This is the beginning of my work in community with those who will gather here to clarify our learning, check our assumptions and prejudices, and un-learn what needs to be challenged. My prayer is that our blinders will be removed, and we will be led to right actions as we learn how to be allies in the work of racial justice, and specifically the Black Lives Matter movement.
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| The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas |
The first book I have proposed that we read together is Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God by the Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas. I have read and marked up the prologue, introduction, and first two chapters so far.I will keep posting as I continue to read, and I truly and humbly invite your comments. I will comment after writing the summaries of the chapters. I will create new posts as I progress, so the labels will be important for finding your place in the conversation as we go along. All will be labeled "Race Issues" and then "SYG" followed by the chapter, although this one is labeled "SYG Intro." I hope that will help with navigation. I have added a search bar under my photo to assist us.
If you are reading ahead of me and would like to create the post for a chapter, please feel free. My email is AmyPHaynie at gmail dot com - I would love for this to be a group effort. I will also monitor and delete any comments that are uncivil, just in case anyone tries to derail our conversation.
In another post below, I have linked to a news interview with Dr. Douglas concerning the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, MD. In the interview, she calls for a national conversation. I do not imagine this as the national conversation she envisions, but I do hope we can advance our own knowledge with shared experiences and conversation.
Dr. Douglas uses the prologue and introduction to orient us to her social relationship to the Stand Your Ground laws. As the mom of a black young man, as a professor of religion at Goucher College well-versed in racial history, and as a black woman in US society, she asks "Why is it becoming increasingly acceptable to kill unarmed black children...Why are they so easily perceived as a threat?" (pg ix).
In the introduction, Dr Douglas states that "this book will explore the socio-cultural narratives that have given birth to our stand-your-ground culture and the religious canopies that have legitimized it. This stand-your-ground culture has produced and sustained slavery, Black Codes, Jim Crow, lynchings, and other forms of racialized violence against black bodies" (pg xiii).
In the comments of this section, I invite us to introduce ourselves and explore why we are interested in this work at this time. What do you hope for or want from this conversation? I hope we will be able to keep this space safe by checking our own white fragility and using "I" language as we do this important work.
I am a 47 year old white woman who has lived my entire life in Texas. I am married to a white male, and have two white, male sons (ages 21 & 17). As I have watched news story after news story of black teens and young adults who have been killed for activities that my own sons could have been doing, I have been been convinced that the system is broken. In starting to read books that educate me on racial issues, I have been convinced that the entire system was created from the beginning to be prejudiced against people of color, and specifically hostile to black people. I first read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and the read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nahisi Coates. That is the paltry sum total of my racial issues education. I continue this work fearful of stumbling awkwardly, but ready to ask forgiveness in my stumblings and ignorance.
ReplyDeleteI just want you to know I am here..... I'll come back with a statement about what I want to get out of this.... I grew up in a community which had NO diversity and have just been listening and listening more lately....
ReplyDeleteWelcome Diane. I would also love to hear if you have experienced any difference is racial issues between Minnesota and Texas?
DeleteI am a 39 year-old white woman who also has lived mostly in Texas, specifically the DFW area. Whitebread America doesn't even begin to cover my experience with diversity as a youth, child and young adult. I didn't even know anyone Catholic until I was in junior high. There were 3 black people in my high school, so more of a novelty instead of a true experience. I went to an all-white church in a small town that had ONE black family because it was also the local headquarters of the KKK. I went to college at TCU, and had some interactions with people of different colors and religion there and a minister who challenged all my insights to life.
ReplyDeleteI am raising 3 children, ages 7, 5, and 4 whom are also white. We have people in our circle who are varying colors and have opened discussions about prejudice and skin color so that they know it's on the table for discussion. They are deeply shocked and saddened when they hear that some people would not like their friends just because of skin color. And that's without even touching yet on how people might treat our next-door neighbors who are Muslim. I deeply believe in a God that calls us to radical acceptance and love while still acknowledging I fall far short of that mark. I have felt helpless in this streak of violence but want to DO but have not known where to start. This feels like a good, safe place to get called on my stuff, dig deeper into awareness and find a path to fight the racial inequalities I see in our culture.
Welcome Courtney - I'm so glad you are here. I miss seeing you and those precious children of yours. Teaching my own children better is another motivation for me also. I want to be able to guide my young adults well. I very naively thought a lot of the racial issues were solved in the 60's about the time I was born. It is sobering to see how wrong I was about that and how the gains from the late 60's are moving backwards. I want a better civilization for all of our children.
