Be a Gracist, Not a Racist!

What is gracism?

Dr. David Anderson is the author of the book "Gracism: The Art of Inclusion". He introduces the concept of gracism. Gracism is the opposite of racism as it focuses on extending grace and love to people of every shade of pigmentation, background, and culture!

The concept of gracism thrills my heart on so many deep levels. I believe the concept is very much the heart and central focus of God’s heart. If you are of the practicing Christian faith, then you cannot help but sing about His supernatural grace and love. In other words, when the gospel hits sincerely in the center of you life, the overflow of your heart should result is praise and thanksgiving, or a level of excitement to extend grace to everyone around you. God has offered grace and love to all people who will accept it. If He has, why shouldn’t we emulate him and do the same?

As humans, we were not meant to suffer alone. Yet, often people find themselves in complete isolation and this can put them in some very dark places of torment. The concept that I believe is the most powerful value to follow as a gracist, according to Anderson’s writings would be the concept of being willing to heal with those who are hurting or broken. “The bonus saying of a gracist—the eighth saying if you will—is this: ‘I will heal with you.’ This means I will walk with you through your pain” (Anderson, 2023). To me, compassion could be defined as possessing the willingness to walk along someone regardless of their life circumstances. Grace and compassion go hand in hand!

Many minority groups have experienced suffering on horrific levels due to the oppression and discrimination that they report. Each person, regardless of ethnicity, has burdens to bear daily. Psalm 68:19 reminds us, “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens” (New International Version, 1984). God always sets the example of how he wants us to treat other people. He knows we experience daily burdens and he wants to bear them with us. He calls us to also bear the burdens of other people’s sufferings.

One of the first steps to helping minorities with bearing their burdens of experiencing past racism is to start by listening to their stories. People have a lot to share most of the time. If you are striving to be a culturally diverse individual, then you must work toward increasing your active listening skills. “If self-absorption leads to poor listening, then selflessness leads to good listening” (Brown, 2016).

As we grow as multiculturally diverse individuals, we should strive to be selfless with our approach to extending compassion to minority groups. The fight for social justice includes people’s willingness to participate in public speaking events about mental health and wellness, with an effort to relate to minorities. “A growing literature suggests that listening well can support a deep connection and sense of wellbeing within speakers as they share important thoughts, emotions and experiences with their conversation partners, though less is known about the impact on the listeners themselves” (Moin, 2024).

Hearing a response from the audience or listeners after public speaking events is crucial as it helps determine if there was a positive response from the audience about the mental health topics discussed.

I believe that it is common for licensed mental health counselors sometimes grow complacent with their one-on-one clients and the fail to seek public speaking opportunities. Multiculturally educated licensed counselors should be some of the primary people leading the charge for social justice. Working toward paving the charge forward for advocacy and social justice in our local communities has never been more pertinent for minority groups who need to be empowered and supported as never before!

References

Anderson, D. A., Heiliger, D., & McManus, E. R. (2023). Gracism the art of inclusion. IVP.

Brown, S. B. (2016). A strategy to enhance listening skills in biblical counseling through the implementation of select personal spiritual disciplines (Order No. 10291282). Available from ProQuest Central; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1836061905). https://go.openathens.net/redirector/liberty.edu?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/strategy-enhance-listening-skills-biblical/docview/1836061905/se-2Links to an external site.

Moin, T., Weinstein, N., Itzchakov, G., Branson, A., Law, B., Yee, L., Pape, E., Cheung, R. Y. M., Haffey, A., Chakrabarti, B., & Beaman, P. (2024). The effects of listening on speaker and listener while talking about character strengths: an open science school-wide collaboration. Royal Society Open Science, 11(12), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7576449

New International Version. (1984). International Bible Society. Psalm 68:19