A Time To Look At The Names

Steve and I are in the midst of reading Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, the top-selling book last week on The New York Times’s list of nonfiction books.  As you parishioners who read it and perhaps participated in the discussion of DiAngelo’s book know, the author essentially makes us examine what it is that keeps us from honest conversations about race.  DiAngelo also describes the innumerable racist structures in our society that may be invisible to us, unless we are open to seeing them. 

A book that helps us to reflect in this way right now is valuable.  But the book has its detractors, among them one individual who is arguing that DiAngelo doesn’t acknowledge the struggles and hard work that people from many backgrounds contributed to America.  His argument, interestingly, resonates with some fragility.  

If your ancestors came from Europe, like mine did, and if you’ve done your family history, you may well have documents that tell of their hardships – famine, religious persecution, illness, and more.  Just the loss of children in infancy on my family tree is heartbreaking. 

But this writer going after DiAngelo’s work doesn’t get it.  In 1993, I was helping a teacher lead a group of European and American college students on a cultural exchange program through New York City.  As we neared Ellis Island, I still remember an African American student named Heather saying to me, “It’s not my history.” 

Heather explained that, for a Black woman, it’s hard to conjure up that sense of anticipation that the European-Americans and some Europeans on this trip had about the possibility of finding out more about their histories.  Her people, she said, did not come through Ellis Island.

The readings today have to do with names and how precious names are to us and to God.  The prophet Isaiah praises God, says he is honored to be doing the work of the Lord, and tells us that “from my mother’s womb [God] gave me my name.” In the Gospel reading, Elizabeth and Zechariah name their baby son “John,” later known as John the Baptist, because it is the name that had been assigned by the angel of the Lord.  The name “John” was so special to this couple that they departed from the tradition of naming the baby after a family member. (They even ticked off the family and friends in doing so!)

Our high regard for names goes back a long time, but that regard did not exist for Black people in America.  As Heather from the NYC tour explained, many Black Americans don’t have enough information to begin searching. 

Even a quick look online at some historical documents in the Library of Congress reveals how the slaveholders dismissed names.  One document is the receipt for the sale on Dec. 20, 1849 in Eufaula, Alabama of an 18-year-old woman, “Jane,” with a 1-year-old son, “Henry” – no last names listed.   

 The names of the enslaved were not important to this owner because the same receipt that deems Anna and Henry “property” also states that should Anna have any more children in the future, then these children — just like Henry – will be slaves for life. 

Is it possible to look back at our history and not feel one single way about it?  By looking back with wide vision, we might see some things that make us proud and some things that make us ashamed.  We are simply being asked now to look at the whole story. 

This kind of honesty – learning the full truth of all of our histories, inextricably intertwined – could liberate us all.