Photo by darkday

By Sarah D. Park

When I meet someone for the first time, I find that I am struck by their collective narrative first before giving their individual narrative a chance. I’ll take in what they’re wearing, how they’re standing, the color of their skin, the range of vocabulary, you name it, and by default, my brain will come to certain categorical conclusions that will help me better navigate how to know this person standing before me.

Apparently, our brains do this to conserve energy. It’s how when you see a child’s drawing of a tiger, you still recognize a tiger, even though you’ve never seen such a drawing before. The energy it would take to re-interpret the drawing, a toy, or an animation as a tiger every time is not practical. Our brains instead know to combine certain characteristics together so that they’re recognizable in a million variations and ultimately conclude in the same tiger. Our ancestors were likely able to survive due to this mechanism.

But this complicates how we view human beings. Coming to a conclusion about someone based on a few shared characteristics does not and cannot tell the whole story. And I experience the worst repercussions of this in politically progressive spaces.

Whether it was in college or in activist communities, one of the ways we bonded was through a shared animosity towards white people. We’d make jokes about white people, blame white people, and disparage white people for their ignorance and blind wielding of their privilege.

Having a common enemy is unifying. Participating in the collective disdain was a marker that you were down enough to be a part of the community. The more bite to the barb, the wittier you were.

Then I fell in love with a Korean boy who grew up in a white neighborhood. One could argue he is white in everything but color, though I’ve been quick to help him name which parts are inherited from his Korean legacy. And the more I expressed my disgust of white people, the more he felt those words directed at him.

You hear the platitudes all the time. White supremacy is the enemy, not white people. Don’t fight the monster and become monstrous. Love the sinner, hate the sin.

I knew enough to know that my learned sense of humor was not something Jesus would partake in, and I went as far as intentionally making white friends and working with white people, in hopes that by building personal relationships with them, I could rid myself of my blanket aversions.

It’s been working, albeit here and there. I still more strongly harbor the pain of my loved ones’ experiences with simply terrible white people, oftentimes wishing I had instead been present to deal with their offenders.

But today, I heard Pastor Ben say, “for God so loved the world.” Can I live in a place where the world belongs, even the ones I don’t like? “The beauty of our tribal identities is becoming weaponized”, and I felt my heart break. I love my Koreanness and protect it fiercely, but it will be for forfeit if it’s at the cost of becoming the very thing I hate, dishing out the very prejudice and division that I live to fight against.

In John 17, Jesus doesn’t ask to take his beloved out of the world, but he asks God that they don’t become like the Romans and the power structures they see. I don’t want to risk my careless words and humor anymore. Do I believe the spirit of God is more powerful than my passion? Than my pain? Who is it that we must become, to see a stranger bearing the imago dei, and claim them as mine?

Sarah D. Park is a freelance writer whose work focuses on the cultivation of cross-racial dialogue with a Christian faith orientation. She is also a story producer for Inheritance Magazine and manages communications for several organizations. She currently calls the Bay Area her home but is an Angeleno through and through.