Sorta Sacred

How to Be An Ally: Race, Faith, and the Work in Front of Us

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In this episode, Jess and Mark sit down with the Reverend Kenneth W. Wheeler — retired ELCA pastor, public theologian, preacher, and author of US: The Resurrection of American Terror.

Rev. Wheeler grew up under Jim Crow segregation in Jackson, Mississippi, and has spent seven decades as a Black man in America bearing witness to the through-line of white supremacy — from the lynching tree to January 6.

Rev. Wheeler talks about what white people don't have to think about, what genuine allyship requires (and what it doesn't), the difference between guilt and action, and what it means to be made in the image of God in a country still reckoning with its original sins. 

"Anger has to be acknowledged and grief has to be honored for growth to happen."

Thanks to the incredible production team of Sorta Sacred:

Music: Brian Schou 

Design: Lauren Brown 

Merch: Allison Winter 

SPEAKER_00

So, Jess, is there a book, film, experience, conversation that genuinely changed how you see the world?

SPEAKER_01

I'm sure there are many. But when you asked that question, I think of one more recently. Untamed by Glenn and Doyle. Have you read it?

SPEAKER_00

I've not read it, no, of it, but.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, it's beautiful. Uh, my best friend bought it for me. It came out in 2020. And I think I read it in 2022. And I was already going through some life-changing experiences in my life, being in my mid-30s and um figuring out what life looked like going ahead as a mother. And um this book gave me permission as a woman that I don't think I had been given before in my life. Um, it taught me not only that my I could take up space, I was allowed to take up space. And it also taught me that um not only like is it okay for me to use my voice, but the world needs my voice. And that's important. Um, and I actually I pulled up a quote because um, oh gosh, there's so many good quotes in this book. I highly recommend it. Um, but this one is about uh being a mother. Uh and Glennon writes Mothers have martyred themselves in their children's names since the beginning of time. We have lived as if she who disappears the most loves the most. We have been conditioned to prove our love by slowly ceasing to exist. What a terrible burden for children to bear, to know that they are the reason their mother stopped living. What a terrible burden for our daughters to bear, to know that if they choose to become mothers, this will be their fate too. Because if we show them that being a martyr is the highest form of love, that is what they will become. They will feel obligated to love as well as their mothers loved, after all. They will believe they have permission to live only as fully as their mothers allowed themselves to live. If we keep passing down the legacy of martyrdom to our daughters, with whom does it end? Which woman ever gets to live? And when does the death sentence begin? At the wedding altar, in the delivery room? And whose delivery room? Our children's or our own. When we call martyrdom love, we teach our children that when love begins, life ends. There is no greater burden on a child than the unloved life of a parent. So as a parent who also loves theater and loves doing all of these things on the side, but I had a lot of guilt leaving the house to go do those things. Reading this gave me permission to be the example I wanted to give to my child someday. And so I've gone back and read that book almost every year because I need a constant reminder. It's hard to break out of those societal roles that we've been placed in in our lives. And as I have a child who's figuring out some gender fluidity and things, it's I want to keep being reminded of how to break some of those societal bounds that have put on me before I even knew that they were a thing. So that is a book that has wildly changed. Thank you to my best friend Kathleen, wildly changed my view on and my experience as a woman.

SPEAKER_00

Sounds like something you probably do need to for yourself go back repeatedly.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Just to remind yourself this this is who I am and and and this is how I can be. This is how God made me to be. Right. And it's and it's okay. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. What about you?

SPEAKER_00

So growing up in central Wyoming came with some challenges as far as entering into a complex and and um and diverse world, and you know, you have a very broad definition of diversity there. While my town was surrounded by, well, my town was surrounded by Indian reservation, a very, very poor Indian reservation. But so I my racial experiences growing up were marked by some of those tensions, which inform a lot of my life and how I try to operate in the world. But I really didn't get to see more of what this world, what our society had to offer until I got to my pastoral internship during seminary. So I was in South Minneapolis at this church called Mount Olive. It's known for very high liturgy and it's very, it's really pretentious. I love those folks so much, but it's a deeply pretentious kind of place. Um, but it was one of my first Sundays there. And I'm vicar, it's a very proper kind of church. So I'm vicar and everyone's bowing. It's it's like a the-you have to bow more deeply than the person next to you. It's really an interesting kind of place. But one of my first few weeks there was a wedding during the Sunday liturgy. We didn't call it worship, we called it liturgy. So during the liturgy, there was a wedding for Adam and Thomas. I had never encountered any, I, you know, I I hadn't been exposed a lot to folks who weren't straight. And if they weren't, then we just didn't talk about it. It was something that we just ignored and moved on from. But to be able to sit in this worship service, to be with Adam and Thomas, and then afterwards at the reception to hear their stories of how parents either were wonderfully supportive of the day or who were conspicuously absent from the day, opened up my eyes to see a different aspect of the grace of God at play. You know, growing up, again, central Wyoming or Wyoming as a whole, the the legacy of Matthew Shepard rings loudly. Uh so being at a wedding for Adam and Thomas changed changed me in in some ways and started then to allow me to see more of the beautiful diversity of our world that I just didn't get a chance to see based on where I was growing up. So that kind of started a journey of expanding how I'm supposed to look for God and the image of God in humanity. So deeply grateful to the people of Mount Olive, especially Adam and Thomas. I love those guys. But it's it was good to be pushed and to be and so that I can change and so that I can see grace in a new way. And I hope that I can still find those new ways of seeing grace every day and in the people that I get to serve as pastor and otherwise encounter outside. That's that's my hope.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks to Adam, Thomas, and Glennon for opening our worlds a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

