It is difficult for the friends always to remember that in matter[s] where race enters, a hundred times more consideration and wisdom in handling situations is necessary than when an issue is not complicated by this factor. (Shoghi Effendi, Pupil of the Eye, p. 87)
Even though Baha’u’llah called for the removal of prejudice nearly 200 years ago, and even though important progress has been made, it’s puzzling to me that racial tensions seem to be increasing rather than decreasing. When we love and value the diversity in the animal and plant kingdoms, what makes us see the variations in skin tones in the human kingdom any different?
Both sides have prejudices to overcome. Here’s what Shoghi Effendi tells us has to be done:
Let the white man:
- make a supreme effort in their resolve to contribute their share to the solution of this problem
- abandon once for all their usually inherent and at times subconscious sense of superiority
- correct their tendency towards revealing a patronizing attitude towards the members of the other race
- persuade them through their intimate, spontaneous and informal association with them of the genuineness of their friendship and the sincerity of their intentions
- master their impatience of any lack of responsiveness on the part of a people who have received, for so long a period, such grievous and slow-healing wounds.
Let the Negroes, through a corresponding effort on their part show by every means in their power:
- the warmth of their response
- their readiness to forget the past
- their ability to wipe out every trace of suspicion that may still linger in their hearts and minds.
Let neither think that:
- the solution of so vast a problem is a matter that exclusively concerns the other
- such a problem can either easily or immediately be resolved
- they can wait confidently for the solution of this problem until the initiative has been taken, and the favorable circumstances created, by agencies that stand outside the orbit of their Faith
- anything short of genuine love, extreme patience, true humility, consummate tact, sound initiative, mature wisdom, and deliberate, persistent, and prayerful effort, can succeed in blotting out the stain which this patent evil has left on the fair name of their common country.
Let them rather believe, and be firmly convinced, that:
-
on their mutual understanding, their amity, and sustained cooperation, must depend, more than on any other force or organization operating outside the circle of their Faith, the deflection of that dangerous course so greatly feared by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and the materialization of the hopes He cherished for their joint contribution to the fulfillment of that country’s glorious destiny. (Shoghi Effendi, Advent of Divine Justice, p. 40)
We’ve got a lot of work to do, but now we know what our marching orders consist of, and what exactly has to be done to show “a hundred times more consideration and wisdom” than we have in the past.
Knowing there is something concrete I can do to eliminate prejudice, I am grateful!
What jumped out for you as you read through today’s meditation? I’d love it if you would share so we can all expand our knowledge of the Writings!
If you liked this meditation, you might also like my book Learning How to Forgive
I wish people would stop putting every race into different groups and think as man as one family, and not separate groups. Treat all as brothers and sisters. That is when prejudice will stop, as long as we keep putting, people in different groups, and dividing them, it will not bring us together. All man kind is equal, all should be treated the same. When we start to love all others ahead of our self’s that is when the world will be a better place.
Well said, Hilton! I think if everyone started treating all humanity as brothers and sisters when Baha’u’llah first taught it, Shoghi Effendi wouldn’t have had to tell each race what their responsibilities were. We certainly have a long way to go before we truly understand what it means to recognize our essential oneness.
Jeepers creepers, do I love Shoghi Effendi! He always
puts things precisely right
and covers every hoped-for
angle. You don’t think “Oh,
gee, I really hope he mentions
this.”, and are disappointed,
because he always seems to
anticipate and answer you
presently in one of his famous dependent clauses, lol. Hilton’s comment is so true, but we have to be careful nobody gets the idea that
we are denying the present-day problems that rest on the
flawed idea of “race”; it’s just
another of the hazards we have to remember.
Steve, I remember when the Truth and Reconciliation Report came out in Canada a few years ago, dealing with Canada’s treatment of its First Nations people, I asked an Ojibway friend of mine what his community’s reaction to the report was. He got angry and said that his people needed to deal with their reaction and mine needed to have a different discussion. I was hurt that we couldn’t have the dialogue together, but when I read this quote of Shoghi Effendi’s, I have a better understanding of what he meant. It’s a great example where race issues still require a hundred times more consideration!