Black Skin … “Those People”

There has been much in the “news” in recent days about who’s a racist, what they “REALLY meant to say”, what they “really DID say (only not verbally)”, and offense and defense and hard feelings non-stop. It reminds me of the games we used to play in the school yard, and the names we called each other – and how quickly we forgot them.

So it was somewhat of a relief to see that the Little House on the Prairie episode this Friday, and the Gospel this Sunday, were both on point – and talk about REAL racism. (As you remember, mom is only interested in game shows and movies with kids or animals on the television, hence my watching LHP re-runs --- but perhaps with a new insight).

This particular Little House episode centered on the rich Mrs Olsen, and her focus on things of the world, and the values she puts on things and people. The episode starts with the only black man in the town of Walnut Grove desiring to join the Christian church there. The church elders vote on membership, and Mrs Olsen (and the mousey husband she led) had always voted against admission of the man: “Let ‘Those People’ form their own church for voodoo or whatever”. Her very real racism would not be moved by any rational arguments by the other townspeople.

Later in the episode, Mrs Olsen donates money to help build a school for the blind in Walnut Grove – and a big plaque for the building with her name on it. When she goes to welcome the teachers and blind children in another town, she is surprised (and disgusted) that half are black. On the way back to Walnut Grove, Mrs Olsen deliberately stays away from the black children. And one particularly bright young man notices her animosity, and doesn’t understand. One evening he asks the Christian black man from Walnut Grove: “Why doesn’t she like me?” He responds that “she doesn’t like people whose skin is a different color.” The young blind child then innocently asks: “What is color?” The man responds that when some people look at other people, the color of their skin is the only thing they see; but you (despite being blind) are able to see people much clearer than they can.

Mrs. Olsen overhears this innocent conversation and is struck to the heart. And she sees the child for what he is: a child of God.

Later, when she returns home to her husband, she repeats the exchange’s wisdom as being her own insight, and publically chastises the remaining bigot in town, as she hugs the little black child and shakes the hand of her new, black, Christian friend. Regardless of the source of this change in her heart, her surprised husband looks up to heaven and says aloud: “Praise God”.

Praise God, indeed, for the wisdom he gives to little children.

And the Sunday Gospel I mentioned? …

And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye, than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’”
Mark 9:47-48

I think, perhaps, it would be more likely for some to enter heaven if they were blind.