We're all works in progress, we're all learning, we're all growing. And today's conversation is an invitation to do some of that hard work. Today we're talking about how to be an ally to black and brown communities in America, especially now at a time where these conversations need to be had, and we could not have a better person to guide us.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Sorta Sacred conversations about the joys and challenges of life. Together, we're finding something sorta sacred, even the most normal parts of our days.

SPEAKER_02

You spend your whole life trying to work your way through that trauma, not allowing hatred to rob you of your own humanity. When you look at me, do you see me? Do you really see me?

SPEAKER_00

Joining us today is the Reverend Kenneth W. Wheeler, a retired ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a sought-after preacher, public theologian, and writer. He's a guest lecturer on pastoral leadership at Wartburg Theological Seminary, where he received a Doctor of Divinity degree. He is an in-demand preacher for the national observance of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

SPEAKER_01

Ken Wheeler most recently served at Cross Lutheran Church and ELCA congregation in Milwaukee, where he was also director of the Bread of Healing Empowerment Ministry. He spent 18 years as an assistant to the Bishop of the Greater Milwaukee Synod. He's a native of Jackson, Mississippi. Holds a BA in religion from Concordia College in Minnesota, not in Texas.

SPEAKER_00

Not in Texas. That's right.

SPEAKER_01

And a Masters of Divinity from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.

SPEAKER_00

And he published a book a few years ago. It's called Us: The Resurrection of American Terror. Ken, welcome to Soda Sacred.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you. It's good to be with you.

SPEAKER_01

First of all, can we start with a story about Concordia and how you ended up in Minnesota? Because I thought that was wonderful reading that in your book.

SPEAKER_02

And there are, and I discovered this later, there are 16 Concordias across the nation. All of them, with the exception of the one in Moorhead, Minnesota, at the time was ALC. I applied to Concordia Austin, Texas, which was a two-year college. I applied to Valparaiso, and all of those were in my junior year of high school. And I applied to Tugaloo College, which is a historical black college about 15 minutes outside of Jackson, was accepted at all three. And so naturally I chose Concordia. However, I'm still under the assumption that it is Concordia Austin, Texas. And so I put the letter up, and my pastor comes by one day in August, and school was to start at the end of August. And I said, I've got great news. He reads it, and there's silence. And and he said, Ken, this is uh not Concordia Austin, Texas, this is Concordia Moorhead, Minnesota. And I said, No, uh, I've never heard of that school. And so he gives me the letter back, and sure enough, and I I looked at it, and at the very bottom, I'll never forget this, in red letters, Concordia College, post office box, 56560, Moorhead, Minnesota. So what was I to do? Uh it was too late for me to pull out. Uh so my mother and I went to the Greyhound bus station to buy a ticket to Moorhead. And the ticket agent said, uh, I'm sorry, we can't sell you a ticket to Moorhead, but we can sell you a ticket to Fargo. And so it was a 32-hour bus ride, right? And uh and and so when I tell that story, uh it is it's comical, it's almost unbelievable, but it's true. And my bishop, uh the one that I worked with uh the longest, uh Peter Ragnes, would say to me, Ken, you know, that was not, because I would say it was an accident of the postal uh service. And he would say, no, that was the work of the Holy Spirit. So that's how that's how I got there.

SPEAKER_01

I thought that was an incredible story, and I do think there's something divine in how that happened in your life.

SPEAKER_00

The accident of climate, though, really is is something with that. Austin to Moorhead?

