Moments like these bring varied thoughts and emotions for many in our community as we continue to find ways to labor toward justice and peace and the rebuilding of trust. Our collective healing is tied to being aware of systemic injustices, and then doing the hard work of listening, managing the threats felt within our bodies, and transforming the fears that continue to separate us from our neighbors.

May we be people of faith who know and do justice, love to extend mercy, and walk humbly with our God. Let us continue to pray for George Floyd鈥檚 family, for each other, for our nation, and for the family of Derek Chauvin. May our prayers be not only words, but grow hands and feet to serve in difficult times and in challenging places. May our cries for justice and reconciliation extend beyond social media and into action within our relationships and within the fabric of our communities.

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As this Pandemic has spread, it has exposed and exploited the wounds and fissures of our society, revealing what has been here all along but many of us have refused to see. The true virus plaguing our country is one of systemic racism, systemic poverty, criminalization of poverty, and our refusal to address these things.*

Before * was even dreamt up, we were on Aurora Avenue here in Seattle, Washington. We were learning, listening, and lamenting. The more time spent, the more moments shared with our unhoused neighbors, the more love was propagated and proliferated and with each new year, this web of connection has grown and so with it has the habitual, exasperated grieving of unnecessary death.

Unnecessary death.

Let me write it one more time鈥�

Unnecessary death.

Watching precious human beings, with a name and a heartbeat, wither away before our eyes slowly or suddenly, is something we have had to learn to bear witness to at . We unabashedly mourn the precious lives lost, the lives our society has named as 鈥渙ther鈥� or 鈥渆xpendable鈥�; the casualties of the exploitative capitalism and consumerism that we have inherited, that has co-opted our churches, our theologies, our priorities and every other aspect of our life.

It is because there are gaping, bleeding wounds in our policies, structures, and hearts that precious human beings die unnecessary deaths every moment of every day.

For us to bear witness to another death due to…

Skin color

Lack of identification

Access to adequate care

Racial Capitalism

Hate Crime

Stigma

Criminalization

Lack of Housing

Gender identity

Victimization

Mental health issues

Sexuality

Diagnosis

The cost of medication

Discrimination

Exploitation

The 鈥渨ar on drugs鈥�

Felony charges

Survival

Food insecurity

You simply cannot understand what is going on in these streets across our nation today until you recognize the compounding weight of unnecessary death and how it impacts precious people.

The hard truth is that every single one of us has accepted the unnecessary deaths of our Black and Brown neighbors for far too long. Despite our good 鈥淐hristian鈥� intentions, we allow death policies and politicians, law enforcement, our own ideologies, fears, and the privileged powers to be the hands of our moral compass, and this cannot go on any longer.

This current movement was infused and animated by folks who have not had the privilege to ignore unnecessary death. They stand on the shoulders of a long line of ancestors. From the homes with a lack of clean water in Detroit, Michigan to 鈥淪teve鈥� from the Commons who cannot afford his diabetic test strips. From Treasure who was murdered two weeks ago to 鈥淒鈥� who was a social worker but is now stuck in the cycle of untreated mental illness and living on the streets. There is a holy lament and call for change. A prophet of our time, Rev. Dr. William Barber, says to mourn in public is to shock this nation鈥檚 conscience. The system is failing our people and millions more every day so the venerable shaking of the fist and rumble of feet pounding these streets, yes, is the right thing to do.

But it must be more than that. We, all of us, must acknowledge our proclivity towards the public discourse of our minds and not the profound revolution of our hearts. For how can you get the power structures of our nation to say 鈥測es鈥� when only your mind is connected and not your heart.

We need to be committed to decolonizing our minds and hearts; allowing the experts (the precious people within our midst, who have lived experience) to lead us, guide us, dismantle us. We must be committed to living into an economy of interdependence. And as we continue on in this commitment, we MUST allow this love to be what takes us to streets and we must take to the streets because our highest calling is to love the thousands upon thousands of precious human beings who have and will die unnecessary deaths. And we must not be silent anymore!

Dearest people, followers of Jesus, you must keep on.

Please keep on鈥�

And may we keep on until there is no more bread line.

The post What Will We (You) Do With the Unnecessary Deaths of God鈥檚 Precious People? appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

All summer long 天美视频 core faculty have engaged a process of , ongoing dialogue, and self-examination about race and through weekly blogging. We鈥檝e taken turns writing posts, and engaging a peer review process with each other鈥檚 work so as to stimulate deeper and even more thoughtful reflection about white-body supremacy and what it may look like for our school to become a truly anti-racist¹ learning community.

