Sharing Our Stories: Reconciling Sins

Reconciling the Sins of Our Ancestors
A guest post by Marie W. Watts

I, like many Caucasian Americans, have ancestors who were slaveholders. Case in point is documentation I have uncovered about my ancestor Francis Dorsett (my great-great-great-great-great grandfather) and his son John Dorsett (my direct descendent).

Francis was born in England in 1740 and migrated to the United States. The family settled in Chatham County, North Carolina. (West of Raleigh). Francis served in the Revolutionary War by furnishing supplies. Upon his death in 1813, he owned 277 acres of land. A complete inventory of possessions is fascinating and includes the following:

• a hymn book and Bible, although he was illiterate, 
• one looking glass, 
• one wagon, 
• blacksmith tools, 
• Livestock: seventeen hogs, three horses, two cattle, four sheep, 
• Kitchenware: two kettles, two pots, one skillet, one tea kettle, one set of teaware (sic), and One Negro Woman, Mime. (Note: Mime was left to Francis’s wife, Rebecca, in his will.

Rebecca was fortunate as he left her one-third of his property until her death. Then, the lands went to his sons. The custom was, at the time, to leave daughters nothing. However, he did leave Mime’s future firstborn child to his daughter as well as Mime, herself, upon Rebecca’s demise.

Slavery is abhorrent to me, and I am not personally responsible for it. Unfortunately, the remnants of slavery—racism—are woven into the fabric of our social and economic systems, leaving persons of color at a disadvantage. This impediment is not in keeping with the Christian tradition of loving your neighbor as yourself.

The question then becomes, are we responsible for the sins of our ancestors?

Dr. Michael Rhodes, in the article “Should We Repent of Our Grandparents’ Racism? Scripture on Intergenerational Sin”, suggests a closer look at Leviticus 26:40–44 for guidance. He states:

"…one reason the present generation needs to repent of the sins of their forebears is that sin causes a rupture that must be repaired. What’s required is not just that the present generation confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, but also that they “make amends (yirṣû) for their iniquity” (26:41b, 43). If the damage one generation does is not fixed in their own day, that damage does not simply disappear at their death. The wrong must be righted, and the job may well fall on their descendants."

The healing process begins by naming our intergenerational sins and realizing how we, personally, have benefitted from them. For instance, depriving persons of color economically through the lack of good jobs, bank loans, and full participation in the American dream has left the rest of us in a better financial situation.

The second step is to actually make a change, starting within ourselves. Are we perpetuating stereotypes? Do we walk the talk of Christianity?

Until our hearts are clear, we cannot begin to take action in the community to undo the effects of racism. Once self-healing has occurred, we can take action by supporting efforts to create a racially just society. 

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Author Bio:

Marie W. Watts is a former employment discrimination investigator and human resource consultant with over twenty-five years of experience. In pursuit of justice in the workplace, she’s been from jails to corporate boardrooms seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly of humans at work.

Her on-the-job observations came in handy when she co-authored a textbook about how to behave at work, Human Relations 4th ed. Additionally, her work has been published in the Texas Bar Journal and the Houston Business Journal as well as featured on Issues Today syndicated to 119 radio stations, NBC San Antonio, Texas, and TAMU-TV in College Station, Texas.

A popular diversity and employment discrimination trainer, Marie has trained thousands of employees to recognize their own biases and prejudices and avoid discriminating against others in the workplace. She has brought her experiences to life in the trilogy Warriors For Equal Rights about the struggles of ordinary people who work at the little-known federal agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

She and her husband live on a ranch in central Texas. In her spare time, she supports a historic house and hangs out with her grandsons. For more information about Marie and her stories about life, visit www.mariewatts.com.

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Connect with Marie:
BookBub - https://www.bookbub.com/profile/marie-w-watts
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mariewattsbooks
Twitter - https://twitter.com/MarieWattsBooks
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mariewattswriter/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marie-w-watts-5b2a2b/

Sharing Our Stories: A Call to Repentance

Shared Responsibility and Repentance
A devotional by Stephanie Bankhead

“I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.” 

– Daniel 9:4-5 (ESV)

My ancestors emigrated from Italy to the United States. I am a fourth generation American on both sides of my family. They earned a living farming in northeastern Colorado. 

My ancestors knew what it was like to be the brunt of prejudice. In the early 1900’s it was not unusual for Italians to hear mocking ethnic slurs like "wop" and "dago." To my knowledge, we never owned slaves.

Blindly, I believed that I had nothing to apologize for relating to racial tension. My relatives didn't take part in the Atlantic slave trade nor the owning of slaves. Why should I apologize? 

Recently I was reading the book of Deuteronomy. In chapter 31, Moses is telling the people that he knows how rebellious and stubborn they are. Reading that my thoughts jump to, “Hey that's not fair! It was their ancestors who did those things, not this group of people. All those complainers from the exodus are all dead, this is a brand new generation.”

That was the beginning of the collapse of my alleged innocence. Pouring through the Scriptures, it became obvious that God demands we take responsibility for national sin. There are many examples of similar situations like we read in the Bible books of Daniel and Deuteronomy.

We in America have sinned. We have not acknowledged nor admitted that we have and continue to place people in positions of status and importance. And as long as we are the ones on the winning end of the balance, we refuse to see the sin. As Christians, how can we read Paul's letter to the Galatian Church and allow this sin to continue?

God’s Word (The Holy Bible) says in Galatians 3:28 (ESV),“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

God's Word ushers in conviction and I know in my heart this is true. So what is my next right move? Where can I start?

I'm perusing books, watching movies, reading novels about and by the Black community to gain their perspective. I want to understand. And I desire the dismantling of the heinous crime of oppression.

I also apologize to my dear friend, a woman of color, for the struggles that she and her ancestors and her children have had to navigate. Admitting that I have disregarded the white privilege that epitomizes my life. Offering my time weekly to listen and gain an understanding of her life as a Black woman. My plan is to do more of this, to increase our meeting to add more people. It is my belief that as we get to know each other’s stories, our empathy and love toward one another will grow.

Now, like Daniel, my heart asks of the Lord forgiveness for our nation's sin of oppression. I include myself. We have plundered our brothers and sisters of color. We categorize people by social status and power. We are not at all living Paul's admonition in Galatians 3:28.

Imagine a world where all God's children were flourishing. No oppression. No hatred. No privilege for one people to the detriment of another. We can have hope for that world. God wants us to see with our eyes. We must look into the eyes of Black people and see the pain of their ancestors residing in their souls. 

God wants us to understand with our hearts that He loves all people. He created everyone in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27) God wants us to turn, repent from our previous sin of oppression and hatred. And He will heal us. (Isaiah 6:10; John 12:40)

Let’s pray: O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. Heal our nation. In Jesus’s Name we pray, Amen!

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Author Bio:

Stephanie Bankhead is a Bible teacher, mentor and author of several Bible studies. 

Stephanie has worked at a local church as the Women’s Ministry Leader since 2013. In 2018 she became an ordained Teaching Pastor. Before that, she worked as the director of a very successful youth volleyball club. 

What both of these experiences taught her is that women are still little girls inside. Deep down we are all still asking the same questions, “Am I capable? Am I attractive? Am I enough?”

Stephanie delivers sermons and speaks at women’s events on a multitude of topics. Her favorite topic is teaching people what the Bible says about their own identity in God.

Stephanie lives in Amarillo, Texas with her husband of 32 years. They have a rescue pup who barks too much, and a bird abandoned when her two grown children flew the nest. Her four grandchildren are the apples of her eye.