SPEAKER_02

It took me uh my first year, I lived in a dorm. And a few, you know, Moorhead winters are brutal, and I had never experienced winter like that. And so, but my my dorm had a cafeteria. So I for the first seven months, I never went to the main cafeteria because it's just too cold. So it was uh, but you know, I I got used to it, and so I was there for four years. Uh it's a wonderful experience.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. Well, before we dive in, we we gave a lot of background on you. Um, but tell us a little bit about who you are beyond that bio information. Who is Ken Wheeler?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I am uh a proud father of three amazing sons, a proud grandfather of five amazing grandkids. Um I was blessed to be married to my wife for almost 50 years. Just a wonderful, wonderful human being, a wonderful partnership. Um I grew up in Jackson. I was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, which was a Civil War uh battlefield. Um, but my parents moved to Jackson shortly thereafter, so I I never knew Vicksburg. So I lived in Jackson for 17 years until I went away to college. Um, as deep and entrenched as segregation was in my growing up years, my mother uh was a was as deeply entrenched in her love of Jesus. That influence um that I live with every day, maybe by osmosis, you know, uh uh that sort of uh rubbed off on me as well.

SPEAKER_00

Your book is called Us: The Resurrection of American Terror. That title is striking and intentional. So let's start there. Why terror, and what is the significance of selecting that word?

SPEAKER_02

Well, because as I say in the book, I think white supremacy is the greatest existential threat uh to this nation and to the church. And when I say the church, I mean the white church. That it is the greatest existential threat. White supremacy is by definition terror. That's what it is. Its purpose is to unhinge people from their humanity. Um and so for 400 years, that terror was operative in this nation from slavery up through Jim Crow, even now with the prison industrial um complex. But that terror still reigns. And I think today what we see in this nation, and I'm in fact I was really disturbed. One of the reasons that I wrote the book was because I this was during COVID, and it was during um President Trump's first uh term in the White House. And I was um almost undone by the fact that 81 percent of white evangelical Christians voted for this individual. And I could not wrap my brain around that. To be a Christian and then to latch on to something that is as vile and evil as white supremacy simply did not match. And so what we're seeing today is um a president who has made white supremacy a national agenda. I've I've always said it's not so much uh what this president says. I've growing up, I heard far worse from people like George Wallace and Ross Barnett, who was the governor of Mississippi, and Alan Thompson, who was the mayor of the city of Jackson. We heard far worse things come out of those people's mouths about uh black people. Um so that that was not the thing that offended me uh about Donald Trump. What did offend me and what disturbed me is that we now have someone in the White House, the highest office in the land, and the most powerful um office in the world who has made white supremacy um an agenda. And that that's that's what all of us should be concerned about. Um and I think it it is a message to the church. Um because I I think that any church that ties itself to that kind of thinking is a church that does not, has not met the Jesus that we read about in the gospel narratives.

SPEAKER_00

Aaron Powell Can we give a little definition? You talk about white supremacy being part of the agenda of the presidential administration. Can you can you um g give us some examples of how that how how that plays out?

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell Yeah, yeah. I mean I think first of all, white supremacy is about power, right? That's what it's about power. And I think the first uh the first week of his um his second term, where by executive order he signed uh seven bills, pieces of legislation that sort of erased uh black people. That's what he did, right? He erased the struggle that that so many people fought for, worked for, died for. And he said, one, that was not history, right? And if it was, it was inconsequential. He also said in that first week um that uh you talk about people, young people, older people who are struggling with gender identity. Also in that first week, by executive order, he said, you know, there are only two genders in this country, male and female, right? And and anything else is just not true. Where does that come from? That is a white agenda, uh white supremacist attitude that begins to play out in policy, and that's the danger, because you have the most powerful person on the face of the earth. His prejudices, uh, if they were spoken in private, would be fine. But they're not spoken in private, right? They're spoken in public. And and and and those and those prejudicial thoughts are then reflected in policy that affects a whole group of people. So that's the danger uh of that.

SPEAKER_01

You grew up in Jackson, Mississippi during Jim Crow segregation. For our listeners who maybe don't quite have a sense of what your experience was like, could you paint a little bit of a picture for us um of what ordinary life was like for you growing up?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Because we grew up in two worlds, right? So I grew up uh segregation meant that you, white people and black people, were not together. You could not um socialize together, right? So in my all-black neighborhood, Georgetown neighborhood, I had a wonderful life, right? I I never felt threatened. Uh in fact, I felt protected. All of us felt protected. People looked out for one another. It was only when you walked outside of your all-black neighborhood. For instance, if you had to go downtown, you had to ride the bus, right? Because we didn't have a car. So you had to ride the bus. And um the segregation laws meant that you know, you get on the bus, you pay your fee, your fare, and then you get off, and then you walk to the back and you get on uh in the back section of the bus.

