"White People Struggle with Black Authority" – The Ask Me Anything Stage
A Racial Autobiography Part 5
Like a lot of white guys in our twenties and thirties, I had plenty of passion around race and culture and very few actual skills.
That passion came honestly. I was loved by a Black stepdad. I had a mixed-race younger brother. Race was not abstract in my life. It was personal. It was family. It shaped me long before I had language for it. I cared deeply about something I could barely name.
What I did not yet understand was how much formation I still needed.
In my twenties, I encountered another Black man who became important to my life. He was an alum of the college I went to and eventually worked for. He is important to my vocation and sense of calling. Over time, we developed a relationship that echoed something familiar. It began with my stepdad and continued through him and others. Black men who, for reasons I still struggle to fully understand, chose to invest in me.
He had a deep affection for me. And I, at that stage of my life, saw myself as someone trying to do good, trying to understand, trying to influence the community I was part of in the right direction.
What I see now is that I was in what I would later think of as the ask me anything stage.
I had questions about lived experience. I needed someone willing to talk with me, patiently, without defensiveness or performance. And he was gracious enough to do that. We would go to lunch, do something together at the college then sit for hours at a time, talking things through. His vocation as a pastor often formed the backdrop of those conversations. One day, he told me something I have never forgotten.
He said, “White men don’t stay at my church very long.” I didn’t know what he meant.
He explained that white people would often come to his Black church wanting to be part of it. They would feel energized by the worship, the preaching, the sense of community. But after a short time, once they felt comfortable, they would request a meeting with him. In that meeting, they would begin to explain what was wrong with the church, or how something needed to change to align with their understanding of faithfulness or correctness.
Then he said the sentence that unlocked the rest of my story. “White people struggle with Black people having authority.”
He explained that while these men wanted to be part of a Black church, they could not submit to Black authority. They could not allow him to be an authority over something they believed mattered so deeply like their faith. I never forgot that conversation. Partly because I couldn’t see it. And partly because I was convinced it didn’t apply to me.
I thought this was about other white people. The ones with bad intentions. The ones who didn’t care as much as I did. I believed that because my heart was in the right place, I was somehow exempt.
At the time, I was between congregations. He knew that. I am certain now that he was telling me something deeper than a cultural observation. He was teaching me. And I was not ready to receive it.
I believed that wanting to be better would make me better.
It did not.
I did not yet have the skills I needed. And to his credit, he did not force me to learn them. He stayed true to the ask me anything posture. He did not confront me directly about my blind spots. He did not demand growth I was not prepared to do.
Looking back, I can see that he was teaching me on a level I could not yet understand.
That conversation happened almost twenty years ago. It was the first time I was confronted with the idea that whiteness struggles with authority that is not white. Even now, as I write this, there is something in me that resists believing that about myself.
And I know it is true.
Part of my vocation has been standing in the gap between white organizations and practitioners of color. I am often trusted to play that role. And I have come to understand why that role exists at all. White people and white organizations struggle to trust the authority of people of color. Even when it comes to their own communities. Even when it comes to their own lived experience.
The ask me anything stage was an essential part of my development. It revealed both my longing and how far I still had to go. Being competent and confident in conversations about culture requires far more than a good heart. It requires formation. Practice. Humility. And time spent in relationships where you do not hold authority.
Here’s the hard truth: there are far more white people who need an ask me anything stage than there are People of Color who should be asked to carry it for us.
That imbalance has a cost.
Project 2045 exists, in part, to help address that gap. We believe there is a tension we must hold honestly. On one hand, white people need to do their work first. Read the books. Listen to the podcasts. Follow the voices. Talk to one another. Build some basic cultural competence without outsourcing the labor.
On the other hand, there is formation that cannot happen in isolation. Some learning only happens in cross-cultural relationships where we do not have authority.
Project 2045 hopes to be a place where some of that early work happens together in a community of white people. A place to navigate the ask me anything stage in community, rather than placing that burden on individual relationships. And, over time, a place to move into deeper formation cohorts led by People of Color.
I remain deeply grateful for the stage I was in, for the love this man showed me, and for the patience he extended. He has continued to show up at some of the most significant transitions in my life. He has spoken into my vocation in ways I am still discovering.
I know this now: the way I think about race, culture, authority, and belonging was not shaped primarily by books or theories or professional training. It was shaped because People of Color chose to love me, correct me, stay with me, and teach me long before I had the skills to receive what they were offering.
That formation did not make me exceptional. It made me accountable.
It taught me that proximity is not the same as humility, that good intentions do not substitute for submission, and that growth often happens slowly, quietly, and at someone else’s expense. I carry deep gratitude for the people who took that risk with me. And I carry a responsibility to honor that formation.