Thanks to the progress of every imaginable ethnic group in our rip-roaring economy, we’ve become “color-blind.” “Political correctness” has been vilified, so we can say whatever we feel; forget the consequences. The "complainers" who call our attention to race are the racists. Racism is now “reversed;” whites, especially white evangelicals claim to be the new victims of racism. Conservatives insist they are the persecuted minority. When we hear someone claim "Black Lives Matter," we retort "ALL lives matter." Colin Kaepernick emerges as a high-profile symbol of a spoiled, unpatriotic ingrate. We dismiss his message and his convictions as a threat to our comfortable lives.

I never believed any of this.

These common sentiments are a cover-up; a system of denial. “I am not a racist” is a mantra in a world that exists primarily to protect privilege. “Sure, there were incidents of injustice in the past, but don’t blame me.”

None of these evasion tactics worked for me. The more I looked at history; especially the history of the evangelical movement - and in a broader vein, the history of our country - the more racism emerged as unavoidable; inescapable; undeniable.

With all that said, there is a universal sentiment that offsets this massive, pervasive denial: “We need to have ‘the conversation.’”

But it’s a hard conversation. It’s a rare setting, a rare moment when we enter in. We address the knotty problem. We talk to someone outside our tribe. We listen. We confess. We learn.

That’s why I signed up for the Civil Rights Tour. Carolyn and I are fresh graduates of Workshop 1.0: Church, Race, and Reconciliation and Workshop 2.0: Challenges & Solutions to Reconciliation with our new friends at Fellowship Monrovia.

And now, we launch our journey.

We are in it. "The Conversation" begins.

Stay tuned.