SPEAKER_01

So you had to leave the bus to go around to the back.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, yes. I didn't realize that. And and then seating was in the, you know, seating was in the uh reserve for blacks, right, in the back, right? Uh I talked about in the in the book, you know, what the media didn't get, um, because I went to work with my mom a couple of times, and bus drivers, white, and they were all white, bus drivers could be um, they could be mean, right? And they could single you out. Most of those bus drivers were very disrespectful to black people. And you've got older black people who my mother was older. Uh, my father was older than my mother, right? And so um you've got young 13, 14-year-old white teenagers, boys, who uh refused to address my father as mister, right, but called him boy. Um, or they would call my mom girl, right? And my mom was old enough to be their mother or grandmother. You couldn't go into uh, there was a Woolworths on Capitol Street, Capitol was a main street in Jackson, and there was a Woolworths there. And you could go into Woolworths, you could buy something to eat in Woolworths, but you couldn't sit down, you had to stand up. White patrons could sit down, right? So those were the kinds of uh every day um you would walk, if you walked outside of your community, uh you would invariably see um those signs over the restrooms colored and white. Um that and th those were intentional. Um and they were at eye level, right? So that you would get the message if you were black that you were less than the person who was white.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

So those things were real. I think I also mentioned in the book, uh, you know, when I was seven or eight, the first time that I heard the word nigger, right, directed at me. And three white teenagers almost ran me down as I was on the way to spend the weekend with my father. Uh, and they threw something out of the window by the grace of God. I was able to run up into a neighbor's yard. And the neighbor saw what happened and came out on her porch and asked, baby, are you okay? And my my uh dad and my aunt live right across the street from them. And I just ran in the house. My I was I was soaking wet because if you've been in the south in July, it's hot. And it's and it's humid. And so and I had been running, and so I was soaking wet. And I my my father and my aunt were sitting on the porch as they normally would in the afternoon in the evenings. And I didn't say anything. I just went in. And uh I didn't say anything to them all that night. But I I had a I had a I couldn't sleep, I had a nightmare. So I couldn't sleep, but I never told them what happened, right? And I think, you know, you just learn to keep a lot of that stuff in. And so James Cohn says, um, you know, we carry our histories with us. And not only do we carry the history, but we also carry the trauma of that history, right? And so I think that, you know, you sp I I spend you spend your whole life as a person of color if you if you've grown up in America, particularly in the South. And not that, you know, the South had a monopoly on racism because it didn't. And the fact that this election of Donald Trump proved that, right? But it was, I think you spend your whole life trying to work your way through that trauma and not allowing hatred to rob you of your own humanity. So that's the work I think that people of color in this country have to do.

SPEAKER_01

How do you do that? How do you not let it rob you of your humanity?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I you know, I think because I'm a I'm a person of faith, uh, I um I lean on that a lot, right? I I lean on, now I remember I didn't always agree with my mother who, because I would ask my mother, how you know, mom, why don't you hate these people? And she would just simply say to me, son, you've got to pray, right? Which was not a, when you're 13, 14, that's not an answer that you want to hear, right? But that that was her belief. Uh and so now I look back and I think, you know, she was probably pretty wise about that, um, that you've got to pray. And because I'm a person of faith, um I I take seriously what I read in scripture about who I am and who we are as people of God, right? And that's not always an easy struggle, Jacob. Wrestle with God, right? And I think prayer is wrestling with God, because you don't always agree with what God is telling you to do.

SPEAKER_00

There's a certain tenacity of faith in there that I that I don't understand.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um how how how do you maintain faith and trust in a God who you know how God made you? You know that you are made in the image of God. And those people throwing stuff out the window at you and trying to run you down, yeah, they are too. Yeah. How do you reconcile that? How do you stay, how do you maintain that tenacious faith?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I see, I think this is where um black theology comes in. And so I I give great uh um credit to people like James Cohn, uh Gerard Wilmore, and others who said, you know, those slave masters, they they knew a different version of God. I was teaching Bible study a couple of weeks ago on the book of Exodus, and interesting uh that uh there were British missionaries who blacked out the first 19 chapters of the book of Exodus, right? And you have to ask why they do that? Well, because the first 19 chapters of the book of Exodus talks about liberation and freedom, right? And um and so black people have understood that the the enslaved uh eventually stopped believing their slave masters about who Jesus was. Uh and it's interesting how the slave masters leaned on Paul to say to them, slaves, be obedient unto your masters, right? But they were hearing a different voice when they read the book of Exodus, right? They were hearing a different voice, and they were hearing about a different God. And I'm really clear that if you are that those three white teenagers, I and I'm assuming that they went to church on Sunday, um, and if they did, um they were hearing a very different God. Because if they were hearing the God that I was hearing and reading about, first of all, they wouldn't be driving down the street trying to run me over. Right. Um and so I I think that this, that the book that I wrote was as much about uh theology as it was about uh politics.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_02

If we get our theology wrong, um then um it's going to have uh an impact in a negative way about how we see people and how we treat people.

SPEAKER_00

You're right that white supremacy is America's greatest threat, which is a very strong statement and one that some listeners might push back on. How do you hold that claim?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I hold the claim because I I see it every day. I witness it every day, right? And um I and for and I say to the white people who want to push back on that, that if you don't believe that that's true, then you prove that to me, right? You prove that to black people, right? Uh talk to talk talk to people who experience this kind of systematic violence each and every day.

