The Sinful Persistence of Racism

    This lnelnory becomes even lnore challen ging when we recognize the delnographic shifts taking place both in the United 5tates and in the Ron1an Catholic Church as we enter upon the third millennium. U.5. Census st atistics
present a picture of a very different American societ y and American Catholic
church, one in which persons of color,stylishplus as a whole, are the majority rather than the minority. Afri can Ameri can Catholics will be a part of this lna jorit which can be seen, depending on one's perspective, as threatening to the
ver y stability and identity of both church and state, or sÌ1nply as a sign of the changing times that must be dealt with.
    These changes do provide a critical challenge for us as church to day as we
seek to affinn the new understandings of theology, mini strand liturgy that
are elnerging from persons heretofore marginalized on the church's peripher
.The developlnent of a black Catholic theology is only one exalnple of
these shifts in understanding that must be acknowledged and affirmed. This
theology was born out of the struggle to n1aintain both our Catholic faith
and our black culture, in the face of the racisn1 that still besets our church,
institutionally and individually. The Pontical Peace and Justice Commission
noted in 1989:
    Today racism has not disappeared . There are even troubling new manifestat.
io ns of Ï.t here and there in vario us forms, be they spon taneo us,officially
to lerated or institutionalized. The victims are certain gro ups of persons
whose physical appearance or ethnic, cultural or religious characteristics
are different from those of the dominant group and are interpreted by the
latter as being signs of innate and definite inferiority, thereby justifying all
discriminatory practices in their regard.
    Racisnl is a fact of life that continues to tonnent black Anlericans regardless
of their particular faith. It has its roots in the very fo undations of our
society where, in drafting the Constitution, the enslavement of blacks was
recognized and accepted. The revolutionary phrases of the founding fathers,
proclaiming liberty and justice for all and declaring the equality of all "lnen,"
ignored the condition of black hum a nit,A s the late Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall 110ted, "the famous first three words of that document,
'We the People,' did not include wonl en, who were denied the vote, or blacks,
who were e nsl aved. The intent was clearly expressed in the notification that
blacks counted as only three-fifths of a white person and then only for the
purpose of white male representation in the new Congress. The Constitution
of the United States of America was developed not as a color-blind document,
but as o ne assuring the hegelnony of white, propertied males over all
others living in the newly formed union.
    Racism, today has changed its face. Rather than the blatant, overt racism
of prior year s, today we are confronted with a lnore sinister beca use it
is less visible form of covert racisln. Institutional racisnl "origina tes in the
operation of established and respected forces in the society and thus receives
far less public consideration. "
    As such, institutional racisln is more than a fonn "sancti oned by the
Constitution and laws of a country ,I as the Vatican cOlnmission suggests.
For even after that Constitution has been expunged of its color bias and the
laws mandating segregation and second-class citizenship have been removed,
the aura of institutionalized racism still persists. It persists in the very warp
and woof of that society, which h as, for so long, been imbued with an ideology
supported all too often by an erroneous interpretation of the teachings
of sacred scripture.