My colleague sometimes challenges me, 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 know! And you can鈥檛 help!鈥�² I love him for this. I need lots of support decentering the lie that, 鈥淚 know and can help鈥� . . . or even worse that I 鈥渒now better鈥� and 鈥渢hey need me.鈥� Whiteness Christianity groomed me to anticipate my superiority in nearly every situation. When I鈥檓 honest, it kinda felt good to choose to believe God predestined me as a uniquely vital Divine instrument for the salvation of others. Turns out this is a white lie. I鈥檝e been unlearning this theological invention for decades now. I may have been discipled into whiteness Christianity, but I am in the process of being saved from myopic, whiteness evangelical religion.

Whiteness divides. Segregation is the goal of whiteness, and completely antithetical to the Gospel. From Genesis to Revelation, we see God reconciling all facets of the relational ecosystem that is creation to each other and to the Divine in Christ. Jesus summed up all scripture saying, 鈥淟ove God and love your neighbor as yourself.鈥�³ Love and segregation are incompatible; as are love and black-body racism. The scandal of Jesus鈥� words is that love is always located in the real. Love is particular. It is needful of the other; it鈥檚 relational and proximate; never ideological, or theological, or even religious.

My emerging sense is that we cannot separate love of self from love of neighbor or from love of God. These three loves are interpenetrating, interanimating, inseparable鈥� perichoretic, maybe? If you were to really love your neighbor, you would be loving God and yourself. If you were to really love God, you would be loving yourself and your neighbor. Moreover, if you were truly able to love yourself, you would already be loving God and loving your neighbor, so鈥� 鈥渨ho is your neighbor?鈥�⁴

Dr. Willie James Jennings writes that 鈥淪egregated spaces must be turned toward living places where people construct together an every day that turns life in health-giving directions. Overcoming whiteness begins by reconfiguring life geographically so that all the flows work differently鈥︹��⁵ Here are my questions for us as a school: Where are we? Who is already here? And how might we discover God鈥檚 Shalom in relation with our neighbors? How might our 鈥渇lows鈥� work differently?

So much more needs to be said; even more needs to be done and undone. Like the man who came to Jesus you’ll read in my paraphrase of Matthew, I am infected by whiteness鈥� as are many of the systems 鈥渘ecessary鈥� for 天美视频 to operate. Systemic and personal racism have no place in God鈥檚 kingdom. The Gospel of Jesus Christ necessitates our school鈥檚 work and my personal work to be utterly anti-racist. A practical way to begin is tangibly and holistically loving God by loving your neighbor as yourself while together discovering how to reconfigure life geographically. As Jesus suggests, humanly speaking, it may seem impossible. “But with God鈥︹��

Peace,
Dwight

I鈥檝e reimagined this passage, Matthew 19:16-26, within this context, and written it below:

鈥淎 highly privileged, White seminary professor came to Jesus with this question: 鈥淭eacher, what good thing must I do to know eternal life?鈥�

鈥淲hy ask me about what is good?鈥� Jesus replied. 鈥淭here is only One who is good. But to answer your question鈥攊f you want to receive eternal life, keep the commandments.鈥�

鈥淲hich ones?鈥� the White professor asked.

And Jesus replied: 鈥溾�榊ou must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely. Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as yourself.鈥欌��

鈥淚鈥檝e done all that,鈥� the White man replied. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 left?鈥�

Jesus told him, 鈥淚f you want to give it all you鈥檝e got, go interrogate your privilege, learn antiracist ways, all the while seeking reparations and equity, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.鈥�

But when the White man heard this, he went away sad, for he was very privileged.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, 鈥淚 tell you the truth, it is very hard for a White person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I鈥檒l say it again鈥攊t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a White person to enter the Kingdom of God!鈥�

The disciples were astounded. 鈥淭hen who in the world can be saved?鈥� they asked. Jesus looked at them intently and said, 鈥淗umanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.鈥�

Resources

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M-i-crooked letter crooked letter-i-crooked letter crooked letter-i-humpback humpback i. We all know it spells Mississippi. Mississippi is a state in the Deep South, flanked by other southern states, but different than Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana. I think uglier in their hate, savagery, viciousness, murderousness. I know this Mississippi, and I am terrified. The implications of coming from Mississippi, the racial scars. Mississippi holds the dark, rich soil, bloodied soil I come from, the Natives I come from, the Blacks I come from.

