Derek and Regina Thompson are the founders and directors of Hands of Favor, a nonprofit based in southwest Washington that provides free haircuts and builds loving relationships with struggling community members. Hands of Favor has been a consistent presence at our Compassion Clinics over the years and we have deeply appreciated their partnership in the journey of uniting Jesus followers to serve their neighbors.
Derek and Regina currently attend a church plant called Seeds of Greatness Fellowship Church and are also longtime members of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Portland. Both grew up in Portland and have two children, five grandkids and two great grandkids. Derek and Regina graciously agreed to allow us to interview them for this ongoing blog series highlighting the perspectives of faith leaders of color, and our hope is that hearing their story will open up a dialogue that allows us as the Body to more deeply understand and engage with the challenging topics of racial justice, reconciliation, and healing.
Share a little bit about yourselves:
Derek- Regina and I are the founders and directors of Hands of Favor. We began as a haircut ministry, or at least that is what a lot of people called us. We serve four different counties, and we’re very happy to be partnered with Compassion Connect. About a year ago, God told me that he wanted us to reorganize Hands of Favor. We had made a lot of relationships with people we served, and through those relationships we were able to hear the stories and know people’s needs. So we figured advocacy was the place to help people go in a positive direction, which ultimately would be ending up knowing and loving God and getting their lives in order in other tangible ways.
And then here comes COVID, and George Floyd and whatnot and it took us away from the haircuts, but it gave us more time with God to give us a direction of where he wanted to go, and now we’re right in the middle of what’s been going on. We know this is a long haul. It’s an arduous adventure. But a tree doesn’t grow unless you till the ground and plant a seed, right? And that’s what we’ve got to do.
There’s quite a few people that are saying, “Yeah but, yeah but…” Too many times God says, “I want you to do this” and we say, “Yeah but.” We’ve adopted a philosophy in our organization where if we’re talking to somebody and they say “Yeah, but,” we want to stop and gently let them know that it’s usually a lead-in to try to justify an excuse.
Derek and the Hands of Favor crew providing haircuts at a Compassion Clinic in Vancouver, WA
It’s amazing how a simple haircut can change a person’s whole demeanor
Regina in the haircutting area at a pre-COVID-19 Compassion Clinic
What has been your reaction to the death of George Floyd and other recent events that have shaken the nation?
Derek- I found myself being more angry than I’ve ever been in my entire life. Angry to the point that it was uncontrollable until I was able to allow God to redirect that anger. He didn’t take the anger away, but it became righteous anger, anger that I could control, anger that I could use. I’m angry about the deaths and the injustice, but I’m also angry because we should not be having this discussion. But we can and we will get a lot deeper into this because we’re going to have to. A part of my reaction, too, is I’m upset at a lot of the churches. And mostly it is because of their inability to see what’s really happening around them. They can’t see that something’s broken.
People are going to be surprised when they learn that there’s not a soul in this country that systematic racism hasn’t affected or won’t affect. People don’t realize that there’s nothing we can do on this earth to one person that’s not going to affect the rest. I hate to go this extreme, but this is a great example. Take for instance, a Klan member. They hate me, or they think they do. But they don’t know me, so how can they hate me? But let’s say they hate me. And they’re doing all they can, marching around with their signs, the little Halloween hoods on, lighting fires, drinking beer, doing whatever they’re doing. And guess what? I’m probably at home sleeping, or hanging out with my family. Guess who’s feeling miserable right now trying to keep me under their thumb? Them. Because they’ve got to figure out ways to do that. And I’m not paying attention to them, you see what I mean?
Regina- I’m content because God is leading us through this. I’m angry, but I’m not angry. Like it says in the Bible, you have to forgive. So my thing is getting it out there, letting the people know. We have failings, but at the same time God is in the center of everything. It’s time for all this to be happening–it’s overdue actually.
Can you share some examples of racism that you have experienced over the years?
Derek- I met a young man quite a few years ago on a corner, you know, waiting for the light to change. It was a summer day and he was talking about a recent accident that he had seen. He said one car was going through the intersection and then this Cadillac came along and a black guy was driving it. And I said, “What color was the other driver?” And he looked at me with a question mark all over his face and asked me why I asked him the question. And I said, “You are the one that brought up race. I didn’t.” Now, how do I look at that? He was innocent, but he wasn’t innocent of what he said. In other words, that’s what we call the racism that has been in your DNA for a long, long time.
There are many other incidents, like from the very first time that Regina and I moved out to Tigard, OR some 40 years ago. One night about two blocks from our house, a car pulled up, screeched to a halt and these couple of guys got out and yelled at us, “Go back to your own neighborhood!”
Discrimination in the Workplace
Another story: In the 70’s, I worked for Kinney Shoes. Kinney Shoes was a shoe chain where the average American family went to get shoes. When they opened up a new store in Washington Square out in Tigard I went to apply for a job and I walked in, waiting for somebody to come and greet me, but nobody ever came. It was quite a while, maybe ten, fifteen minutes before somebody finally came out and asked what I wanted. I said I wanted to get an application. They went back. It was a little while longer. They came back. He said, “The manager is not going to speak to you.”
I said, “Why?”
He said, “Because he hired a black person before and he stole some shoes and he said he’s never gonna hire another [n word].”
And I said, “Well, will you tell him to call security? Because I will not leave this store until he gets out and gives me an application.”
In a bit he came out with an application and I got the job. Several months later, I became the assistant manager of that store. The manager lived in Sherwood, and back then, we didn’t go to Sherwood. But one day he took me to his home in Sherwood. This was after I got the position and we became friends. He started realizing, “Okay, I shouldn’t use that word and they’re not all alike.” He took me to his home in Sherwood when we got out and pulled up to his house, at almost every house on his block heads popped out the door immediately. Wondering, what is he doing with that?
