I remember attending an anti-racism training event and sitting through the first session in total confusion. The teaching was centered on a challenging concept: that race is a social construct—something man-made to categorize people. When the facilitator said, “Race is not found in the Bible,” I misunderstood her completely. I thought she was saying there was no ethnic diversity in Scripture.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. At the next break, I approached another facilitator. “How is race not in the Bible?” I asked.

He quickly replied, “Because it is never described in the Bible.”

I retorted, “But there are all kinds of different people from different family lines and languages and parts of the world!”

“And you still will never find race in the Bible,” he said, dismissing me.

I walked away agitated. “Why won’t he just explain it to me?” I wondered. “Surely he wants me to understand.” The next hour was filled with an internal battle, as I fought to overcome the feeling of being rejected by the very man who was supposed to be my guide.

Suddenly, during the next session, it clicked. They weren’t saying there aren't beautiful, God-given differences among people; they were saying the category of "race" was missing. They began to explain the dubious origins of the “science” of race developed in Europe during the early modern period.

It stuck with me. If race was humanly devised, there were so many questions. Why? Who got to make the classifications? What were the consequences? What do we do with these categories now that the Human Genome Project has totally debunked race theory? (Current data shows that humans are 99.9% genetically identical, and there is often more genetic variation within a perceived racial group than between different ones.)

Reflecting on that process now, I realize my guide was right to push back. I needed to grapple with the concept myself. I needed to work through my desire to center myself in the conversation and demand an immediate explanation. Now that I’ve taken the time to fight through that initial hurt, I feel more resilient. I am more determined to grow in conversations where my assumptions are challenged. I’ve learned to do my own "work" rather than expecting to be spoon-fed, a meal I would probably have rejected out of pride anyway.

I’ve been in enough conversations about racism to recognize the physical reaction to hard truths: the defensiveness rising, the self-justification screaming to be unleashed, and the pride lashing out instinctively. I want to believe that everything I have has been earned solely by my own hard work and wise stewardship.

Unfortunately, that is not the whole truth in a racialized world. This reflection is uncomfortable and, at times, painful. But I am grateful for friends who love me and patiently endure my process. Each time I stay at the table and work through these honest reflections, I build calluses on my pride.

Through my own journey, I’ve also observed how other White people react to these topics. At times, it is as if our “Whiteness” is so tied to our personhood that we feel personally attacked when that identity is challenged. I call it a "false identity" because Whiteness is, like race, a social construct—something humanly devised, yet so ingrained in us that we struggle to see it as anything other than ourselves.

May we continue to grow in our ability to speak the truth about ourselves and the systems of this world, so that we can heed the words of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul:

“Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” — Ephesians 4:22-24