We are more Alike than Different                            8/8/48

 

Scripture:  Acts 17: 15-28

 

Text:  Acts 17: 24a, 26a; “God ... hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.”

 

I remember well my first experience in looking through a large glass window into the nursery of a large city hospital.  There were numerous babies in immaculate white beds, attended by kindly, efficient nurses.  I had a particular interest in the nursery, and in the babe in a particular bed; for I was the father of that particular charming mite of humanity.  After gazing at that youngster, and others, more or less alike in appearance, I moved on and discovered what I had not expected - another window with more babies being shown.  Presently I realized that the babies behind the second window were the children of Negro parents whose mothers had given them birth in the same hospital where my own child had first seen the light.

 

I studied the little ones rather carefully.  Certain facial characteristics - shape of nose, lips, forehead -- suggested that the little ones behind the second window would grow up with Negroid appearance, just as the babes behind the first window would be Caucasian.  But the thing that astonished me most was the minimum of difference between those Negro babies and the various Caucasian babies in their separate nurseries.

 

Considered carefully, the similarities, it seems to me, far outweigh the differences.  My own child and a child behind that second window were both born in America, with the precious rights of American citizenship.  They were born in the same city, same hospital; their mothers attended by the same physicians and nurses.  They were physically the same -- same number of hands, feet, ears, eyes.  Each was formed a human body and a living spirit.  Each had the same senses.  The health of each could be diagnosed by the same doctor.

 

Each had the same kind of blood which, if of the same typing, and if needed, could later be given in transfusion, either to the other.  For the blood banks know no differences in human blood except the typings that are common to all human beings.  For “God ... hath made of one blood all ... men.”

 

These babes would be affected by the same conditions.  Their nervous systems would make similar responses.  They would feel deeply the same reactions.  They could love or hate, be glad or sad, depending on external environment.  As with all humans, security, recognitions and response would be important to each of them.  How much alike these little folk really are!  How alike is all mankind!

 

We have greatly overemphasized our differences.  I remember my first impression of a Negro.  I grew up in a village community where no face other than Caucasian was ever seen except it be for a rare visitor.  We youngsters in that white neighborhood never even saw an American Indian, unless we visited our grandparents 75 miles away.  The adults magnified our expectancy of seeing something different, when a group of Negro entertainers appeared in a winter concert series.  And because we expected something different, we children gazed in wonder when we beheld dark skin and kinky hair for the first time.

 

But as I look at it now, our wonder was not different in character from that of one of my own children, years later, in another circumstance.  He was quite accustomed to the appearance of Caucasian, Oriental, Polynesian and Negro.  But when his great grandfather, whom he could not remember having seen before, stepped off a ship’s gangway on a visit to our family, the little fellow fixed his gaze on Grandpa’s mustache and said in surprise, “Grandpa, you have hair on your lip.”

 

Stripped of our built-up impressions and prejudices, that is about the size of the importance in differing physical characteristics.  One man has hair on his lip.  Another doesn’t wear it.  One has a lot of pigment in his skin; another has so little that his chief coloring is that of the blood beneath the skin’s surface.  Experts can tell much about the racial ancestry of a person by the shape of the bones.  But these, it seems to me, are minor differences.  I am taller than my father was.  One of my sons is taller than I am now.  Does the length of bone make one of us better or worse or essentially different than either of the others?  Certainly not unless other environmental factors are added.

 

And of course we humans are much affected by environment.  But we make much of our environment, and that of our fellows, in this area of living.  If my child and the Negro child in that city hospital nursery were not to be considered alike, it is because we people were to consider them unlike.  That is a mistake against which I plead this morning.

 

So long as our racial dislikes and hatreds remain here in America, how rude may be the social awakening for our children.  Mine, and yours, may grow up with the unconscious but deep-rooted feeling that to be Caucasian means, of course, top place in the social scale of humanity; preferred chance at employment, place of residence, travel accommodations -- and all that makes up the comfort of physical and social existence.  It takes race riots; Communist propaganda; sober mathematical reminders that the white race is a definite minority on the face of the earth --- simply overwhelmed by the races of more color, to jolt us and our children out of our prejudiced complacency --- and even then many are not awakened.

 

The Negro boy or girl may play for a time with any child on the playground.  Then there comes a time when the while child’s mother snatches her own bairn away.  With troubled eyes the colored child goes to his own mother to ask why.  “Am I dirty?”  “Did I do something wrong?”  And his grieved mother will have to explain that it is not because he is bad or dirty; but because his skin has more coloring, his hair more curl, his bones a slightly different shape that he cannot play any longer with the other child.  Presently he will have to learn that he may never eat in some restaurants, ride in most railway cars in some of the states, enter some hotels except as a humble employee, live in some parts of the city, or even go to some churches -- because his appearance makes him undesirable and unwanted by others.

 

The Negro boy may one day have the finest education, the most brilliant mind, be devoutly Christian.  But there are still stores that won’t serve him; occupations in which he is not welcomed or wanted; residence areas where he will not be tolerated.

 

“But,” protests someone, “he is different.”  Yes, of course he is different.  So are you and I different by the standards of anyone but ourselves.  The point I am trying to make is that the differences are essentially trivial as compared to the overwhelming likenesses between human beings when given similar social environment!

 

News reports, speaking of Joe Louis’ retirement from the heavyweight boxing championship, pay tribute to his conduct.  Reserved and quite correct in the presence of white people, they say that he loves to cut loose and cut up among his own kind.  I imagine hosts of readers make the mental note that that is the Negro in him.  Personally I think Joe Louis has been wise enough in his conduct to win the admiration of most American people.  But is it “Negro” conduct?

