Mennonite Central Committee News Service
(4)
June 20, 1967
ATLANTA VSERS ASK: CAN A COMMITTED CHRISTIAN
BE "SUCCESSFUL" AND "RESPECTABLE" IN A SLUM?
by David Shields and Don Bender
Mennonite House in Atlanta has been
since its beginning a place for discussion as well as voluntary
service. We at Mennonite House are interested in the problems
of racism, poverty, and war. We have come to realize that communities,
and even churches, that we have thought were "good"
all have these problems. Because we are interested in solving
these problems we often have ideas that are strongly different
from the ones we have had in the past. We are presenting ideas
in this essay that may be distasteful to many of you, as some
of them were to us. We hope, however, that you will think about
them even if they are new and don't "feel right."
Most of us have heard someone say,
"Well, he made his by honesty, thrift, and hard work. He's
a fine Christian man." Almost any successful farmer, businessman,
or salesman in our churches has had that said about him at one
time or another. There is another side to this idea of success,
however. If we take a long hard look at our American history
we find that this materialistic idea of
success can be traced to two factors that exist in our society.
The first factor is the idea that it is all right to take all
we can get from another man, and the second is the way in which
one group of people uses a "different" minority group
of people to further their own ends.
White America has been peopled by
the dissatisfied and ambitious of other countries. These people
found fewer rules and a different culture here, and by doing
things they could not, for one reason or another, do in the old
country, they prospered. However, they prospered at the expense
of the American Indians whom they pushed off their native land,
and at the expense of the Negro slaves, whose counterpart today
is the maid and heavy laborer--the people doing jobs too hard
or too menial for the middle class people who employ them. Our
American system is one where one white man in charge of 20 laborers
can build a house without lifting a finger--except bossin'--and
then get personal credit for building a beautiful house where
no Negroes are allowed to live, and to further injure the situation,
this one "boss man" receives all the "profit"
while his laborers receive $1.25 an hour minimum wage.
Mennonite House is located in the middle
of a slum area in Atlanta, just a few blocks from one of last
summer's riot areas. There have already been a couple of minor
disturbances here this summer.~, and will undoubtedly be more
as the summer continues. However, these so-called "disturbances"
are just one small result of America's tremendous overemphasis
on individual freedom from social responsibility.
I can walk just a few blocks from here
to a hardware store owned by a white man where you will pay 20¢
for a 15 ampere house fuse that costs 15¢ a mile away in
a white community. This is the general pattern, not only for
products and food but also for housing. The Mennonite Central
Committee pays more for a three-room apartment that violates
city housing codes than one would pay for a similar size apartment
in a white community that does not violate building codes. The
Urban League has discovered that the majority of substandard
housing is in Negro communities, but on the other hand, people
living in a Negro community pay more per dwelling for rent than
people who rent apartments in a white community.
The reason that "the poor pay more,
for less" is this: the owner of the small store in a slum
community has discovered that people without cars are forced
to do business at the nearest store; the owner of the apartment
in a Negro community has discovered that people with dark skin
and nappy hair have no better choice than his apartment; this
list could go on and on. Is this any different from common American
business practice? The so-called "law of supply and demand"
tells us that prices go up when the supply is insufficient, or
when there is no competition. The real-estate dealer would be
considered a fool, even by us Christians, if he charged $35 a
month for an apartment, when someone would pay $65 a month for
it.
Ever since the first slaves were brought
to this land, the men who have controlled the government that
the slaves lived under have been white, and the men who have
controlled all the money have been white. Every month we see
the white rent-collectors walklng the streets in front of our
house--but every door they knock on brings someone paying money
earned by a black man's sweat. White people have usually been
careful to see that other white people have the jobs with "responsibility."
and relegate the lowest paying jobs to Negroes.
One of the most dangerous things that
happens to the man who gets ahead is that he begins to look down
on the "less fortunate." People who have a steady job
think of the jobless as lazy good-for-nothing, loafers. I have
frequently heard an ambulance driver from Grady Hospital--a welfare
hospital--say to a person who was constantly drunk, "ya
know, fella, you ain't worth nothin" This particular driver
is a deacon in his church, doesn't smoke, drink, or tell dirty
jokes. He works at two jobs and owns his own home. He has worked
hard ever since he was a young man to "succeed." His
feelings of respectability make him discourteous to the very
people whose need for help has created his job.
Another example of the way Americans
look down on the "less fortunate" is the treatment
poor or drunk prisoners receive from the police. In Atlanta,
anyone the police find drunk on the streets is detained at the
hospital until he sobers up, and then he goes on to jail. I have
seen policemen kicking a man on the floor of the hospital, telling
him to get up when he was obviously too drunk to stand. Now if
the situation had been reversed and the policeman had been on
the floor and the prisoner kicking him, there would have been
the serious charge of assaulting a police officer with the possibility
of several years on the chain gang as punishment. However the
policeman gets to assault the prisoner with no chance of penalty.
There is no legal or moral justification
for this type of behavior, but everyone knows it happens. The
"public", which is composed mostly of people who don't
get into trouble with the police, is mostly interested in maintaining
their own respectability and in keeping people who "ain't
worth nothin'" from being in places where they can be seen.
It seems incredible that people even
try to justify one group of people taking advantage of another.
What is more incredible is that "getting ahead" is
even given the aura of being Christian and Biblical in the name
of thrift and hard work.
Jesus grew up in a culture which had
limitations on personal ownership. A sense of community responsibility
resulted in farmers leaving some grain for the use of passers-by.
Jesus often benefited from this form of welfare.
Jesus uncovered this attitude toward
"getting ahead" by telling the Rich Ruler he would
have to slough off his material chains before he could be a disciple.
He even went so far as to say one time that a camel could more
easily pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man be a
part of the Kingdom.
Jesus constantly aroused the anger of
the respectable religious and business community by associating
with beggars, harlots, and other persons not in the "in-crowd.
But his most dramatic identification with those who had not gotten
ahead was his personal life. He had only a bare minimum of clothing;
he slept outside; he had no bank account but lived off others.
He never got a job but spent his life as an agitator and peacemaker--even
though he was a qualified carpenter and could have gotten ahead
in that vocation.
In light of our experiences in the slums
of Atlanta we wonder if a man can stand with the poor and "less
fortunate" as Christ. did, and still be "successful"
and "respectable" ?
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