SPEAKER_01

You also trace uh thread from Jim Crow all the way to January 6th, U.S. Capitol. Talk about the through line that you're naming.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I'm assuming that everybody or many people watched that January 6th event. So my wife and I were sitting in our in our den watching. And the first thing that I noticed was uh the noose that was there. And the second thing that I noticed was that there were people who were were bowing to pray, right? And the third thing that I noticed was the Confederate flag. The American flag was there too, but the Confederate flag, right. On that day, when I saw that, when I saw those two flags, um, I couldn't tell the difference between the two. James Cohn said, that noose, even if you've never seen a lynching, said that noose, everybody knows what that noose stands for. It just broke my heart to watch that. And to think that I, you know, I as a kid in elementary school, we said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. And in Jackson, because we were in the Bible belt, we also said the Lord's Prayer every morning. Now we were in a black school.

SPEAKER_00

You're a pastor, you've spent your life in the church, and yet you write about the toxic interplay between anti-blackness, nationalism, and Christianity in America. That's a painful thing to name about an institution you love. We've talked about it a little bit already, but how do you hold that tension with the institution?

SPEAKER_02

Well, because I love the institution, that's why I can I can be critical, right? And I I lived in this institution. And so I want to say to the church that I love, that if we are clearly the people that we claim to be, uh then there can be no there can be no division. There simply can't be. There cannot be uh those walls that divide us, as Paul writes in Ephesians 2, that those walls have come down by the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, if we don't believe that, let's just say we don't believe it and move on. But if we believe that, we got to struggle with that.

SPEAKER_01

You also write that uh it's a come to Jesus book in every sense of the phrase. What do you mean by that? What does a genuine come to Jesus moment look like for white Christians in America right now?

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell I I think the challenge, and I say this uh repeatedly, that what white supremacy has done, it has impacted white people as deeply as it has impacted black people. And the way in which it has impacted white people is that it has um kept white people from being in touch with their humanity. Because white supremacy is not about humanity. White supremacy is strictly about power, right? And if you are, and so power can blind you, right? And you can be blinded by that power so that you don't even recognize your own humanity, right? And so um I love what um Maya Angelo says uh when she talks about death or when she talks about suffering. She says that when we suffer, we are at our most human selves, right? And the only thing that we have to hold on to is our humanity. And so to strip away, to strip away this claim that we are superior because of our skin color, that's just anti-God. It's anti-God. Because what God says in Genesis is that I'm going to create human beings and I'm going to create them in my likeness and in my image. And what white supremacy says is, no, God, you got it wrong. Because uh humanity is determined by the color of one's skin, or one's inhumanity is determined by the color of one's skin. So I think we have to just, you know, we just have to push back on stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00

You engage deeply with James Cohn, the theologian of Black Liberation Theology, with Isabel Wilkerson's cast. What do those voices give us that we need right now?

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell I would say both, but I would I would probably um defer at this in this moment to uh Isabel Wilkerson. She hits the nail on the head in so many, many ways. And she talks about the caste system in America, right? And that caste system in America is shaped by racism, right? And those who are at the bottom of that caste system are people who are black and brown. She also says, which really uh struck me, uh hit me in a in a deep way, in a profound way, says you you can't argue. So white supremacy does not have a conscience, right? Evil does not, and and evil does not have a conscience, right? And so uh Jesus understood that evil did not have a conscience, right? And I I just think that you cannot appeal to evil through moral means. White supremacy has to be deconstructed. And that is the call. How will our nation be great? Our nation will be great when we can realize that the thing that is our most challenging task is to remove the shackles of our enslavement to white supremacy.

SPEAKER_01

You do point to the cross as a place of hope and reconciliation. Um it's not just a symbol of suffering, but of what's possible for people. Talk a little bit about that. What does the cross have to do with racial justice?

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. So the cross in and of itself is not a thing of glory, right? The cross in and of itself is about the worst kind of power, the worst kind of um pain and violence in the Roman world, right? What makes the cross different is that Jesus dies on that cross. God dies on that cross, and God's death transforms that cross. And and so what emerges is a power that is greater than the power of violence and death. What emerges is the power of love, and love has the power and the capacity to transform us, right? And so that's the and and there wherever injustice lives, that's the call of the church to be present in those places with those with those people and to challenge the systems that cause that kind of suffering.

SPEAKER_00

Aaron Powell There's some things that if you're white in America that you will never have to think about, worry about, or have fears about. This is the power and privilege of white supremacy. Can you walk us through what that means? What are some of those things that white people don't have to worry about?