I will take you back to a moment in time, maybe 1965, in Mississippi. Close enough. Maybe it was a Saturday, could have been a Sunday. I was walking with my Daddy. I call him that because as a little girl, that was how I addressed him. I was a little girl, five years old. We were by the courthouse. By that time I knew of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

鈥淒addy, why don’t they take that monument down?鈥�
My Daddy replied, “Maybe they will someday, little one.”
鈥淒addy, that is wrong.鈥�

I grew up in the Deep South. I have seen the KKK in the back of a pickup truck, walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge, lived desegregation. Racism. The word, flat, does not capture for me my feelings of witnessing it, the inequities, everywhere injustices. Everywhere, specifically against, towards, located specifically in Blacks…violence, hate, shaming, motivated dehumanizing. In essence, saying “You are nothing.” And in my experience, projections from the inside of southern Whites鈥� minds into Blacks. They were, and are victimized by Whites.

I continue to commit to being honest about my hate, shame, and racism. To keep seeing the “monuments,” the literal ones, and the ones in my mind, and to take them down. And not as I said as a five year-old, nor as my father said, “maybe they will.” There is no “they.” There is no 鈥渕aybe.鈥�

There are so many angles here that need to be addressed. It is for me, the very important question of feeling the feelings of another person. As Franco Scabbiolo would say:

鈥淔eeling the feelings of the other person. The Bible is working through this issue: the question of feeling something different from you, and a lot of people don鈥檛 want to feel or are rejecting feelings.鈥�

There is an intolerance of difference: some people cannot tolerate difference. From a psychoanalytic point of view, racism is a profound inability of being able to feel different sorts of feelings. I know from my experience, us Mississippi whites, who immediately, consciously and unconsciously, generate a feeling of rage, uneasiness, defensiveness, fear of difference, fear of the other; what we call the 鈥渙ther.鈥� Racism is a profound issue of fear. From my experience, us Mississippi Whites鈥� tremendous impulse to survive and attack is a very primitive fear and explodes violently into Blacks. And sometimes it is organized hate through the build-up of our paranoia. In the Deep South, the culture, our culture, my culture, is organized around racism and there is a psychic reality ingrained in many of us. And it is our psychic reality, built so early in our development, that informs our picture of the world鈥攊ncluding our picture of self鈥攁nd other people.

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I waited.

As I waited, flashing through my mind was the question, 鈥淪hould I use my state-commissioned authority to enter without their permission or should I wait until the door opened and I was invited in?鈥� And if the door opens, I pondered, should I exercise my authority to remove the children with no questions asked and get the hell out, or should I stay, ask questions, and create conversations and together collaborate a plan for the care of these children?鈥�

The door opened and our story began. We would spend the next two years together navigating our differences. As I continued to return, one day I noticed I did not hear the voices of the children yelling 鈥渕oonias, moonias.鈥� Rather, it was the children themselves who opened the door and let me in. Slowly we had moved from Moonias-Indian (First Nations) to the use of our given names.

As we came to know each other by name, we also grew to care for the other as we worked together to create a safer place. It did not go well nor did it end well. But in the process, this family, along with many of the Maskwacis tribe, became my first teachers about race, power, privilege, hatred and the fallacy of 鈥渨hiteness鈥� as a norm. Whiteness, as I would later come to understand as a fabrication benefiting the White race and devoid of any meaning other than maintaining power and privilege, had to be yielded and re-imagined.

Yielding, at the time, came in the act of return. One of the lessons I learned was the importance of simply 鈥渟howing up.鈥� One morning, I received a message from the police that the children of this family were sitting in a cell at the police station waiting for me to take them home. The children had been caught breaking into several stores the night before and the police could not get in touch with their mother. The children had directed the police to call me. As we drove back towards the reservation one of the children spoke up and said, 鈥淩oy, if you would come see us more often, we would be better.鈥� The words struck deep. And they have never left me. That small child, speaking from deep within their heart, was very wise. For we are all made better when someone shows up.

But how we show up, I would learn, is another question. Though we did not have the language of at the time, we both knew, at a conscious and unconscious level, the danger handed down by my people – the assault upon their culture. They had every reason to be wary of me.

