My Introduction to Bigotry and Discrimination
by Andy Wilkinson
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Copyright 2011 by Andy Wilkinson
My Introduction To Bigotry And Discrimination
At the tender age of nine I learned about bigotry and discrimination from a “man of God”. It was what people call a defining moment in my young life. A light came on in my head and illuminated something that I couldn’t completely comprehend, but I knew that something was not right about what I was seeing.
This education in love and acceptance came at an Oral Roberts tent crusade. Tent crusades were big deals in rural North West Florida in the late fifties. During this era our lives revolved around work, school and church. There wasn’t much else to do outside the routine of life at home. So this was an event that offered both worship, in a different format, and some exciting entertainment presented by talented singers and musicians.
The Oral Roberts tent was huge, the size of a large circus tent, and it held hundreds of people. The stage rose six feet above the audience, with colorful banners, seats for local dignitaries and a powerful sound system belting out upbeat organ music as the worshipers filed in and found filled the seats. The chairs were arranged in sections in a semi-circle around the stage. I went to this crusade with my father and we had taken our seats in the next-to-last section on the right. The last section on the right was made up of old rickety chairs with peeling paint. These chairs were occupied by our black neighbors.
I was just a young kid, unable to completely understand bigotry, but I knew this was not right. No, it was worse than that, it was just plain mean. Nobody should be treated like that. At nine years old a person does not instinctively or consciously hate people who are different. And it would have never occurred to me that I should look down on someone because of their color. These things are taught and learned; they are not natural to the thinking of a child.
In our home there was never a disparaging word about people of any race and the “N” word was never uttered by my parents. We were taught that all are equal in God’s eyes and that diversity was part of His grand plan for mankind. And to see this famous preacher--who up to this point I had respected--treat other human beings with such distain and condescension was at first confusing, and then, after the sight of it sunk in, disappointing and disheartening. I was too young to understand the word hypocrisy, but I knew it when I saw it, and it was being played out right in front of me in the name of our Lord.
I was also baffled because the black worshipers didn’t protest and demand to be treated the same as the white folks. But this was before the equal rights movement, and back then black people went along to get along. A position no human being should ever have to be forced to accept.
Contradiction was another word that my little-boy mind didn’t understand. But like hypocrisy, I knew it when I saw it, and there it was being belted out through a high powered sound system in the name of God’s love for all.
I did a lot of thinking about that over the next few days, and it finally occurred to me that religion was in the hands of man, and man was fallible on many levels. So I concluded, in my young kid reasoning, that I would continue to treat everyone the same and maybe when I grew up this would all make sense. I’m still waiting for that revelation.