With regard to racism in our country, the Baha’i writings say that we in America have a long and stony road ahead with many thorns in our way.
I have experienced these thorns and stones personally in my life and can relate to them well, both literally and symbolically. I have fought my own prejudices on a daily basis with perseverance and steadfastness. Baha’i writings say that we will be held accountable for our prejudices by God. This instills in me a little of the fear of God, a healthy measure.
Without the teachings of Baha’u’llah, Prophet-Founder of the Baha’i Faith, I would still be locked in my own white world, never knowing the friendship of my black brothers and sisters, or any other minority friendships. Recently we celebrated Martin Luther King Day, a celebration for a visionary man of action and conviction who set a high standard challenging us to over come our ingrained prejudices and racism.
I grew up with my share of stereotypes, prejudices about women. people of different color and background — even prejudices against art styles and I am an artist by training. For the first 15 years of my life as an artist I thought that abstract art was ridiculous and not art at all. It took 15 years to overcome this prejudice.
My understanding of racism is that it starts with stereotypes in the home and culture. When stereotypes about a people are generally accepted, this becomes prejudice, and when prejudices are accepted and institutionalized against a people, usually a minority, then racism forms. We learn these misguided ways of thinking and feeling. Hatred is just as much a feeling as a thought.
Through prayer, reflection and close observation of my behavior, I have gradually, little by little and day by day, trained myself to see clearly prejudices still in me. I am consciously aware of them.
This process of overcoming prejudices started back in 1982 when I became a Baha’i, and especially around 1992 when I attended the Institute for the Healing of Racism in Seattle, started by two Baha’is — one a Baha’i of Jewish background from the United States, the other an African American from Canada.
I experienced a lot of psychological pain that lasted for some years. Now that pain is mostly gone. I am much further down that stony road cluttered with thorns.
Growing up hunting small game in New England, I know what it is like to try to get through thorny brush to flush out grouse and woodcock. You need specially lined pants to do this without a lot of pain from the thorns. And climbing Mount Katahdin in Maine, when we got to the top — the last stretch along the mountain crest — a long path of roundish stones moved a lot when walked on, making it hard to balance. And going up the main path, many large boulders to climb slowly over. Overcoming prejudice is like getting through these thorns and walking on these stones and boulders, but is much harder causing more pain.
In balancing my life as a Baha’i in relation to racism and prejudice and stereotypes the stones on my symbolic road have gotten much smaller, and the thorns thinner and more sparse on the road. My joy has increased and my love has flourished, love being the most important thing in Baha’i teachings in little by little, day by day, overcoming our flaws. A process that has no end in the life.
Best wishes for the new year.
Tim Wilson lives in Harpswell.
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