 

I can’t forget an experience in my own vocation.  A group of white ministers and missionaries used to hold an annual conference in a lovely, secluded spot in Hawaii.  I was one of them.  We looked forward with eagerness and pleasure to those annual retreats for inspiration and fellowship.

 

There came a time when the majority considered the needs of some of our fellow American ministers of Oriental and Hawaiian ancestry -- young men trained in the American schools of Hawaii, the colleges and theological seminaries of the United States mainland -- schools which we had attended; fellows with ideals, hopes, problems, language and faith like ours.  We enlarged the fellowship to include them.  But I do not forget the reaction of one of my fellow Caucasian ministers.  He had been born British -- as was my father -- and was trained in English and Canadian schools.  He opposed going in with these other fellows in the annual conference on the ground that it would make us guarded and reserved.  We would not be able hereafter to speak out with such ease and abandon, as heretofore, all the thoughts that came spontaneously to utterance.  Is that “Caucasian” conduct, any more than Joe Louis’ conduct is “Negro” conduct?  Or is it rather an unsuspected similarity?

 

We who live in Wisconsin Rapids may feel that the matter I am discussing this morning is of little significance.  We have no Negroes as neighbors in our community.  We seldom see an Oriental or Polynesian.  We are not disturbed over our attitudes toward the American Indians and have little concern over how the Indians may feel toward Caucasians.

 

Race riots, race-inspired lynchings, Jim Crow segregation, restrictive covenants in housing, poll tax requirements for voting, Mexican labor and Japanese truck gardening -- all these are not our immediate problem.  But they are our problem!  Anything that affects the welfare of others has its ultimate effect on us.  And our attitudes and conduct ultimately affect all others.

 

I see a newsreel showing the revival of interest in the Ku Klux Klan with the avowed purpose of maintaining white superiority in the South.  Is that a Southern problem?  I have not forgotten the strength of the Ku Klux Klan and the pressure on me to join it when I was a student preacher in South Dakota in 1925.  There were no Negroes to fight in that part of South Dakota; so the Klan fought the Catholics there -- with an occasional kick at the Jews.

 

Now some of you know that I have some lasting differences of opinion with some of the opinions held generally by many Catholic people.  I have met some Jews whom I like and seen some I’d rather not meet; and I think my religious views are preferable to some of theirs.

 

But I wholly renounce the methods of the Ku Klux Klan.  I am ashamed of its existence in our land.  I hope that multitudes of Southerners will oppose it and demonstrate better ways of solving the Southerners’ problems.  And I hope with all my heart and determination that it shall not grow again in the North.

 

Margaret Applegarth tells of a painter who was asked to make a design for a stained glass window, using the theme: “Around the Throne in Heaven.”  The artist painted hosts of children around the Master -- all with white faces.  During a night while he was working on the picture, the artist dreamed that a stranger entered the studio and painted many of the faces brown, black, yellow, red.  When the artist remonstrated, the stranger asked why with five colors on his palette, he had used only one?  The next morning, the artist squeezed all five colors onto his palette and painted with them all -- for he recognized the stranger of his dream to be none other than Jesus the Christ, himself a swarthy Palestinian Jew!

 

Did you ever get a shock at seeing Jesus painted with a Chinese or a Negro face?  How do you suppose the majority of the peoples of the earth react to the pictures we have painted of Jesus with Germanic, Italian, or Anglo-Saxon features?  Do not some of our very supposed differences make us ludicrously alike?  And are we not much more alike, in all basic respects, than different?

 

Our blood is the same.  Begin where God began when he “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth.”  (1)  It is true physically.  During wartime emergency, the life of many a soldier from homes like yours was saved by the blood of a Slavic or Italian boy.  A German prisoner of war could be given the blood of a Jewish refugee mother.  A wounded Chinese could be saved by the blood of a Fifth avenue socialite.  And Negro blood could flow with renewed life in the veins of a Kentucky Colonel unless the knowledge of its source gave the several recipients emotional apoplexy!

 

(2)  It is true spiritually that God has made of one blood all people on the face of the earth.  Micah asked: “Have we not all one Father, hath not one God made us all?”  The answer is “Yes.”  We are more alike than different in anatomy, blood intellect; in hopes and fears and desires.

 

In the knowledge that we are like, let’s try capitalizing on our similarities of hope, love, ambition, generosity, abilities. Let us do so in the spirit of the Golden Rule.  Let our differences be but the differing, essential tones of a great orchestra, with one Master Conductor.

 

And let a man stand among us - as we would stand among others - not judged by the merit in his skin color, bone structure, eyelid shape, hair texture, linguistic accent, national origin or creedal preference; but by what he is and what he can do.

 

Branch Rickey has been hailed in some circles as the guy with enough religion to sign on a Negro with the Brooklyn Dodgers.  There is something to be said for this healthy hit at race prejudice.  But I think that Branch Rickey is hard-headed enough to have a better reason for signing Jack Robinson on with the Dodgers.  I think that Rickey signed Robinson on because he could play baseball and the team needed the player.  Is there a better reason?

 

A cartoon portrayed a group of little boys playing ball.  Someone had sabotaged the game with a crack about one of them being a “foreigner.”  For the moment, the little fellow stood alone while the leader of the kids yelled at the rest:  “What’s the difference what nationality he is?  He can pitch, can’t he?”

 

That is that real question.  Let’s make it a practice to ask that about a man.  Not where did he come from and what are his so-called drawbacks, but what can he do on this team -- how can he pitch!

 

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, August 8, 1948 (Union Service).