Amid unrest, pastor offers a plan
George Floyd's ghastly death in Minneapolis has fueled calls for real change in this country regarding race relations. One of the most important voices locally belongs to the Rev. Clarence
Hill Jr., senior pastor at Antioch Community Church in Norman.
As one of the founders of Stronger Together OKC, Hill, 47, has worked for years to bring together people of varied backgrounds to talk about race. That work is more important than ever, and Hill is an ideal point man.
In an op-ed last week in The Oklahoman, Hill identified what he called “Ethnical Social Distancing” as the root cause of many of today's strained relations. Americans may use the same gas stations and stores, and attend the same sporting events, he wrote, “but we rarely share dinner tables, life experiences and pain.”
“This leaves us with the illusion of healthy integration until a tragedy happens and the opinions of our friends and neighbors start flying across social media,” Hill wrote. “It becomes obvious that we have at least two worlds with two histories. How will we ever mend? We
must overcome ESD.”
This malady, he said so well, “leaves us to know one another by the stories on the evening news, our inherited beliefs and our distorted interpretations of our interactions with one another in public spaces.”
Hill's outline for moving forward includes a heavy dose of empathy, for blacks toward whites, and vice versa, and for the public toward police officers.
Floyd's death marks “the first time I've seen such a massive amount of empathy come especially from the white community that formerly was saying, `Just get over it,'” Hill said during a recent forum.
He called for setting up “principles and values that we think will help lead us into unity. One of the big ones is this: Do you, as someone who leads our businesses, our schools … do you have a personal friend who can give you eyes to see and a heart to feel that situation?”
If not, he says, work to remedy that. Creating those relationships can be a daunting challenge, he acknowledges, and don't occur naturally.
“I joke about it but I say, `Go to a church where you have to keep the beat, where you feel a little bit uncomfortable,'” Hill said.
He's calling on pastors, community leaders, heads of nonprofits and others to “create spaces” where these tough but important conversations can be held — not just now, but for months and years to come.
“When blood is on the ground, it's easy to move,” he said. “Our hardest work has been when the sun comes back up and the blood's been cleaned off the ground and the pain has gone away and now we have a choice to go back to our comfort or to build a new tomorrow.”
Hill's suggestions offer a chance at a better Oklahoma. What's needed is a willingness to try.