Under Our Skin: Getting Real about Race. Getting Free from the Fears and Frustrations that Divide Us.

Do you remember Benjamin Watson’s Facebook post from November 14, 2015? The news had just gone out that a St. Louis County grand jury had decided not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. Watson, a professional football player, took to Facebook with a post that would soon be “liked” nearly a million times and shared more than half a million more.Watson received significant amounts of both praise and criticism for his words. It came as no surprise to me that he was soon invited to switch genres and to turn his brief article into a full-length book. The result is Under Our Skin: Getting Real about Race–And Getting Free from the Fears and Frustrations That Divide Us.Let me tell you why I found his book especially helpful. The farther I am from a situation, the more difficult it is to understand it. I can easily enough put myself in the shoes of someone who is very much like me. I have a natural advantage when it comes to understanding situations involving middle-class Caucasian Canadian Christian men. But the farther afield I go, the more difficult it becomes to understand and empathize with others. If there is any hope of even beginning to understand something as far from my experience as America’s struggle with race, I need to listen (or read, as the case may be)—I need to listen, consider, and believe the experiences of trusted people.Watson is just that kind of trustworthy voice. In Under Our Skin he explains how and why the African-American experience is unique, necessarily distinct from the white experience. Reading his book was a very helpful exercise because it showed why two people can live in the same country, same state, same city, and even same neighborhood but have very different experiences because of their race. “Black people and white people see the world through completely different lenses. The racial divide is about the reality each side sees. Each side believes its view is the true reality, and we can’t understand why the other side doesn’t see the same thing and understand our reality.” We all believe that we see the world as it really is, yet we see only our perspective. This is why it is so important to do what we can to see it from alternate perspectives as well. The truth undoubtedly lies somewhere between.Of particular help was his explanation of the differing views of authority and especially police authority. “I believe that white people look at law enforcement and assume it is good, based on their experiences and interactions with the police. And I believe that black people look at law enforcement and assume—based on patterns and history and experience—that someone is out to get them. I believe both are true.” He goes on, “White people have no idea of the fear that black people feel toward the police. I cannot say that strongly enough, loudly enough, or forcefully enough. I believe it is a huge point of division between black people and white people. Black people have little expectation of being treated fairly by police in any situation. We have a high expectation of being demeaned, abused, and possibly treated violently in any encounter with law enforcement. We have a history that supports this, news headlines that shout this, and personal experiences that confirm this. This is a reality that white people simply don’t know.” And yet he also challenges his own community: “I guess I really do understand why it’s so hard to obey a policeman. But here’s a reality that many black people don’t know: Somehow, some way, we have to get over it. We have to suck it up and obey when we are called to. We really must learn the practical value of obeying a policeman, if only to save our own skins sometimes.”Watson writes from a position of constructive, measured anger—anger meant to spur appropriate action. “Five generations and 150 years have passed since the abolition of slavery. You’d think that after all this time we’d have reached real parity between the races, that there would be truly equal opportunity, and that we’d be seeing and experiencing fairness in society between blacks and whites. A lot of white people believe that’s actually where we are. A lot of black people know we aren’t.” He writes equally from a position of hope, and the best kind of hope—hope that is grounded in a deep and confident understanding of what God has already done and what God means to do in the world. Time and again he makes it clear that “At its core, the issue is not about race. It’s about the human heart.”It’s even about his own heart: “I have to look inside my own heart and see what lurks there, what assumptions about white people I’ve formed, and what prejudices I still harbor. I confess I have prejudices and I make assumptions about white people as a whole, even though some of those assumptions have been proven wrong through individual relationships. I confess that I generalize such prejudices across the entire race. I confess I’ve harbored thoughts against white people that, while perhaps not harshly racist, have been judgmental and hurtful.” We have probably grown wearily accustomed to athletes who tack Jesus onto their lives as a kind of superstitious afterthought, but this is clearly not the case with Watson. He is a man who gets it—who gets the gospel and its implications for all of life.Under Our Skin is a good book to read and absorb, to read and consider. In that way it is a valuable entry-level primer on issues of race and a thoughtful, articulate expression of the African-American experience. It invites the reader into the heart and mind of someone who may just see the world quite differently from him. This is a measured, balanced, and downright helpful work on a difficult issue. I am glad I read it and eagerly invite you to do the same.