And I was wary of myself. I barely 鈥渒new鈥� myself and hidden in me, given my culture and privilege, was a deep bias of our indigenous people. So how would I show up? Did I feel comfortable enough in my own White self to not abuse the power and privilege of my whiteness?

Perhaps because of my youth, my idealism, if I did nothing else, I returned. But my confidence in continuing to return was because the Maskwacis slowly welcomed my return. Their acceptance of me as the White man that I am challenged me to accept them as the persons that they are. I believe it was they who initiated in me the idea that, 鈥渢o be useful in this world, the best I can do is to be me and not try to be you or attempt to make you me.鈥� This was a challenge to my previous understanding where difference was expected to accommodate my whiteness. What I have learned is that it is in the grit of working through difference, misunderstandings, misrecognitions, ruptures and repairs 鈥� where transformation takes place.

I have been a decades long student of the philosopher Martin Buber whose work entitled is essentially a classic. A quick read of Buber often leaves the reader thinking the I/Thou encounter is simply a moment of meeting when two persons come to understand the other and tension is released. But the I/Thou moment is not encountered through sameness, agreement or compromise. Rather, it is predicated on the recognition of difference. Genuine Encounter is the act of living in the ache and the beauty of contrast. It is the move from 鈥渦sing鈥� the other as an object for personal gain and power. It is the act of 鈥渢urning鈥� towards the other as a (w)holy other. It is the hope that two separates can find unity in contrast.

This is not achievable however, if one is unable to confirm oneself. If one is unable to live and be in their own skin 鈥� (in my case, my white skin) – the skin of the stranger will always be someone to fear, to subjugate, to own and objectify. But if I am able to consider my fear of the other as an outward manifestation of unworked issues of my own, at the least this should give me pause towards an understanding of the other as an unfair recipient of my biases. At the most, it should cause me to turn towards the other with humility with wonder and with awe.

Chief Dan George was a highly respected in the Tsleil-Waututh Nation 鈥� a neighboring nation of the Maskwacis. His book , was a companion to me during my time with Maskwacis. He said this:

One thing to remember is to talk to the animals. If you do, they will talk back to you.
But if you don鈥檛 talk to the animals, they won鈥檛 talk back to you, then you won鈥檛
understand, and when you don鈥檛 understand you will fear, and when you fear you will
destroy the animals, and if you destroy the animals, you will destroy yourself.

That day as I stood on the steps, I was asking the question, 鈥渋f that door opens what will
we do with (or to) the other?鈥� What I learned that day is to show-up and to wait to be let in. What I have learned since is the importance of reflecting upon 鈥渨hat is it that I fear? The strange other? Or the stranger that is within?

I am grateful that day that the door opened. For it birthed in me, that my/our fear of the other will destroy us. And that it is through opening the door to our differences, that we are shaped, reshaped and transformed.

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Earlier this year, Dr. J. Derek McNeil sat down for a conversation with one of his life-long friends, Dr. Howard Stevenson, about trauma and resilience, especially as these topics relate to African-American men and boys. Dr. Stevenson is a clinical psychologist who performs research and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and is the Executive Director of . Throughout his career, one of the questions that has driven Dr. Stevenson鈥檚 research is: Does it matter when we talk to our children, particularly children of color, about race? Understanding not only our individual stories, but the stories of the collective group of people we are a part of, shapes our resilience, capacity to struggle, and ability to thrive.

During their conversation, you鈥檒l hear Dr. McNeil and Dr. Stevenson share findings from their studies on race and resilience, personal stories from their families, and the most surprising thing Dr. Stevenson encountered upon visiting Michael Brown鈥檚 high school one year after his death.

鈥淩esilience as: 鈥楬ow do you navigate adversity within a particular frame or narrative that people have about you?鈥欌�� Dr. Howard Stevenson

鈥淚n this moment there’s a sense of privilege to have a sense of telling your own story as if it is individual, unconnected to a larger narrative notion.鈥� Dr. J. Derek McNeil

鈥淥ur job is to help you fall in love with your own story. When you tell your own story it addresses all the health and well being issues we often struggle with. Who am I? Do I use my voice? Should I shapeshift or not shapeshift? What鈥檚 the cost? In your own narrative you get to make better choices.鈥� Dr. Howard Stevenson

鈥淭raumas that come through the stories that are about you, you know you have to live in them or outside of them or create new meaning in them, and I鈥檓 realizing that鈥檚 a lot of what socialization is about with my family鈥攁ttempts to buffer the collective narrative by giving an alternative narrative and an alternative meaning.鈥� Dr. J. Derek McNeil

