime, the reality of racism is undeniable in our county, in our country. Despite the applause that Ketanji Brown Jackson received last week as our newest Supreme Court Justice, racism not only endures but is stronger than ever. We see it in the violent deaths of Black men and women, in the ways voting rights are being undermined in many states, and in racial profiling.
“Just nine years ago, most adults in Monroe County did not believe racial and ethnic discrimination was a problem. In 2021, nearly three in four believe it is.” (D&C, April 10, 2022)
Pope Francis calls racism “a virus that quickly mutates, goes into hiding and lurks in waiting. Instances of racism continue to shame us, for they show that our so-called social progress is not as real or definitive as we think.” (Fratelli Tutti)
In their Pastoral Letter Against Racism “Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call To Love” (2018), the US Bishops, basing their message on the call of the Risen Christ, living among us, to enlarge our hearts, “love compels us to resist racism courageously, reach out to victims of this evil, to assist in the conversion of those still holding on to racism and to begin to change policies and structures that allow racism to persist.”
An immense agenda, and one in which we may well think that we have no significant contribution to make. But we do. We can become more conscious of possible changes in our society, speak as equals to people of other races when we meet them in the public, take part in life-giving conversations with others about racism.
Most of all, we can hold each other close, no matter ones color or race. Hold each other close, for we all are the beloved of God.
~Sister Joan Sobala
“Just nine years ago, most adults in Monroe County did not believe racial and ethnic discrimination was a problem. In 2021, nearly three in four believe it is.” (D&C, April 10, 2022)
Pope Francis calls racism “a virus that quickly mutates, goes into hiding and lurks in waiting. Instances of racism continue to shame us, for they show that our so-called social progress is not as real or definitive as we think.” (Fratelli Tutti)
In their Pastoral Letter Against Racism “Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call To Love” (2018), the US Bishops, basing their message on the call of the Risen Christ, living among us, to enlarge our hearts, “love compels us to resist racism courageously, reach out to victims of this evil, to assist in the conversion of those still holding on to racism and to begin to change policies and structures that allow racism to persist.”
An immense agenda, and one in which we may well think that we have no significant contribution to make. But we do. We can become more conscious of possible changes in our society, speak as equals to people of other races when we meet them in the public, take part in life-giving conversations with others about racism.
Most of all, we can hold each other close, no matter ones color or race. Hold each other close, for we all are the beloved of God.
~Sister Joan Sobala
