Racism Is Learned

Just last night, a friend of mine told me of an incident that occurred many years earlier with his young daughter. They lived in Minnesota at the time and consequently, were fans of the Minnesota Twins baseball team. One day, this man handed his daughter a baseball card and told her it was a Kirby Puckett card. (Before proceeding any further, I need to explain to some of you who Kirby Puckett was. Kirby Puckett was an African-American who played his entire baseball career for the Minnesota Twins). So back to the story… The card this father handed to his young daughter was a baseball card of a Caucasian baseball player.

Of course, he expected his daughter to immediately say, “Dad, that’s not Kirby Puckett,” which she did. But this was the reason she offered, “This man has glasses and Kirby doesn’t wear glasses.”

Amazing, isn’t it? Children are “color-blind.” The feature that stood out to this young girl was not the color of his skin but the fact that he wore eye-glasses.

May God help us, his grown children, to be so “color-blind.” There is no black and white in the Kingdom of God. There should be no race distinctions made between us because God only created one race of people, and we call that race, the “human race.”

“My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality…but if you show partiality, you commit sin” (James 2:1,9).