How should a Black Person Relate with a White
person whose ancestors enslaved and subjected
him to racial segregation and
discrimination?

      How should a black person relate with or to a white person?  
      Today, black people are living, often burdensome so, with the legacy of slavery that existed 246 years and legal segregation that existed for 100 years. During those three-and-a-half centuries the experience of black people entailed between four and seven million Africans who jumped ship rather than become slaves, including a million who after becoming sick while aboard were thrown overboard by slave navigators during the Middle Passage, eight thousand lynchings, disenfranchisment in the South and denial of access to public accommodations and opportunities that were readily available to white people that included attending state universities and employment in city, county and state governments, but not excluded from paying taxes that supported the governments, taxation without representation.
      Living with this legacy in the Twentieth-first Century, how should a black person relate with or to a white person? What follows is the prescription a black person should employ when encountering or relating with or to a white person.
     1. Don't blame the white person you meet for slavery and racist practices of his ancestors. He/she did not have anything to do with his ancestors enslaving black people or creating a racist system. Their ancestors, although dead, are being and will continue to be punished for their sins that are present with their living offspring.
     2. Recognize that white privilege and systemic racism exist today. Whites have advantages denied to Blacks for no other reason than they are white. Because racism is systemic in society a white person opposing racism has to 'buck' or oppose the system
     3. Acknowledge and greet the white person encountered with cordiality. Should he/she respond likewise respect his/her humanity and when possible join in the common cause of working to minimize or eradicate injustice. Should he/she not respond respectfully maintain your cordiality and stand inviolate of your integrity which is different from stand your ground, but includes standing your ground when warranted.
      4. Express love as your way of being toward and with white people. individually and collectively. Remember two things about love: it has the power to change the hearts of people and it returns to the lover better than it was before extended.
    What should a black person require of a white person he claims as a comrade? He should require of him/her the same as God requires, as expressed in this Biblical injunction:
"He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and
to walk humbly with your God."
                      (Micah 6:8)

Copyright 2019 by Uriah J. Fields