鈥淲hat does it take to raise a healthy village? You want the leaders in that village to see both and鈥攂oth you as an individual and as part of the collective鈥攁nd those two don鈥檛 have to be embattled or denied. You hold the individual accountable but also the community accountable to a certain expectation to not swallow the kool-aid of false narratives.” Dr. Howard Stevenson

Resources to Go Deeper

• Read T
• Watch Dr. Stevenson鈥檚 TEDTalk,
• Learn more about
• Read more about

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One of my concerns (here at home in progressive Seattle and at 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology) is that don鈥檛 just manifest themselves in swastikas, hooded robes, bad cops, cover-ups and white nationalist ideology. Overt supremacy causes us, those of us who consider ourselves progressive, to psychologically suppress and distance ourselves from our own bias and supremacist characteristics. Our impulse is to say, 鈥淲e are not like that!鈥� However, this psychological dissociation never allows us to get to the covert seeds of racism planted deep within all of us who are part of the White majority.

A while back I was at a party in my neighborhood. I struck up a conversation with a young Black woman. As we introduced ourselves to each other, she told me she had come to Seattle to work in the medical field. I鈥檓 ashamed to admit it, but my first thought was that she must be a medical technician or a traveling nurse. As we talked more, she told me she was an OB/GYN. While Linda and I walked home, I shared my deep embarrassment over my initial assumption. I am limited by the stories that I have access to, my bias, and my blind spots.

In the middle school my sons attended, 97% of the student population (students of color) were referred to as 鈥渕inority.鈥� The 3% of the student population who were White were still referred to as 鈥渕ajority.鈥� The mental model where the most are called minority and the few are labeled as the majority is crazy-making in the message it sends. It鈥檚 a wonder that any of these children passed the state math exam. Minority less than鈥� majority greater than鈥hink of the impact!

As a White man, I hold within me the and individual achievement. These myths infer that I 鈥渒now鈥� and I can help. However, these mental models interfere with the posture I must take to deconstruct my own racist ideas. The way forward begins with weakness and vulnerability. These are counter-intuitive to power and privilege.

What if I admit I don鈥檛 know and I can鈥檛 help? Can I sit in the liminal space that 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know鈥� creates? Can I continue to go through the painful and disorientating process of unlearning the power that affords me the confidence to always have an answer? It starts with 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know.鈥� It鈥檚 hard for White men to access the social narratives and psychological categories necessary to live into weakness and vulnerability when we have been called the majority. It鈥檚 hard to live into the ambiguity of who I am and move into places where I don鈥檛 know where I fit in when so much of me has been afforded the privilege of self-determination.

To admit that I don鈥檛 know means that I must be in proximity to people who see the world differently than me. I must live in the middle of other narratives that decenter my own. Doug Hall, one of my professors in my doctoral program, claimed that one of the challenges for White men doing justice work is the painful process of 鈥渦nlearning鈥� power and all you think you know.

My life must be lived in and with difference, which exacerbates the feelings of vulnerability and discomfort that whiteness has been socialized to avoid. This will shake my social identity. Seattle White progressives are great at listening to public radio and accessing public libraries. But, public transportation? No thank you. Public schools? Not my kids. The position of proximity is one of vulnerability and illumination.

I cannot read my way out of the problem of my perceived power and the deconstruction of white superiority. It won鈥檛 happen at one protest or one church service. The protest march or the BLM sign in my front yard might make me feel better when I feel powerless to prevent police pushing their knee into the neck of George Floyd; however, these events serve merely as an inoculation if only done in isolation. These moments of crisis serve as an indictment鈥攔evealing how far I am from the problem and from a network that is building systemic change.

Where do I live? Where do I shop? Where do my kids go to school? Proximity illuminates the issues and affords me the gift of stories other than my own. Deconstructing the isn鈥檛 simply about having more diverse friends. It means living in a way that sees and feels the impact of police brutality, the opportunity gaps in education, and the inequity of politically underrepresented neighborhoods. Until those problems become my problems, nothing will change.