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell Yeah, yeah. Very simple thing. White people don't have to worry about speeding, right, uh when they drive. I do. People of color do. Particularly if you're in a in a community that's all white, right? You have to worry about that because you know you're going to get pulled over. Uh that's what Ferguson, Missouri was about, right? When George Floyd was killed, uh, I got calls from, we got calls from, because my wife was still living, from all three of our sons. And Kenny, who's a runner, said, Dad, I I just I don't know what to do with my with my backpack, because they said normally I put it on my my seat. But he said, if I get stopped and I I began to reach for that, you know, I don't know what would happen. And I said to him, because I had the same concern, I said, um, I take my license out and I put it in my visor so that if I'm stopped, all I do is just pull down the visor and officer can see both my hands. But those are little things that we have to worry about. And those are real things, right? And that this is not 40 years, 60 years ago. This is 2025 and 2026, that this stuff is very, very real. Coming off of the civil rights pilgrimage in January, we had there were 26, seven of us, students from uh Wardburg Seminary in Iowa, and students from United Seminary in um Philadelphia. Philadelphia, there were four black students, and which was really good because I don't think that you can do this work, I don't think white people can do this work by themselves, right? I don't think black people can do this work by ourselves. Um and and one of the uh black um uh colleagues on the trip uh was having a conversation with uh uh a white student and asked that white student, do you see me? I mean, do when you look at me, do you see me? Do you really see me? Right? Do you see a human being standing before you? What a powerful and profound question that we all of us need to be wrestling with in 2026. What does it mean to be not just an American, but what does it mean to be a human being in America? I think we're fighting for our souls as a country. Uh but but I also think that we are fighting most profoundly for our humanity.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Uh because we we have for we have lost the capacity to be human with one another, right? And civil with one another.

SPEAKER_01

How do we start moving back toward that, seeing each other really deeply? You mentioned a Zulu word in your book about Sawabuno. I see you. And that spokes me so deeply because we talked about Namaste. Yeah. I see the divine in you, I see the humanity in you. How do we move closer to doing that?

SPEAKER_02

I hope, and I urge this with white congregations who really are deeply interested in healing the racial divide, that you that you find uh a congregation of color, that you partner with a congregation of color, that you get to know those folks as the human beings that they are, and that you they get to know you, have a meal together, have several meals together, right? Do some fun things together, um, and then begin to talk about what is what is this, how can we deepen our relationship? How can we deepen our fellowship with one another, right? How can we begin to tear down some of these walls that have that have taken 400 years to build? If it has taken 400 years to build, it's going to take that much more, maybe, to deconstruct. But I you we gotta begin somewhere. If you have never been to the lynching museum in Montgomery, Alabama, um, that is a place that you ought to put on your list to go. Whoever designed that place, the moment that you walk in, it it engages all of your senses, not just your head, but your your all of your emotions, your soul. You cannot walk through those exhibits. I I made it two-thirds uh through that building, and I had to just go out. I had to walk out. And then we went to the memorial site of those 6,000 people lynched in this country, right? Probably more. Those are 6,000 that they could could uh find. You're looking at the names, and then you're rubbing your fingers across those names, and you realize that these were people who once lived and who were lynched for the slightest of reasons, right? If you looked at a white person, you could be lynched, right? If you looked at a white person in the eye, you could be lynched, right? If you didn't get off of a sidewalk that a white person was coming down, you could be lynched. But but I think to to if two congregations, a white congregation, black congregation, could make that trip, I I I guarantee you that uh your conversation would will be very, very different.

SPEAKER_01

Aaron Powell There's a concept called the invisible knapsack. White privilege is something you carry but never have to see. I think many white people still resist that framing. Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I think because white supremacy is a harsh word, isn't it? It's it's it is uh and most white people recoil at that. Because to be labeled as a white supremaist is to be um, well, you know, I I didn't I didn't enslave anybody. No, you didn't, but you benefit from that, right? Isabel Wilkerson says that white supremacy is about power. You cannot appeal to its moral conscience because it has none. And so I so how do we deal with how do we get through that? It is to chip away at that, you know, day after day, month after month, year by year, it is to chip away at that. It is to so that you become vulnerable. Black people have had to be vulnerable in America. You you could not, you could not, I could not sit at this table were I not vulnerable. White people have never had to be vulnerable. But if you don't name the thing, as Luther says, uh, you will never ever um conquer the thing that is enslaving you. And until white people can learn to say, I'm part of that. I've I've will you feel guilt? Absolutely. Will you feel shame? Absolutely. But those are no that is no less than what black people have felt all of our lives in America, right? So we live up, we live every day with having to wrestle with am I good enough? And to prove ourselves over and over and over, am I good enough? The president of the United States, Barack Obama, the first African-American president, every day had to prove himself. He had to prove his worth, right? He had to prove his humanity. He had to prove whether or not he had the smarts to be the president. Look back through history, and there are there were awful presidents, right? And those presidents were never questioned about whether or not they were human or good enough, right? Because they were white.