Regina and I worked at Nike together and I used to get stopped on my way to work, it seemed like at least once every single week because we went to work at five thirty and six in the morning. And here’s what the cops would ask: “Excuse me, what are you doing here?”
How are you going to ask me what I’m doing somewhere?I have the right to go anywhere you go. And they asked me what was I doing there?
Another time, there were twenty-five cop cars at least with guns all in my windows. The cops were hollering at me unintelligibly so I didn’t know what they were saying. I was just on my way to work. They were running around screaming and hollering and wouldn’t listen to me. Then finally, finally, they came to me and had the audacity to tell me they thought I was the I-5 killer.
Subtle Signs of Prejudice
But there’s a whole lot more than that. You might think we don’t run into that now. We do, but we handle it differently. There’s many times you can walk into a store, and everything is cool, and somebody might say you’re imagining things but all of a sudden, ding, ding. There’s a code. Why is there a code? Because they saw you when you walked in. You see what I am saying?
Or here’s another recent one. I went to the bank in downtown Vancouver. I parked my car and got out to walk to the teller machine. There’s a lady in front of me in her car. She sees me, and you can see the fright on her face. She locks her door real quick and grabs all her stuff and holds it. They don’t treat me the same way they treat their neighbor. Because first of all, they say, oh, this is Derek Thompson. He’s an African-American man. And they say, Oh, this is Bill Brumley. He’s an American. I didn’t see white in there anywhere. But they have to distinguish me. Those kinds of things, that’s racism. People say it’s not, but it is. That’s why we’re fighting so hard now. We will not continue to live this way, you know? We don’t need that every day. I don’t need to be identified by the color I am. I know what color I am and guess what? I am so proud despite the way we’re treated. I would never want to be anything else than what I am.
Here is the most convincing one right here. People get mad at people who don’t say the flag salute, right? Do you know why we don’t say it? Because words like “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all…” are those words really true? Are we really one nation under God? Are we really indivisible? Is there really liberty and justice for all?
Jesus never said anything that you could argue with. He said things that people didn’t like, and that convicted people, and we’re not going to tell you anything that Jesus doesn’t lead us to. That’s why I use that example, because it’s the most profound one there is. We’d love to be able to go places where they say stand up and put your hand on your heart and pledge to that flag because you love this country. I’d love to, but to get to the root we have to go to places where it hurts, where the people are shocked, where the people realize, “Oh wow, it’s me.” We’re not trying to make people feel guilty. We’re trying to make people recognize the truth. Because when we recognize the truth, then we can move forward.
Regina- For a long time I didn’t stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance, even going back to childhood. All this media that is going on, the big reason was George Floyd, but it goes way beyond that. What I’m saying is racism has not stopped. Prejudice has not stopped. It’s been going on and on, and it’s still going on. Even in the workforce. I’m sure you heard the story about Nike and when we worked for Nike we got demoted. It’s continually going on, and people need to understand. They need to understand and wake up, and listen to what we have to say–
Derek –because it’s not our message, it is God’s message.
Regina Yeah. And it’s time. It needs to stop.
Derek- God didn’t tell us to treat each other differently because of the color of our skin. He never told us that. But we’re subject to that all the time. We need recognition of the fact that systematic racism is real. We need recognition of the fact that racism is pretty much embedded in the DNA of many of us.
Does this mean that all white people are bad people? No. It just means that right now they happen to be the ones in charge and are the ones that have put down the rules and regulations. So recognize it, ask God for forgiveness and let’s move on. We can’t get forward until we can accept those things, have them operated on, sutured, and begin the healing process. In the end, it will go from being a racial issue to being a human issue. It’ll be human beings who love God and who love each other. Fighting injustice in the world and in our country. That’s really the way that I envision it.
Part of the Hands of Favor team at Compassion Beaverton 2019
Providing compassionate haircuts and building relationships in 4 counties
Why is it so important that things start to change soon?
Derek We’re tired of hearing presidents and mayors and governors and police chiefs and even a lot of pastors say the same things, and then there’s no follow up action. We’ve been seeing the same rhetorical conversations and the same identical actions over the decades. And here’s what happens: nothing. We are told to sit down, shut up, and listen, and they will tell us how to think. They’ll tell us what to do.
And guess what? We’re saying now that we’re done listening to you until you listen to us. We’re not going to go outside of God, but we plan on making a lot of noise. We don’t plan on stopping. We might not see the fruition of this in our lifetimes, but somebody will, and this is really all about God. And we’ve got to bring it the way God wants it, you know?
Regina- Something’s got to be done because kids are listening to all this, and they’re scared. Scared of the police, you know, it’s just too much.
Derek- Sit down, shut up, and listen. But we want them to at least take a seat.
Regina- Oh, yeah. (both laughing)
Derek- We still have our sense of humor, and we’ll never lose that sense of humor. Our God laughs too, you know. What Regina said about the kids–I saw something the other day that I thought was so profound. It’s a one panel cartoon and it’s somebody sitting by a little boy. Their backs are turned at a counter, eating some ice cream. And he said to the little black boy, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And he said, “Alive.” That’s real.
Regina- Why would a little kid say anything like that? Because he’s seen too much. Things have got to change.
Derek- And they will.
Regina- People need to listen, and quit putting it under the rug.
Derek- It can’t go back under the rug, it’s impossible. The rug’s not big enough anymore.
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Coming Soon: In Part II of our conversation with Derek and Regina, the couple explains their message and action steps for the Church during this time, the connection between authentic relationships and positive change, and what’s on the horizon for their ministry. To learn more about Derek and Regina’s work with Hands of Favor, click here.