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As the poet Claudia Rankine describes in her , Black life is a condition of mourning. Our Black brothers and sister, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters don鈥檛 live with the thought or the hope that the latest act of racial violence will be the last. They know that the sin of racism in America is deep and long and face the reality of that daily in ways that I will never experience. As a White woman with unearned privilege, I have the 鈥渓uxury鈥� of being able to express my grief and anger without fear of reprisal or violence from those in power. I have the 鈥渃hoice鈥� to engage or not engage. As Roberts and Rizzo 聽⁶ note in their recent article on racism in America, 鈥減ower enables passivism.鈥� White people鈥擨鈥攈ave been passive too long. This is where I must start鈥攁cknowledging my privilege and passivity, and grieving and repenting of that. And then I must take responsibility.

And my heart is still broken. Even as I write this, I am aware of so many Black, Indigenous, and Mothers of Color whose hearts have been broken at the deaths of their children under a system of racism and oppression, be that from violence or from neglect of our healthcare and social service systems. At a recent BLM protest, a White individual held a sign that read, 鈥淚 understand that I don鈥檛 understand, but I stand with you.鈥� So what does it mean as a White faculty member in a predominantly White institution to stand with? I start with my whiteness.

Individually and with others in my institution, I grieve and reckon with our place in this cultural moment. As a psychologist and an educator, I am called to lifelong learning. But that is just the starting place for me as White woman. A responsibility that comes with privilege is to speak out and act against the injustices that go back to our founding history in America. This is a process that will continue to unfold and take shape, both personally, in the classroom, and institutionally. Miguel De LaTorre states that 鈥淭here can be no faith, in fact no salvation, without ethical praxis. To participate in ethical praxis is to seek justice鈥� 聽⁷. I will continue learning, and I must also acknowledge the harms of our current systems and actively seek justice(Micah 6:8). Healing will occur in our communities as we take action. As a teacher, this action will include my commitment to continued research and personal learning, inviting voices of color and diversity in my syllabi and reading assignments, and working to make my classes and our institution places of safety and welcome for all students and employees.

It will get messy. It is messy! These are hard conversations to navigate and hold in our body/mind, but they must happen. It is especially difficult that most of these conversations must happen virtually, rather than with others in the same space. We are experiencing layers of collective trauma. We are confronting the brutality of systemic racism in addition to the isolation brought on by COVID-19. Anger, grief, fear, despair, uncertainty鈥攖hese are all appropriate responses to pandemic and racial trauma.

Even though I may not fully understand, I grieve with the BIPOC communities. Our collective grief and action can lead to cultural shifts. We are not victims of our culture, we shape our culture. Text, soul, culture鈥攖his is a crucial part of our mission. I have much to learn, and I and students to stay in these conversations and to continue the work of grief, self-reflection, and action. May this lead to a more loving, just and equitable culture鈥攆or all of us.

鈥淭he role of the teacher is not just to listen, to extend care and compassion, but also to wait in the silence of grief and concern for the notes of humanization to emerge and to amplify those notes so that a student can be reminded that they are, even in times like these, a being becoming, emerging. Even in this moment, even in pandemic and tragedy and fear, we are all nonetheless鈥攁nd in some ways, more so than when comfort and peacefulness abide鈥攊n a process of becoming more human. As we are confronted by the aches and diseases of our culture, we can be reminded that culture is distinctly human, and so part of our common project.鈥� Sean Michael Morris 聽⁸

Links that I have found helpful in learning/praxis/taking action:

• Resmaa Menakem鈥檚
• Claudia Rankine,
• Layla Saad鈥檚 workbook,

References:

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In these spaces of fear, we鈥檙e often less able to access our active practices of filtering our biases and choosing to act differently鈥攍eading to harm, most often of our Black and Brown community members. In the last few weeks in June, we鈥檝e seen anti-Asian assaults in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle and white supremacist propaganda posted in Seattle鈥檚 Chinatown and International District. We鈥檝e watched in horror the high profile lynchings in the form of police and vigilante killings of Black folks in Minnesota, Georgia, Florida, Washington, and undoubtedly more places before this piece is published. We鈥檝e seen the less publicized police killing of Black first responder Breonna Taylor when police broke into her home in Louisville, KY. And we鈥檝e heard reports of the devastatingly disproportionate toll of Covid19 among the Navajo Nation. And undoubtedly, between when this is written and published, there will be more names of people harmed鈥攕ome we will learn and more will never be published because the events aren鈥檛 filmed.

While we鈥檙e stuck at home glued to our digital windows to the world, many of us may become more acutely aware of acts of violence that have been happening all along. Under our current load of fear and stress, these traumas each have their own particular impact, but they also have a cumulative impact on each of us鈥攁nd most of all on those who see your own faces reflected in these particular victims and who live under this every day.

