Neither prejudice or fear

January 1967. While admiring the babies through the nursery window at Gettysburg Hospital I noticed a dusky brown infant whom gossip had was the product of local “white trash” and a migrant. When someone behind me said, “God love him, who'd want him” I heard myself say, “We would.” That baby was placed with us in foster care and two years later we formally adopted him, then adopted a second bi-racial child.

Our extended families were always supportive, though my husband's mother later confessed she'd had mixed feelings until watching a TV news clip of the Selma march and police brutality, she gasped, “that could be my grandson their hurting!”

Have things really changed? Almost weekly we hear of another unarmed black being gunned down by white police, of racial profiling. Blacks and Hispanics are incarcerated at a much higher rate than whites. Their sentences are longer. Why are we so afraid of each other? Why do we teach our children to hate based on skin color? Why are we so threatened by our religious or social differences? Aren't we all God's children? Our boys bleed red just like our girls. Their kisses are just as sweet. 

True, we've made progress since the 60's. For instance, inter-racial families are fairly common these days. In 1969 ours was the first inter-racial adoption in Adams County. We quickly discovered others depended on us to set the tone so they'd know how to react to us. That included some funny incidents. One day a drunk (white) staggered up to me in Gettysburg and snorted, “Got yourself a black one this time, didn't you?” I was still laughing when we got home!

While we taught our kids that skin color was just like eye or hair coloring, they still experienced the ugly face of prejudice. More than once our girls got in trouble at school for hitting someone who'd called their little brothers the “N” word or the boys came home crying. One night we watched the movie “Old Yeller.” In a scene where the father is roughed up by a gang of whites, our youngest, about 6 at the time, threw himself at me sobbing, “why does everyone hate me?” What could I say? What can any parent of a black or brown child say? “Just because your skin is darker?”

After years of searching, our youngest finally found his birth mom. On the internet, of course. Last Thanksgiving we met her. We marveled at the ways our lives had intersected because she'd loved her child enough to give him up for adoption. We thanked her for giving us the most precious gift possible: her beloved child. She thanked us for giving her “a life” as she took advantage of not being a teen mother and put herself through college. Today she is a successful dress designer for celebrities in Vegas.

Our nation was founded on the principle that all are created equal. Too many of us are still limited by prejudice and fear. It is crucial we come together to ensure that neither race, gender, sexual orientation, wealth, nor religion define who is allowed to succeed and who to fail. As Martin Luther King said, what matters is not the color of ones skin but the character of ones soul.

Joyce Shutt is pastor emeritus of the Fairfield Mennonite Church. You can follow her at www:FairfieldMennoniteChurch.org.