SPEAKER_00

You've had to live with this weight for seven decades. What's the cumulative effect of that on you?

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's it's uh you know, some days are are fine and some days most days aren't. Yeah. And so, you know, again, that's where you lean on your faith again. I have to rehearse for myself, and I I think I would challenge every Christian to do that. Um so what are the things that are foundational? When I read the scriptures, what are the things that are foundational? And I I take um, I I believe what God says about us when he says that we are created, all of us, all of us are created. He did not say, I'm creating one humanity to be superior to another humanity. He said, I create, I'm creating humanity in my image, in my likeness. Um and I and he said after he was finished, and it's good, right? It's good. And so you have to believe that you're good, right? Um God did not create any aberrations. Second thing, you know, if you believe that God is God of love, um, you also have to believe that love is bigger than hate. Because God is bigger than hate. God is bigger than white supremacy. And so that is the thing that I that I just hold on to. Um, because if I didn't believe that, um uh I I probably would be a very different different person. I wouldn't be Christian.

SPEAKER_01

What about when white people say, I don't see color? Yeah. What's actually being said there? What what what cost does that have on people?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. And I push back and say, well, then if you don't see color, then you don't see me, right? You don't see my humanity. Uh I am I am who I am, and you are who you are. When I look at you, I see your whiteness, I see that you're female, right? I see I see you in all of your manifestations. And all of that I should see as good, right? Uh I'm I'm I'm black, right? I'm not trying to be anything but that. All I want you to do is to acknowledge that, right?

SPEAKER_00

So let's pivot a little bit. Let's talk about being an ally. It's a word that gets used a lot. Sometimes it can feel a bit hollow, though. Yeah. Uh and also sometimes performative. What does genuine allyship look like to you?

SPEAKER_02

I I think, you know, the best white people that I know who have been uh they've been companions. I remember when I was in college, I uh lashed out at this guy, it was my friend Randy. And I wasn't lashing out at him, I don't think. It I I just was kind of thinking about a lot of stuff, and I wrote him a letter and put it in his mailbox, and then uh I was on the gospel team, so we were away for the weekend. And so I I I thought about what I'd written, and I I wanted to, I regretted writing it, right? And so I was so I came back uh that Sunday evening and I went to the library as was my normal routine. So I'm reading the papers, and uh all of a sudden there's I noticed someone is standing in front of me, and it's and it's Randy, and he, of course, read the letter. And he said to me, Ken, we need to talk. Right. And so we went back to his room and we spent, that was about 7 o'clock at night, and we spent three until 3 o'clock in the morning talking. Now, here was a guy who could have said, you know, to heck with you, I don't need that garb, that kind of garbage. But he valued the friendship, right? And I think that's what an ally, that's what a companion does. You value the if you value the friendship, it means that nothing is going to um dislocate that friendship or dislodge that friendship, regardless of so can I hear your anger and still not walk away? Right. Can I hear your struggle and still not walk away? Can I hear you when you are just mad and you still not walk away? I I um I've been thinking a lot about um the white people who came from the North and were active in the civil rights movement. And I think particularly of somebody like Viola Luoso, who was a uh a housewife in Detroit, five kids, and she heard Dr. King call for um the nation to come and join this movement. And and I said to the to the students as we were talking in in Montgomery, I said that that woman had to have had um have given this a lot of thought. She had to think about what she would lose. She had to think about what she would give up. And what she gave up was, I believe, her reliance on her white privilege, right? And because she did, she chose humanity over her white privilege, and because she did, she lost her life, but she gained her life, right? Yeah, so that's what I would say about uh allyship and companionship.

SPEAKER_01

You write up that you're intentionally resistant to providing cheap answers, easy blueprints. I'm not gonna ask you for a five-step list of what to do, but we want to ask where does this work begin for someone like us? We're white, and we genuinely want to show up for people.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. So I I think you know, look in your community. Um, there there are things that are happening in your community. Find your way to those places, right? Find your way to those voices. I read a story uh on I think it was uh on Saturday, somebody in in Davenport. He was called the mayor of Gaines Street.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. And I and I thought, uh, how many how many people ever stop to converse with this guy? So find your places to the because there I think there are all kinds of people like that. Find your find your way to those people and sit. And and what I say to white people is that just listen to to folks of color. You don't need to speak initially. Just listen to where they are, listen to their frustrations, listen to their hopes, listen to their challenges and their dreams, right? Get to know those folks. Uh when I went to Cross, the neighborhood minister said to me, Pastor, are you going to teach Bible study? I said, Yeah, eventually, after about six months of sitting with the community and getting to know folks. And so for the first six months, I simply went down every Wednesday and sat at different tables and met people and heard their stories because I said, I have no credibility at this point. And after six months, um I did teach. And I think sitting down and listening resulted in those 100 people present for those Bible studies every Wednesday.

