Persona non Grata

The first time I heard the term persona non grata I was a child living in Jamaica, where I was born. The term was in the news because the Jamaican government had declared someone persona non grata. My mother explained to me that the person was no longer welcome on the island. They had to leave and could not return.

Last week, this memory returned when I heard that on March 14th the US Secretary of State declared the South African ambassador persona non grata. Governments have to provide a reason for expulsion. In this case, the ambassador was accused of hating America and hating its current president.

Persona non grata is a Latin term that means unwelcome or unacceptable person. For Foreign diplomats they are sent back to the country that sent them. They are recalled by their government. They are not allowed to return once expelled. They are usually given 48 hours to depart.

In the case of the South African ambassador, he made comments at an online seminar which became the source of his expulsion. Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool said, “the MAGA movement was partially in response to worries about demographic change and a future when white Americans would no longer be the majority.”

This is not new information, nor is it new commentary on the movement to “make America great again.” Mr. Rasool spoke a truth that has been whispered by many. The demographic projections in the United States have long pointed to the shifting racial landscape in the country. The reality is that the white population is decreasing while the numbers of other people groups are increasing. It was long projected that the dominant culture and historically largest people group in the US will be a minority by 2030. That is now.

The expulsion of the Ambassador for naming the known was overflowing with irony. Has freedom of speech become conditional? We are free to speak as long as we are not critical of the government? Or perhaps the public rendering of what has long been said by communities of color has now been heard because of the messenger.

Persona non grata is a term used for the expulsion of foreign diplomats by another country. Of course, when people who are not diplomats are deemed unwelcome, they are “deported” to their countries of origin, or as is the current case, they are removed from the US to countries wiling to take them regardless of their countries of origin. Immigrants have long been deemed unwelcome and unacceptable in the US. This administration’s practices are consistent with those of previous administrations.

The unwelcome and unacceptable are all around us. The church has its history of declaring people unwelcome and unacceptable. Enslaved people sat in the balconies or outside the church. They were unacceptable and unwelcome, their worth was commodified and their dignity deemed nonexistent.

Women who challenged their relegation to being silent in the church were put out. They were unacceptable and unwelcome.

LGBTQIA+ persons were deemed unwelcome and unacceptable. Persons with disabilities, too. And even the poor in some communities. The church has not been welcoming.

The way people dress. The way they wear their hair. Persona non grata has been an attitude worn by the church even in this day where many have aligned their Christianity with values that identify people as unwelcome and unacceptable, monikers which are antithetical to the imago Dei.

In 2009, shortly after I started ministry in the UCC national ministries as the Minister for Racial Justice, I had an encounter with a seat mate on a flight from Detroit to Amsterdam. On that day, as passengers boarded the plane, we exchanged pleasantries and engaged in light conversation. After hearing about what I did for work, my seat mate expressed his concern for his children when whites became a minority in the US. He worried that they would not have the same opportunities he had and would not be able to achieve the things he did.

I heard in his concern a stereotypical understanding of radicalized minorities along with his fear of being treated in the ways that they are treated. He did not want that experience for himself or for his children and yet, there was no indication he was advocating for anything different or better for a population he did not want to be a part of. Minority status is looming for white people in the United States and with it the growing fear of imposed oppression by the majority. I learned a lot that day on the tarmac in Detroit.

Sixteen years later, the Ambassador’s spot-on analysis of current events in the US got him expelled from the US. He said much the same that a man said to me in 2009.

The truth requires courage. The truth requires coming to terms with the church’s failure to be inclusive. The truth of this day is the reckoning with why people are being pushed aside. The truth is that no person should be labeled as unwelcome or unacceptable in the church or outside of the church. All are made in the image of God.