Thank you Benjamin for standing up and writing a powerful book! It is real answer not only for the angry mobs, but everyone one of us. It is time for healing that no protest can solve. I believe that God is raising you up with a message that is much bigger than your ability on the football field. I understand that calling, it happened to me many years ago at training camp for the Philadelphia Eagles. May the Lord expand the reach of this book and the message He has sown into your heart.More than half of our young people today find themselves trying to navigate their life without fathers. We need fathers like you to standup and lead this next generation into the healing that government and politicians cant solve. We don't need more programs, we need healing at the core of our hearts, where superiority comes from the color of our skin. You are one of those fathers, and I appreciate the humility that you model throughout this book that opens every reader to an invitation to seeing people of other colors through God's eyes. To use your words through you, "It is not a skin problem, but a sin problem.I encourage every reader of this post to buy this book for their children, and pass it on to every high school and college age person who is now facing the anger of the fatherless mob, not knowing what to do. I love your conclusion, It starts with you.... Thank you Benjamin, time to change the world! Praying for you Ed Tandy McGlasson

Finally! Here is, finally, a book about race relations from a black person’s perspective that does not fall lock step into the usual finger pointing, accusatory pattern America has become accustomed to. Yes, there have been some who veered off the beaten path before (and paid for it by being ostracized and vilified by his own race), but Mr. Watson boldly takes it a step further by helping his readers to see the need for spiritual renewal to help with this race issue.Lest you think it is all either kum-ba-ya-ish or whipping up on Blacks for their behavior, let me assure you it is neither of these. Benjamin Watson handles this delicate issue of race relations with great sensitivity towards Blacks and Whites. He attempts to look at this from both points of view and draws upon some of his discussions of race he has held with friends of another color than he. The chapters are based on a post he did some time ago, but in “Under Our Skin”, he goes into greater details about his thoughts on the points he made in that post.I would say I am in total agreement with 95 percent of what he has written here, but the other 5 percent…well, that is what discussions are for. I will forever love his phrase—“It’s usually not about either/or—‘this person should have done this’ or ‘that person should have done that’. It’s about both/and.” He goes into some detail about conversations he has with his white friend Chris. He makes a head jerking statement when he says Chris is a “living room racist”. But he admits that Blacks can be as well. It is the things we say in our living rooms as we watch the news; generalizations about people different from us.Watson is transparent about his feelings when it comes to race and admits that he is far from perfect. He has made assumptions and jumped to conclusions because of skin color. Benjamin recognizes this, admits it, and also wishes to be better than that. He admits to the difficulties of forgiveness.Benjamin Watson boldly discusses some of the behavior Blacks engage in which hurts their cause or their condition, including jumping to unproven conclusions before all the facts are out and responding in anger and destruction when it happens. It is along some of these lines that Mr. Watson and I have some disagreement (or at least a different perspective or outlook). He speaks of the police brutality against Blacks and the real fear Blacks have towards police. He mentioned a few episodes of continued violence today against Blacks and though they are not necessarily at the hands of cops, they show that racism still exists and that you have some who are willing to “lay hands” to harm you in their hate.He makes much of the legitimacy of the fear of police because of their history of brutality in this country against Blacks, especially during the years of Jim Crow. This is where our (mine and Mr. Watson’s) perspectives veer from one another. It is my thought that Watson’s (and other Blacks’) fear of police officers is steeped too deeply in historical behavior. Stories of this behavior has been passed down from generation to generation until it is an expected behavior from cops in the black culture. When a police officer stops a Black person, that historical behavior, which has been talked about and told to each subsequent generation, is uppermost in the black person’s mind. I believe this causes a tension which emanates from the black person to the officer, causing the officer to be hyper alert because the “subject” is “acting suspiciously”. Also, the black person may tend to have a “chip on his shoulder” because, based on history and stories he has heard, this officer is probably pulling him over for “driving while Black”. Maybe certain antagonistic expressions, attitudes, and questions escalate a situation unnecessarily.Mind you, I am not making a statement here on the amount of real police brutality. I am just making the point that this issue can be examined from multiple perspectives, even among Blacks. I am Black, and I experienced the tail end of Jim Crow law. I was born and raised in a segregated world.Overall, I believe “Under Our Skin” is a true beginning of real discussions on race, designed to come to healing solutions. My small point of difference in perspective is just one of those things that I think make for genuine, transparent, and interesting converse.