SPEAKER_00

What does facing ourselves mean? Because I think a lot of white people get stuck there. We feel feel that guilt, shame, overwhelm, and then we shut down or perform. Yeah. What's the better plan?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, I I would say don't run from what you see. Uh if if there's shame, sit with that. Right. Ask yourselves why the shame. If there's guilt, ask yourself why the guilt. The guilt and the shame might be legitimate. So don't don't ignore that. But don't get caught in that. I could easily, or any black person could easily get caught in their anger against or towards white people, right? That would be easy. But it's not life-giving. So you you gotta move beyond that.

SPEAKER_01

What do you need from white allies? Not what sounds nice, but what do you actually need?

SPEAKER_02

I want white people to be honest. Right. Uh if you don't like something, say that. Right. I'm I'm not gonna bite your head off. Um I'm gonna hear you, right? But I'm probably gonna say, um, okay, think about this another way.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And don't don't be so careful about trying not to offend black people, right?

SPEAKER_01

That's where I get caught up. I'm afraid I'm gonna offend everybody if I say or do the wrong thing.

unknown

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But then that creates silence. Absolutely. Let's talk about common missteps, uh, what white people get wrong. What are some of the most common missteps you've witnessed? Um, the things people do thinking that they're helping, but maybe they're actually causing some harm or some hurt.

SPEAKER_02

I I think people often assume people of color always want something. I think what we want the most is for you to acknowledge that we are on the same planet with you and that we are human beings. Right. And that we want the same things that you want. We want to be respected. Uh we want our children to grow up in a world where there is not judgment made uh about them before they can even find out what their dreams might be. Um that that's what we want. And so we want for you to understand that. We want for you to hear that, right? Uh and the only way that you know that is if you decide to sit at the table with folks that you've never sat at the table with, right. And the thing about this nation, because we're still a segregated country, whatever one might think about the Declaration of Independence, and I think about those words often, Thomas Jefferson, when he wrote those words, he may not have meant that they were for uh, he may not have included women in that, he may not have included people of color in that, but the words that he wrote became the blueprint, right, that would shape this country. All people are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain rights that you cannot take away. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is the blueprint.

SPEAKER_01

Some people, this also goes back to I don't see color, but I'm not racist, I treat everyone the same way. What's your response to that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, uh there's a you know, I think white people look at racism uh uh from through the through the lens of the individual, this personal, you know, I've got a personal relationship with Ken Wheeler, so you know I'm okay. Well, and that may be true, you might have a we might have a really solid relationship, but it's but it's bigger than that because we're dealing with a system. So every white friend that I have and that I value, and none of those friendships have resulted in a change in systemic racism. Right. Uh Fannie Louis Hamer said, you know, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. And if you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, then you have to stand up and challenge the thing that you're sick and tired of.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_02

It's not enough to just complain.

SPEAKER_00

So can we ask this of most of our guests, and we ask it of you with uh particular weight, I think. What gives you hope? So after seven decades, after everything you've witnessed, after writing the book, being a pastor in this church, where do you find the hope?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I I find hope in um the fact that God is still God, and that God is is a God who moves us towards hope. And hope gives us the capacity to resist evil. I I think if there were not hope, uh I would not have written that book. And I think if there were not hope, uh people like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tupman would not have done what they did.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

You cannot get involved in a movement of God's liberation without hope.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Hope is not something that comes, hope is not optimism, right? And I think there are white people who, when they ask me about hope, I think they're asking, well, you don't sound very optimistic. And I will say, well, there's no reason to be optimistic, but there is a reason to be hopeful.

SPEAKER_00

Before we wrap up, we like to invite our guests to leave our listeners with something to sit with for the week. So what's a question, a thought, or an invitation you'd want someone to carry with them?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I guess I would want you to carry the same burden that I carry and that people of color in this country carry each and every day. And that is the burden of having to live under the weight of something that we did not ask for or create, the burden to live under the weight of a system that continues to not see us, not recognize us, not affirm us. And how would you feel if you were in my shoes or you were in the shoes of African-American sisters and brothers, Native American sisters and brothers uh in this country who have to live with that every day?

SPEAKER_01

Reverend Wheeler, thank you. Thank you for your ministry, your witness. Thank you for being vulnerable with us, trusting us with this conversation today. We do not take it lightly that you came here and did this, so thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure.

SPEAKER_00

And thank you to all of you for listening to Sword of Sacred. This is not an easy conversation, and the fact that you're here means something. These conversations need to be had. Anger has to be acknowledged, and grief has to be honored for growth to happen.

SPEAKER_01

We believe that understanding, and it's real understanding, is one of the most sacred acts we can offer one another to see the humanity in each other. And we believe that every one of us has the capacity to grow, to see more clearly, and to love each other more fully.

SPEAKER_00

Until next time, keep finding the sacred in your everyday.