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 Color Don’t Mean a Thing
"Hey, ching, chong, chang!"
My palms started to feel cold and clammy despite the sunny warmth of the afternoon. "They're talking about me," I thought as I spotted three African-American boys, about 12 or 13 years old, grinning at me with their arms crossed. I walked ahead without stopping. I had learned to do this in elementary school every time my classmates addressed me, the only Asian kid in the class, with a racial epithet or made fun of my "slanty" eyes.
Fortunately for me back then, a new girl soon joined our class and became their new target for teasing. I admit with shame that I did not courageously defend the poor girl but instead felt relieved that they had found a new victim. I eventually made peace with my classmates, and my tormentors soon became my friends.
Yet, as a college student fifteen years later, I realized that time and experience did not make me immune to the sting of racial slurs. I felt just as puzzled and hurt as the little girl who did not understand why people would be mean just because she looked different. And just like the little girl who cried when she got home, I started to cry as soon as I arrived at my dorm room. My self-esteem was hurt, and I felt a self-righteous anger that wanted someone to teach those boys that they were wrong.
Yet, my heart's hardness toward the boys also troubled me. With alarm, I realized that if I were in their situation, I would be equally capable of doing what they did to me. During my junior year in high school, this same realization of the evilness in my own heart was one of the factors that led me to Jesus Christ. At the time, I was a self-professed atheist who felt uncomfortable about Jesus' claims to divinity. Yet, I was attracted by the life and teaching of a man who loved and forgave his persecutors, though he did nothing wrong. When I understood that Christ died for me, even while I was still a sinner (Romans 5), my skepticism gave way to amazement and acceptance.
Although I have chosen to follow Jesus Christ and all His teachings, my attitude toward the boys that day revealed my inability to love or forgive them to the full extent that Christ commands: "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another" (John 13). That evening I prayed, "Lord, I want to love, but I cannot do it with my own human heart. Teach me to love as you do."
The Lord answered my prayer the following morning as I headed for the laundry room with a bag of dirty clothes.
The basement is usually quiet at this time of day, but that morning there was a loud and spirited argument between several members of the custodial staff. Although the door of their workroom was partly closed, I guessed that the voices belonged to two women and one man, all African-American. Although I had no intention of eavesdropping, I heard one of the women say, "It's not like we're perfect. But we gotta be on our knees everyday to repent...." My pulse quickened because she was talking about someone whom we both knew personally—she was talking about our Lord Jesus. The voices and images of the previous afternoon flashed through my mind, and I debated with myself for a few seconds before I hesitantly knocked on the door and waited for a response.
"Come in!"
I peered into the room and saw that I had guessed right. From the surprise in their faces, I also surmised that they probably did not receive many visits from students, especially at 8 o'clock in the morning.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but did I hear someone talking about Jesus?"
"Yup. What about him?"
"Well, uh, I just wanted to stop in to praise Him and tell you how encouraged I was just to hear you say His name this morning."
There were two seconds of stunned silence. Then, to my relief, all three of them started to nod and expressed their assent verbally: "Amen! That's all right!" After that icebreaker, we exchanged a few greetings with each other until I turned around to leave. As I closed the door behind me, I heard one of the women say, "You see, color don't mean a thing...." I did not need to hear anything else, for I understood. Because of Jesus Christ's death on the cross, I can call this woman my sister, regardless of ethnic, racial or socio-economic differences. At that point, I could let go of any resentment toward the boys I encountered the previous day, for I began to see them not as three hoodlums but as boys whom Jesus so fiercely loves that he did not spare his own life so that they might be reconciled to their Creator.
"For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view" (2 Corinthians 5).
Pearl Chin, Ezra Stiles '96
© 1995 The Yale Standard Committee
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