A couple weeks ago Hugo posted on the ethics of hiring undocumented workers. I found it a fascinating discussion since we live in a predominately Latino neighborhood and many of our Kids Club kids’ parents are undocumented. Nance commented on the larger issue of a white person hiring a minority person, something we’ve wrestled with on a few occasions.
Hugo’s right that, on the one hand, by hiring someone we have an opportunity to offer them a more-than-fair wage and help them make ends meet. Providing work for someone who wants a job, but can’t find one, is an issue of justice—one with which I resonate. (And, as an aside, I can’t help but think of Mma Ramotswe’s comment in No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency that, for a person who has enough money to live in a house, it’s unthinkable not to have a maid if you have the means to do so—a sentiment quite foreign to my frugal heart!).
But the issue of “justice” in this case is more complex than just providing a job and overcoming white guilt. Because I am a white person (though Hugo’s situation is different – he has a Colombian-American fiancee which changes the dynamics) hiring a minority person, there is also the issue of power. At the heart of structural racism is an unjust distribution of power. One of the dominant places that this imbalance has been worked out in America is in the workplace. White males have traditionally held the most powerful positions in a company and have used that power to exploit workers, pay unjust wages, and tyrannize their workers. As a white male I’m not sure how possible it is for me to hire a minority worker without feeding into the image that the white person is always the one with power. Even if I do it with the best of intentions, there are still unsaid assumptions, images, and patterns that may perpetuate structural racism.
I do think it may be possible for an individual to overcome this catch-22 by addressing both the power issue and the economic issue. Acts 6:1-7 is the story of how the early church overcame a similar problem. A complaint is raised by the Greek-speaking Jewish Christians that their widows are getting less food than the Hebraic Jewish Christians. The church is keen enough to realize that re-distributing the food (wealth in our context?) will not solve the problem. The fact that a certain class of people are being discriminated against indicates that this is a power issue as well. “Seven men of good reputation” are elected to oversee the distribution of food. But notice their names: “Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch.” They’re all Greek names! I don’t think this is by accident. I think it’s because the church realized that to fully address the issue it needed to address the power issue, and so it appointed people from the minority group to head up the program.
How does this work itself out in the United States and more specifically in this case of hiring minority and/or undocumented workers? Honestly, I think it’s very difficult. It’s more clear in the corporate/business world where laws can be enacted to force change on a large-scale level (i.e. affirmative action), but more creative solutions will be needed at the personal level. Some ideas: see if the person I hire can also provide me a service (learning Spanish?), make a point to develop enough of a friendship where the two of us can (and do!) eat at each other’s table (something Jesus was keen on doing). Other ideas, readers?
Whatever the solution, the unjust distribution of power has to be addressed as well as the issue of providing work for those who need it.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Brooke // Jul 12, 2005 at 8:57 pm
Thanks for the thought-provoking post on issues that need addressing, Jason. And great NT example—I think your exegesis is right on. There are certainly no easy answers, but I have a jumble of thoughts that I will attempt to add to the conversation.
As for issues of “justice” in areas like employment, relationships of power, etc, I wonder if justice in and of itself is really what we are supposed to pursue. Maybe I just hope there is more to honoring God and neighbor than joining the bandwagon calls for social justice in whatever capacity American liberals deem appropriate at the moment. I think Christians are offered and called to something thicker than that, as you seem too as well, Jason, in calling us to creative efforts of reciprocity, etc.