And I am a white man working at 天美视频, where our mission is: 鈥渢o train people to be competent in the study of text, soul, and culture in order to serve God and neighbor through transforming relationships.鈥� In the past months, I鈥檝e sat in Zoom meetings with students, alumni, staff, and faculty of this majority-white聽institution, and I have heard story after story from people of color about the impact of this season of isolation and visible violence, as well as specific experiences of discrimination, violence, silence, and pain.

Racism is a primordial wound on the heart of our culture and it touches us all. It is a sin that cuts in so many directions鈥攙ictims, perpetrators, bystanders, and descendants. And as I seek to understand my role in all this, and my turn of repentance, to love God and my neighbors, I am drawn back into wisdom from the Biblical texts.

In the story of Israel, God set in place cities of refuge鈥攑laces where people could flee from reckless vengeance killings. These towns were also set aside as the homes of the Levites, the priestly clan. The Jewish Talmud offers deeper understanding about the teachings on these places of refuge. Requirements are outlined: these cannot be large cities or small towns, and they must have a water source. If there is no water source, a well or a canal must be dug. The roadways into these cities must be twice the standard width of the highways going in and out of the largest cities. And every intersection leading toward these cities must be clearly marked.

In short, it was never sufficient to name a place as a city of refuge. The lasting work had to be put in, in order for it to be a legitimate place of hospitality for those in danger of violence. As much as I long to call myself a person who is anti-racist, is so much more than that. This language from the Talmud changes the way that I hear the gospel message preached by John: 鈥淧repare the way of the Lord and make straight paths for him.鈥�

And it changes the way that I read Isaiah 40:3-5:

A voice of one calling:
鈥淚n the wilderness prepare
the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.鈥�

Last week, our community prayed this passage alongside . He gives voice to the ache and longing for justice present in this passage and in the Black community. As I listen to his voice I am reminded that there is no good news to the gospel of Jesus if it does not bring loving justice to our world.

In my own life as a white man, and in my work in 天美视频 community, it is not enough to be aware of violence. And it is not enough to name myself an ally. In order to credibly love my neighbors, I must join in the lament of my siblings in pain, and even more, we must together continue to do the mundane and invisible work of creating and maintaining access ways, and sources of life for Black, Brown and Native people in our communities. And as a white man, I must enter my own lament. My own source of life is cut off by racism when I do not engage in this justice work, where I myself am often the worker who joins late in the day.

In my particular work at 天美视频 this looks like grieving and strategizing with students; implementing and revisiting equity strategies as we distribute Covid19 benevolence funds; from the beginning, addressing racial and socioeconomic disparities as we lead workshops on self-care for ongoing trauma; and daily making space in our community rhythms of prayer to hold grief and explore our own work in justice building. It also means showing up in my own community鈥攄emanding justice and accountability for Stonechild Chiefstick, a Native man killed by police who have gone uncharged in my county last year, and for Bennie Branch and Manuel Ellis, both Black men killed by police in nearby Tacoma. And it means listening when my Black neighbor speaks about her fear for her teenager鈥檚 life, and doing work with our local police to ensure that this child is safe in our shared community.

None of these things give me or 天美视频 the right to label ourselves a place of refuge. Instead, they are some of the daily practices we engage relationally and, in so doing, are ourselves being transformed. We have the blessing of not being a monolith. And while we are a majority white learning community, we are also a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and multicultural community that continues to be shaped and led by one another. To be a place of refuge, dialogue, and repair in our society, we must be engaged in this work as a daily spiritual practice, inviting our souls, our economics, our politics, and our relationships to be contoured to the Spirit of God at work in the world.

This past Sunday, Christians celebrated the feast of Pentecost. Humanity has always been in need of God鈥檚 flames uniting us with all people in love and justice. The fires across USAmerica are calling out for love and justice for Black bodies in our nation. I believe that the Spirit needs us to be people whose lives are marked by doing the work that creates justice and peace.

As a school, we can never really be a permanent city of refuge, but we can be a place along the way where people join with God and learn from one another about how to build such places together in our homes and congregations; nonprofits and friend groups; therapy offices and neighborhoods. As a white person, a huge part of my learning is listening and bearing wit(h)ness, and another huge part is consistently acting, speaking, and sharing in this blessed work, especially when society privileges me in such a way that I could choose to simply check out and reap the benefits handed to me because of my white skin.

