Sugarcoated Words, Stinging Truths
Justin Giboney | The art of cultural critique
This Mid-Week Edition of Ecstatic features Justin Giboney
Around my sophomore year of college, I approached my African American History professor, Dennis C. Dickerson, to inquire about my performance. Honestly, I was fishing for a compliment. I spoke frequently in class and expected his praise. And since he was one of a limited number of Black professors on campus, I thought he’d flatter me as a show of solidarity given our shared identity.
He did not. In no uncertain terms, Dickerson told me I was a poor communicator and needed to tighten up my half-cocked and convoluted arguments.
I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. I was devastated. I was so shocked that I lost a couple nights of sleep. I’d assumed I was a proficient communicator, but he’d candidly burst my bubble. He exposed that I was more verbose than artful, more opinionated than informed. (I’m sure my detractors will say his assessment is still true.)
That was the most important and formative moment in my academic career and remains one of the most valuable moments of my life. As André 3000 said, his words were hard “to swallow. But so is cod liver oil.”
Once the sting of the truth subsided, I saw his critique was right. His reproach has rung in my ears for years, and I’ve become determined to communicate more concisely and persuasively. I don’t believe I could’ve learned the lesson so well without his frankness. A sugarcoated message wouldn’t have had the same impact.
Dickerson’s straightforward correction was the method of many of my elders. My grandparents’ generation had a way of bluntly letting you know when you were in the wrong. It was more than tough love. It was wise guidance that demanded humility and self-examination in the listener.
Both are necessary for self-awareness and growth. But in too many circles today, candor is frowned upon. And pointed critiques, no matter how truthful, are prohibited. We’ve expanded the definitions of concepts like harm and victim blaming to include anything that causes embarrassment or guilt. The question now is how a comment will make one feel, not whether it is right or wrong. In some contexts, your social location can protect you from all correction. It has become acceptable to disallow candid critique of entire groups of people.
We identify an enemy and imagine them as the source of all that is mean and evil. No one from these groups could possibly have anything to contribute to our betterment, we tell each other. We’re good, of course. And even if we’re not completely good, it’s only because they’ve forced us to be bad to survive. We parade around in our façades, shouting this false narrative to exalt ourselves while ignoring or trying to censor those who dissent.
It’s not only the commentary of outsiders that we are quick to malign. Sometimes we also scorn the unflattering appraisals of people inside our own tribes. Any conservative Christian who critiques Christian conservatism will quickly be branded a phony and a sellout—as if there’s no possibility that a culture that got slavery and Jim Crow wrong might also have more recent errors. I’ve seen the same basic pattern play out among Black social media influencers when someone questions whether an aspect of the culture is healthy or seeks in-group accountability.
Of course, discomfort with criticism isn’t always unfounded. In America, women and racial minorities have too often been the recipients of malicious and unfair judgments. They’ve been measured by discriminatory scales and called unfit based on arbitrary norms. This is what happens when critique is disconnected from relationship and compassion, and it’s wise to be skeptical of critique from those who’ve shown us neither fairness nor love.
Still, that very important reality does not put anyone above or below fair and constructive criticism—especially not those running for office. The Bible consistently tells us we must examine ourselves, both individually and collectively (2 Cor. 13:5; Lam. 3:40). What does good reproof look like in practice?
I’ve found a model worth imitating in Nannie Helen Burroughs, who is the subject of two books from Jasmine L. Holmes and Kelisha B. Graves. Both have given me a greater appreciation for the art of cultural critique as Burroughs practiced it.
An advocate for civil rights and women’s rights, Burroughs was also an educator, orator, and devout Christian. She dedicated her life to bettering her people and America more broadly through social action and forthright commentary. She didn’t pander to white America, nor did she pander to Black America. Burroughs’s work reflected the love of Jesus, and her words could cut like a two-edged sword. She told the white American church it needed to stop using the Bible to perpetuate lies. She told Black elites to stop separating themselves from and looking down on common people.
Burroughs would never have accepted the dangerous notion that her people—or any group—were without value or without their own cultural pathologies. She had the moral knowledge to understand that a love which only affirmed and coddled was a lesser love. She knew that when coupled with relationship and self-sacrifice, piercing words can liberate us from ignorance of our own faults.
Burroughs earned the credibility to critique through her sacrifices for the people she was critiquing. And if she could constructively scrutinize her own people in a time of great oppression, then Christians of all ideologies and races can do the same. We must have the courage to critique our own cultures and the humility to accept the corrections of others. The people we love cannot grow and thrive without self-examination, and neither can we.
We must “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15, NLT) and reject the pride that lures us into rejecting good and fair critique—whatever its source. We are shielded from truth at our own expense
Justin Giboney
Minister & Attorney
Justin Giboney is an ordained minister, an attorney, and the president of the AND Campaign, a Christian civic organization. He’s the coauthor of Compassion (&) Conviction: The AND Campaign’s Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement. What did you think of this essay? Share your thoughts with a comment!
This piece was originally featured by Christianity Today
Thank you, Justin, for this fine essay, for expanding my vision of what perfect love looks like. Indeed, the truth will set us free.