The NT seems like a great place to start, and here are some of my thoughts. (Not that the OT does not have things to offer, but justice seems to work out somewhat differently there, with the theocracy of a chosen nation being different from our present social realities.) – Believers in the NT seem to be more interested in cultivating deference to each other than in advocating for ‘justice’ for the general population in whatever ways occur to them. Philippians 2 is great for how to deal with power distribution: “If you have any comfort from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one is spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” From here it goes into the kenosis passage, where Jesus is anything but the recipient of what we usually think of as justice, and we are exhorted to adopt this as exemplary for ourselves. I also think of eating meat sacrificed to idols, and how each person should watch him/herself for the sake of others. – Another thing that strikes me about Acts is how many sermons are full of history and scripture. Maybe further means of negotiating power discrepancies include honesty about history and the present, finding both saints to emulate and sins to confess. – Pointing people in the right direction or teaching them [helping them get economically established?] does not mean perpetual paternalism. NT figures seem to trust God, the shared indwelling Holy Spirit, and the new believers to continue appropriately what had been begun. On the missionary journeys in Acts: “after they had appointed elders for them in each church, with prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the Lord in whom they had come to believe” (Acts 14:23). This has to do with opening up positions of leadership and trusting people with them, similar to Jason’s example from Acts.
2 isaac // Jul 14, 2005 at 5:34 pm
Jason and Brooke, I loved the way both of you made Acts speak in ways that I hadn’t expected. So interesting.
I want to think more about why it’s cool for someone who started out weak (socio-economically speaking) to take up power, while it is not ok for someone who has always had power not to use it. It might just be me being dense, but i am not following the logic that lets Hugo and his Colombian wife off the hook because she knows what the bottom feels like, while Nancy (see her comment on Hugo’s post) has all kinds of power relations to worry about. Why does passing through a stage of weakness mean that you have a right to excercise power? Sounds like that’s where we fall into some of Marx’s dangers—you know, proletariat revolution stuff. The proletariat revolution ends up creating another bourgeios class; and the revolution solidifies into a new oppressive regime.
I don’t know if i see power structures this statically, or chronologically. It seems like the Christian way follows the logic of constant self-giving, the dynamic self-giving that we learn about in the perichoretic love of the Trinity; or the kenotic Christ who rules as the slain lamb, who still bears our pain and weakness in his wounds. Does the original revolution of Christ’s kenosis that fuels the self-giving life of the body of Christ provide a way past Marx that looks forward to a permanent revolution? Michael Hardt, in his essay on Jean Genet (“Prison Time”), seems to imagine the possibility for a constant revolution. He writes, “Revolution is defined by the continuous movement of a constituent power. Whenever a revolutionary process is closed down in a constituted power—a sovereign identity, a State, a nation—the revolution ceases to exist…. Our alternative existence must be a never-ending means without an end.” And I think that never-ending means without ends is the sort of constant “negotiation” that Brooke observes in the Philippians 2 passage—a negotiation that learns the flow of love that perpetually discovers the bounds of the body of Christ.
3 Jason // Jul 15, 2005 at 8:59 am
Maybe further means of negotiating power discrepancies include honesty about history and the present, finding both saints to emulate and sins to confess.
I think you’re right on with that Brooke. Just addressing “the mess we’re in” without looking at the history that got us here will likely do little good for addressing the problem long-term. Certainly, one of the practices Scripture teaches us is to “confess our sins to oneanother.” Again, though, this can’t happen (on a personal level anyway) unless relationships are created between people of different ethnicities and races. It is only in real relationships that I come to see the image of God in the “stranger” and find the words and security to confess the ways that I (and those who have gone before me) have used my power to oppress or paternalize rather than to empower and liberate. Does that sound like bland American liberal-speak? I hope not, because I think it’s one of the fundamental things we learn from a God who becomes incarnate and enables us to be fully human.
Isaac, I do think we ought to be wary about how we use our power, but I don’t think we can escape the fact that power exists. I’m convinced that, currently in America, white folk have more power than their colored brothers and sisters. Given that, I want to learn how to use that power faithfully, because to not use it is also an abuse ,in my opinion. But you are right that just because you have gone through a period of “powerlessness” does not mean you will use your power any more faithfully (though that time may have opened your eyes to what power abuse feels like). Nonetheless, while a Mexican hiring another Mexican will have power issues to deal with (i.e. gender or socio-economic status), I think there is a special and long-standing power issue to address when a white person hires a Mexican.
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