Enlarge The Rev. Betty Erwin of Watts Grove Baptist Church in Monroe at Discovery Place's RACE exhibit.

Posted: February 26th, 2011 Greg Lacour

This was a strange kind of dialogue, one that began with about 45 minutes of dead silence.

The site was Discovery Place, specifically an exhibit titled “RACE: Are We So Different?” On the late morning of Feb. 24, 14 clergy from an assortment of Charlotte-area churches viewed the exhibit at the request of Crossroads Charlotte and Mecklenburg Ministries, then took part in a facilitated discussion of the exhibit and its relevance in their lives and ministries.

All 14 ministers have signed up for Xchange Sermons, the annual area-wide pulpit swap Crossroads and MeckMin co-sponsor to unite congregations of differing faiths and denominations. Their tour and discussion of the RACE exhibit was part of a related program called RACE Exchanges, in which groups can explore the exhibit, then afterward their thoughts and emotions through discussion.

To start, facilitator Joan Hope urged the group members not to talk as they made their way through the exhibit; she said it was a time for reflection. They could talk later. That they did.

The RACE exhibit, a project of the American Anthropological Association, opened at Discovery Place on Feb. 5 and runs through May 8; it uses multimedia, photographs, interactive exhibits and artifacts to explore race through the prism of science, which has established that human genetic variation is virtually nil. We’re all essentially the same scientifically. So why do our cultures fixate on differences that are, literally, only skin-deep?

The group broke into smaller groups of three for discussion, then the open dialogue began. First question: What word or phrase describes your immediate reaction to the exhibition?

“Hopeful,” said the Rev. Ricky Woods, senior minister at First Baptist Church-West. “That we can get to the point where we’re no longer talking about this.”

Once the discussion got rolling, it was hard to stop. As with any candid discussion about race, the questions were hard and answers complex.

Woods, who is black, brought up the issue of privilege, particularly the fact that white people in the United States benefit from a social order they largely designed, “and that privilege is rarely viewed as social welfare.”

The Rev. Russ Dean, co-pastor at Park Road Baptist Church and a white man, mentioned his own difficulties in beating back “the way science has been misused to perpetuate that idea,” even though he knows intellectually that racism is invalid. It’s not just science, Woods countered; it’s theology that’s often provided the framework for racism, and how can faith leaders own that and work against it?

As it was meant to, the dialogue led to a round of card-exchanging and promises to get together for further discussion, and return visits to the exhibit, maybe with members of their congregations. One of the more poignant questions the group pondered: In 40 years, will we still be talking about race?

Said the Rev. Rodney Salter of Union Presbyterian Seminary and Mount Carmel Baptist Church: “I pray to God not.”

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