Black Tax and White Benefits—Stop Black Tax!
So, what should we do about God’s obvious love of great variety and the fact that no scientific or biblical evidence is to be found for the common view of race? The answer to this question is a simple one but far from being easy to put into practice. We who are white must start getting educated about the world the Black person is living in and then act upon what we are learning, especially as it relates to our relationships in the church. The world is broken and will never be fixed, since it under Satan’s control, but Christ is the head of the church and can fix us if we will allow him to do it. One thing is for sure, he wants us to love our fellow brothers and sisters in his family and to demonstrate that love in every way possible.
Scores if not hundreds of verses could be quoted which show us the ways our love should be expressed in our spiritual family, but here are two. “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15). I cannot help carry another’s burdens without first knowing what they are. I cannot mourn with those who mourn without knowing the source of their grief and its depth. When I was a kid growing up in the Jim Crow days of Louisiana, America was totally controlled by white people. Honestly, it still mostly is. Our Black brothers and sisters (and others of color) have learned to adapt to our world. They have a very difficult time letting us know what that world is really like to them—unless we start asking.
When I almost died in the hospital earlier this year (2022), large numbers of people were asking about how I was doing and praying for me. They were asking my wife and other family members how they were feeling. When someone we know has a severe financial crisis, like having their house burn down, we want to know what they are feeling and facing. We want to help. When a fellow disciple loses a loved one, we want to find out how they are feeling and comfort them. We want to feel their pain with them and help bear their burdens in any way possible. You get the point, right? In many areas of emotional or physical or financial pain, we want to discover what others are experiencing and feeling about those experiences. Why do we not have the same concern for those who live in a world that stereotypes them very negatively in both obvious and subtle ways without even thinking about it?
Back in 2016, I started a blog entitled, “Black Tax and White Benefits,” to start trying to help educate my fellow white disciples and to encourage disciples of color to handle their challenges in the racial realm spiritually. The genesis of my efforts traces back to ten days after a tragedy occurred in Dallas on July 7, 2016. Two black men had recently been killed by white policemen, one in Minnesota and another in Louisiana. A protest march was taking place in Dallas when a heavily armed Black man, Micah Xavier Johnson, opened fire on police officers, killing five and wounding nine other officers and two civilians.
On July 17, I was asked to speak in the SW Region of the DFW church, a Region composed of a half white and half non-white membership and served by a ministry staff of the same racial ratio. Mark Mancini, the leader of the Region, asked me to come and speak to the group on the subject of racism and the Bible. Although I had addressed the subject many times in sermons for decades, it was the first time I had preached an entire sermon on the topic. As others heard about the sermon or listened to a recording of it online, I received requests to preach the same lesson in a number of places, inside and outside Dallas. I began to get educated quickly and deliberately from that point and decided to start my blog soon afterwards.
The term “Black Tax” came from a movie I watched in which a Black woman described it as having to do her job twice as well as a white person to be given the same credit, and her role in the show demonstrated the point quite well. Amazingly, Delta airlines helped me explain the issue very clearly just prior to starting the blog. Here’s a quote from the second post on my blog.
Two blatant examples took place within days of each other last month (October) involving black female doctors flying on Delta Airlines. Two medical emergencies occurred, prompting flight attendants to ask for help from medically trained passengers. In both cases, the black doctors reportedly tried to answer the call to help, only to be rebuffed by the flight attendants because they couldn’t picture black women being doctors.
In a talk with my African American neighbor just last week, she added that the term “black tax” is also commonly used within the Black community to describe the stresses that black people feel in most settings, knowing that they are being stereotyped negatively by white people any time they are out in public settings. These stresses are not only real; they are dangerous to the health of Black people. The statistics are undeniable. Being Black in America means that your health and longevity may well be affected. A brief examination of pregnancy complications or heart disease of the Black population makes the point, in addition to other maladies. Black people don’t say much about this type of black tax they are paying because they know they have to fit in or suffer consequences that they are trying hard to avoid.
The term “White Benefits” started off in the title of my blog as “White Privilege,” but one of my advisors recommended avoiding that term in the title because of the political environment and reactions to the term. That said, I didn’t avoid using the term as a title for one of my blog posts, explaining it like this:
White privilege is not so much what you have; it is what you don’t have – stereotypical treatment of the worst kind. A fairly recent segment of “Dr. Phil” was devoted to showing what white privilege is. He is quite in tune with the topic, as were his panelists. As Michael Burns puts it: “White privilege does not mean that you did not have obstacles and challenges in life; it means that your skin color or culture wasn’t one of them.” That’s the bottom-line issue.
As a white person deeply concerned for the “world” in which my Black brothers and sisters live, I have talked to hundreds of Black people inside and outside the church about their experiences, challenges and feelings. I have read extensively from materials about the topic from those who know more than I do about it. I have watched many video podcasts on YouTube especially and also a number of documentaries on TV. Very recently, I asked to meet with one of my Black brothers from my ministry group and gave him the following questions to think about in advance and then to address when we met.
- As a black person, what would you like your white friends to know about what hurts you? Please break these down into deep hurts and those less hurtful but still painful. Maybe number them by depth of pain, starting with the worst to you personally.
- Second, by prioritizing again, what things would you most like to see change in your white disciple friends? Break this one down into their attitudes and their actions.
- Those are WPQs (white person questions). Is there a better way to come at this from a black person’s perspective?
- What do I (Gordon) do that does or could hit a Black person the wrong way. Since I am trying to learn, Black people appreciate that and likely cut me some slack. Those of us who are trying to learn are the ones who shouldn’t be given slack. I don’t want a free pass. I want to learn.
As it turned out, he didn’t address each of the questions. But they stirred his thinking and feelings enough to take advantage of the opportunity to express what was really on his heart. I made sure he did address #4, which was very helpful to me as I continue to learn more about myself. Just yesterday at church, I talked to a sister about doing the same thing with her and her husband. I yet have much to learn despite how much I have already learned. The starting place is the decision to get started, don’t you think?
For us white people, we are long past the point of being able to claim innocence through ignorance. It is way past time to face the facts, stop accepting the “spin” given on the topic by white people, especially politically oriented ones, and start obeying God’s directions given in verses like I quoted earlier. I’m simply asking you, in the name of Christ, to get involved in caring, learning, conversing and loving. We cannot love in generalities, so let’s start showing our love in the specifics—the ones described in this lesson. God bless us all to demonstrate his love to all of our fellow disciples in every realm, the racial one for sure. In his name, let’s eradicate every vestige of black tax in the family of God. Amen! I love you!
