maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
What was the reaction to the other students to that? Was it accepted as "normal"--just common sense?
I don't recall there being any particular outrage. I think most students just accepted that as the way it was (and more than a few probably figured that it was a good policy. I remember most of my friends in high school were always steering me towards the few black girls in our school in terms of dating. "Oh you should go out with Esther. You two would be so cute together." Naturally, the main reason we'd be cute together was that we were both black. Never mind we couldn't stand each other. Course I kept falling for the white chicks which meant that I did not date at all in high school. First kiss wasn't til college--as embarrassing as that is to admit ).
I honestly don't mean to be confrontational at all and I know you well enough that you won't take it that way, but what would compel you (or your family I suppose) to stay members of such a church? I mean, I cannot imagine doing so, and I don't even go to church myself anymore because I'm tired of priests yammering on about gays from the pulpit. But what you experienced is even more extreme and personal.
No offense taken, but I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying. Yolland really probably identified the nature of what was going on the best. A ban on interracial dating was NOT ever official church policy, and I doubt that such bans existed at other Adventist schools in other parts of the country. What I meant was that churches tend to be slower than the rest of society in adapting to social changes and fundamentalist churches slower still. They tend to play it "safe". Further, because my school was a private one, it could "get away" with more that perhaps wouldn't have been allowed to pass in a public school. I've never ever felt that my church implicitly condoned racism, not least because with it's global reach it can't even be defined by one race. We never had a Mormon style race theology enshrined in our beliefs. But, the church was slow to pick up the ball on civil rights, I think. In my parents generation, I read (in our church periodical no less) about how students at our predominantly African American college, Oakwood College were disciplined by the school for going to participate in civil rights marches with Dr. King. The thinking was, I suppose, that good Christians shouldn't be getting involved in all this radical activity? I don't know. But note it was the BLACK Adventist church that was reprimanding these students.
And church communities in general are a major locus of transmission for what's traditional and time-honored, for good and for bad, so that social customs which are greatly eroded or altered elsewhere often persist in them longer--even when that's unsupported by the formal doctrine of the church or denomination in question. I would describe BJU's former policy as racist, but as a Southerner-by-upbringing I do also view it primarily as a consequence of beholdenness to a (bad) traditional worldview native to the region, rather than primarily as a consequence of an f-ed up theology (a la Fred Phelps).
A bit more cynically (not to put words in Sean's mouth here, though), I also think that when you fall into the 'receiving end' category of these kinds of tradition-bound prejudices, and you're experiencing that at a point in time where the initial heave into a more egalitarian way of thinking is still a work in progress, you sometimes accept certain things as 'normal, expected social reality' in a way you never would later. There's a kind of psychological emancipation from a beaten-down, or self-loathing, or timid-outlier mentality (depending on which group you fall into) to a mindset of expectation that you should be treated equally, and accept nothing less without a fight. I experienced this myself growing up, and in various other ways so did many of my friends.
Well said.
I won't deny that the racism I experienced growing up did affect my self-concept for a long time. I will never forget the first time someone outside my family said they thought I was good-looking. I was a senior in high school and it was the mother of one of my friends. And she was white, which, to me was truly amazing. Of course that changed quite quickly when I moved north for college. It didn't take me long to come to the realization that in fact I am pretty damn hot when all is said and done.
Seriously though, there's a lot that I just "accepted" as "normal" even though it was hurtful. It's rather sickening to think back on now.