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| Tracy Hipps, CSM Executive Director |
As I have served on these committees, boards and sat in
these meetings, I haven’t seen many local churches represented. A new culture
of equity is really a part of Biblical culture, and we should be living these
values because of our faith. Equity is another word for “justice” and “neighbor.”
Justice is to walk in harmony with our neighbor. Neighbor is everyone who was
made by God. The Royal law is to “love our neighbors as ourselves.”
We can begin to live out our values together in our city
because equity calls for a change in mind, heart, hands, action, behavior, life
and in all areas of culture. In a culture of equity, we would have new
behavior, action, speech, thought, reaction, sight, hearing, as well as our
sense of place, space and time. Our senses are affected because our hearts are
being changed from the inside out.
Birmingham is a city deep in a rich history, and depending
on where you live, it has been good to you. But, some are those by whom the
city was built, and who still feel the struggle and pain. Steel was
Birmingham’s primary industry of the past. Today’s Birmingham, the “Steel City”
with equity, is a city that WE build together walking side by side and treating
people with respect.
A movement was started in Birmingham which we refer to as
the “Civil Rights Movement,” a movement foundational to the equity of the 60’s.
Building from this movement is our next step of equity for all people. It
challenged us then, and continues to charge us all, to pursue a new day and a
new dawn where barriers and divisions are broken down and equity can thrive.
But the division of culture, class, character and conduct
continue to exist in Birmingham, and in some ways we have circled back to our
old culture. We have 99 neighborhoods in the city of Birmingham, we have 38 or
more municipalities, three counties with more zip codes than we can recall. Our
glorious Red Mountain still represents division and divide. We have railroad
tracks, interstates, malls and restaurants that divide.
Birmingham’s neighborhoods have replaced grocery store for payday
loan companies by the hundreds. Birmingham’s transportation problems have created
even wider equity divisions in our culture. We are all deeply affected by
education, because it is foundational to the equity of our current society.
Birmingham’s many education systems; public, private and religious; educate our
children in inequity, though education is a tool that could bring equity. Some
of our brightest people, who could help create solutions to our systemic
education problems, are focused on their own systems and zip codes rather than
the whole picture.
Birmingham has its own dialect that serves inequity. “OTM,”
“UAB,” “AARP,” “ATRS” are a few abbreviations that identify and separate
us. We have code language to describe
people groups such as “they,” “those,” “them” and “least.” We need a new
language of equity where “we,” “us,” “our” and “together” is commonly used by
all. We must live the language of the Postmaster where all zip codes represent
“Birmingham.” The airport is Birmingham. The maps say Birmingham. Many can say
they were born in Birmingham. This is our
city— Birmingham.
To define equity in this culture is to build the future hope
we all should hold dear. But to move forward, we have to look back to build a
future stronger than steel. Equity of the past sought to build industries on
the backs of laborers, so equity of the future must build on all of our
shoulders as we stand side-by-side. creating the prosperity of the city we all
hold dear, will come from working for the good of ALL, not ours.
If we can retrain our minds, renew our hearts, refocus our
eyes, retune our ears, realign our thought, and retool our actions— then God
will restore our city. We need to influence Birmingham with the value of His
Kingdom, which will be in “equity.” God created us in “equity”– in the image
and likeness of Himself so we can walk in unity and harmony. To experience
“Shalom” in our city, we must live in “equity.” To be prosperous and see good,
we must live out “equity.”
“Also, seek the
peace (Shalom) and prosperity (welfare) of the city (Birmingham) to which I
have carried you... Pray to the (Our) LORD for it, because if it (Everyone)
prospers, you too will prosper." Jeremiah 29:7