This is important, holy work. And it is important work to talk about together. As wrong as it is to put up signposts pointing to places that are not actual refuge, it is also crucial to illuminate the pathways where work really is being done. This both opens us up for accountability and brings us into dialogue with those who have much to teach us. There is not a 鈥渞ight鈥� way for white folks to do this work and come out looking good. We must move into it making mistakes and repenting all along the way. Some may experience this as a deterrent, but for those who receive it as the blessing it is, it is a way forward into sharing the weighty blessing of Pentecost.

One of the gifts of working in a place where psychology and theology intersect, is that while therapeutic changes often happen confidentially behind closed doors, the world of communities of faith are rich with public symbols and places to both contain and display communal grief and repair. Here, in the work of racial justice, we need both of these together. We need deep, internal, and interpersonal work. And we need communal and symbolic actions that disrupt oppression and create structure for cultural change.

May we join with the Spirit to create spaces of refuge and repair in our neighborhoods and in our world.

The post Stewarding My Own Whiteness in the Work for Justice appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

As I heard this message, I nodded my head and felt in my heart that Tisby was correct in starting with this story. I agreed that we all create a culture together, and only together can our society change. Those who are White in America, however, have more power and voice and benefit most when nothing changes. Tisby鈥檚 call is for all Americans to and societal structures that are harmful for all of us: White, Brown, Black, other, in-between, out of the norm, first generation, twelfth generation, etc. We as Americans have to do the work in our bodies, as well as our minds, if we are to heal our collective harm, our embodied hurt, and our lingering traumas. I can acknowledge this, yet I still find it difficult to move outside of what Resmaa Menekem has termed, 鈥渨hite-body supremacy.鈥� As he contends in his book, :

Social activism is necessary for changing the world in positive ways. But if our collective body is to fully heal from the trauma of white-body supremacy, we must create cultural shifts as well. White-body supremacy is already a part of American culture鈥攊n the norms we follow, the assumptions we make, the language we speak, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. This is the case no matter the color of our skin. This means we must create new expressions of culture that call out, reject, and undermine white-body supremacy.

This won鈥檛 be quick or easy鈥攂ut there is no other way.

, there is only the long path of reform, restructuring, and relearning our systems of being the United States of American. For this to happen, however, we have to feel the shift and change in our bones. New laws may be written and enacted, but until the hearts, minds, and bodies of Americans feel that all humans are truly created equal, we will remain ensnared in white-body supremacy.

If this claim about the necessity of bodily feeling and bodily healing is true, then the classrooms of predominately White institutions (PRI), such as 天美视频, present a challenge. Our students of color have always been attuned to the daily reality of white-body supremacy, but since the deaths of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and Michael Brown in 2014, our students of color have become even more hyper-attuned to the news and the realities of living in a non-white body in the United States. As a White professor, my body has not caught up to the level of anxiety and terror that our students feel on a daily basis, but I can create spaces of safety and agency. I can research and read more theologians of color. I can make my reading lists and lectures more diverse and multifaceted. As Jennifer Harvey, author of , said in a recent Wabash webinar, 鈥淏rown and Black Students Matter!,鈥� not only do White professors have an obligation to challenge the status quo around race in America, but we are guilty of 鈥減edagogical negligence鈥� if we do not work to change the dynamics in our classrooms and on our campuses.

If this kind of change is to happen, then I have to acknowledge my own lack of bodily attunement to the terror in my own body. If I am to love and teach well, then I have to learn to love my story and my body more, with brutal honesty. Also, until I can own my own White fragility and desire to be 鈥渨oke鈥� (which is a word I think no White person should claim), I have to stop and apologize to my students for not having the capacity to know viscerally their daily reality. I understand now that this apology is not just to our students of color but to all of our students. To re-create a more equitable society, .

An equitable classroom requires more mutuality and agency for every student so that we can work together to teach rather than indoctrinate, to grow our minds together rather than to mimic or repeat what was given to us. With this in mind, I will commit to decentering the white-body supremacy of the theologies in which I have been educated and formed. For this to happen, I need to do as much work on my whiteness as I do to create more diverse syllabi and classroom experiences. I believe our theology will be more robust and life-giving because of this work. Our call is not into self-hate but into a redeeming and liberating love. This is why our school鈥檚 mission is to train students toward and for the sake of loving God, neighbor, and self. I commit myself once more to this task.

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