FacingRacismLR

“We’re all messed up,
but we all came out of somewhere, you know?”
D.P.’s story by Deborah Mix | D.P. is a pseudonym and he is 23 years old.
The first thing you should know is that my parents aren’t racists. They tried to talk to
me about it. But I listened to my granddad—his dad was the head of a white supremacist
organization in Kentucky. He told me that black skin was the mark of Cain, so it was a sign
of evil. When he died I was in fourth grade, and I thought I could honor him by keeping
his values.
My school was all white, and my best friend was also racist, so it was easy to keep to the
thinking that African Americans were different. It was rooted in me. It didn’t mean anything
to me to use slurs, like the N-word. Now I know I was depressed and confused. I was drinking
and just talking big.
Then in November 2014, I was in an accident driving to work. My truck slid into a ditch and
when I got out to see what happened, I got hit by a passing car, which hit another car before
sliding off the road. After being hit, I was somehow able to help that driver and the other
person he hit before the ambulance came. But it turned out my pelvis was fractured. At the
hospital, I had a black nurse. She was so loving and compassionate, and she didn’t even know
me! But once they gave me painkillers, I started saying all kinds of things, calling her names,
the N-word. I don’t even know her name, but I wish I could apologize to her now.
I was in the hospital for five weeks, in and out of consciousness, and when I got home, I was
completely dependent on other people. I hated it. I reached for a beer, like I always did when I
was unhappy, but for some reason it just tasted awful, just literally sickening.
Then I remembered a family friend who visited when I was in the hospital. He prayed over
me, and he invited me and my wife to visit his church. We took him up on the offer, and the
first time we walked in I couldn’t believe how diverse it was. It was insane! I mean, I’ve been
thinking difference is wrong, and here are all these people talking to me and welcoming us.
Everything in the past I’ve done and said—I’m thinking about it and feeling guilty, but I’m still
kind of numb.
I get involved in the choir—music has always been really important to me—and I get asked
to lead a song. So I lead the congregation in “Something About the Name Jesus,” by Kirk
Franklin. I’m singing and looking out at the congregation, and it’s just like a stained-glass
picture. All these people have come together to praise the same God. Something in my spirit
tells me that this is what is should be like. We’re supposed to be together, not segregated.
After the service, I’m eating lunch and I hear this man say, “When I heard them say your
name, I wasn’t picturing a white kid. But you brought it. You sang that song!” I realize the
person talking to me is the associate pastor, a black man. Before I know it, we’re friends, like
real friends. I’m telling him about my marriage, about my life. He makes time for me, calling
me his brother, and he’s like my family now. We talk every day.
When I think about how I used to think, what I used to say then. . . I couldn’t understand
how my words affected others. I was hurting, angry. I always tell people you have to respond
with love because you don’t know what that angry person is going through, what they’ve dealt
with that makes them act that way.
I think God is asking me to tell my story. Where I was isn’t all that uncommon here in
Muncie. I just want to see people love people. I keep coming back to what the Bible says,
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” I know now that’s
how I want to live, and I’m trying to be that man every day of my life.
It’s not easy to change. It hurts. Everything I thought is being obliterated. I spent time not
knowing what to believe. But God is showing me love through other people. We’re all messed
up, but we all came out of somewhere, you know? I want to help other people see they can
change. I’ll tell my story to anyone who will listen.
35