DeleteMelody here... 54 year old (could pass for 36), caucasian woman, married to caucasian male, no kids. Life long Texan, live in Plano and Fredericksburg Texas. Episcopalian. Grew up in segregated Odessa Texas, (home of the book "Friday Night Lights", which was written after segregation, and after I graduated). Educated in public schools, college and graduate school at private universities. Technology worker, so many colleagues over the years from Asia and the subcontinent (India). Grew up with many Mexican Americans (as they were called back then), but no blacks.
ReplyDeleteAs an interesting note, I took my husband's sir name when I married , which is a popular Korean name (although he is not Korean), and only then realized the extent of racism in the USA.
I hope to gain some practical pointers of how to live out God's way when dealing with racism, and examine my own heart to eradicate any racism that may be lurking there.
Welcome Melody - I always forget that we have the Odessa connection also - and cello. I went to Odessa High School though and then Archer City, so no Friday Night Lights connections. That is interesting about your last name stirring racism from those who make assumptions. I wonder if you have also experienced being "other" as a female in the tech world? I know I have in the clerical world - not a lot but enough to recognize it. by the way, your comment published twice identically, so I deleted one for clarity.
DeleteYes much much "other" as female in high tech, and just last Friday was counciling a younger female clergy who experienced "other" as well. In many regards and in some professions it's still a man's world as they say.
ReplyDeleteI am in. Former teacher and administrator with inner city schools. Many friends of all ethnicities...Fairly new Episcopalian...Would love to see us understand each other and truly embrace diversity. I see racism everywhere.
ReplyDeleteWhat are a few examples of racism that you see?
DeleteWelcome Terry. One of my black Presbyterian colleagues has pointed out that a helpful first exercise would be for us to name our own racism first. I am challenged by that but certainly willing to do that examination.
DeleteI do have a problems with intolerant people....so much so that I can be intolerant. I will keep reading:)
DeleteI've always heard that whatever it is that drives us the craziest is something we recognize that we need to work on in ourselves :)
DeleteI was immediately struck by Cruz's speech last night when he said "He protected the very protesters who mocked him because he loved his country, and his fellow man."(speaking about one of the officers shot in Dallas two weeks ago) From most reports, the police were not being mocked. I ate lunch with a few co-workers earlier in the week and the conversation turned (somehow?) to the idea that black folks who left the south years ago, returned because they were treated better by southern farmers and ranchers and could not make it on their own in the north. I see it as developers negotiate with Black and Hispanic folks about buying out their neighborhoods...I see it in veiled comments about taking America back to the 50's. I see it in our history...right up to today in the way cities are organized, schools operate, and the way Christians push zero tolerance and law and order above compassion and empathy. Unfortunately, I see it in bumper stickers, social media, and casual conversations. :(
ReplyDeleteGrateful to be here. I'm a white native Texan, and I grew up with great privilege in Houston: excellent schools, family support, college provided to me. I now live in a college town north of Dallas. I worked in international education for many years, and I felt that I had an idea about diversity: but now I see that I did not comprehend. I thought civil rights was "all taken care of" in the 60's. I am mortally afraid of offending, but I am determined to listen and ask questions and learn. I am willing to be wrong and to be corrected.
ReplyDeleteMy mostly silent (through fear) support of Black Lives Matter is not helping, not changing anything. There is so much misinformation out there about the movement; I hear it every day and in my own family.
Welcome Mary Beth!!
DeleteHello everyone. I'm ClayOla, a 59-year-old white woman who is divorced. I have three grown daugthers, a daughter-in-law and 2 sons-in-law, and 3 grandsons (and one on the way). I live in San Diego CA, recently moved from Texas, and am about to move back to Texas, and grew up in various states due to my father's work in NASA. I was a social worker before being an Episcopal priest, and that included a lot of education about racial discrimination and American society. I first read books like "Black Like Me" and "Blaming the Victim" and lots of Michael Harrington and The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. back in the late 70's and the 80's. While I have seen my own racism for a long time, I also know that I am racist in many ways that I have never noticed. More, I want to know what to do about unjust systems that support racism, and from which I benefit, even at those times when I am not actively living out my racism individually. I hope this will be safe space for that. I want to help society change so that people who are my grandsons' ages can grow up in a different, better world.
ReplyDeleteWelcome ClayOla - and I sooooo hope you are back in Texas soon!
DeleteI started reading this book this weekend, so I might as well throw my 'personal ad' out here. I'm a divorced white female with a college age step-daughter. I'm a lifelong resident of the Texas south plains, as well as a new Episcopalian.
ReplyDeleteI also work in law enforcement and the court system as director of a small rural adult probation department. I see a lot of institutional racism built into the system as well as personal racism that has increased exponentially in the past eight years. It's always been here, but it was treated as something to be expressed out behind the bar and not in polite company.
Not anymore. Now it's front and center.
I know I'm a beneficiary of white privilege. I need to recognize that privilege and work to change it.
Welcome Rach!! I'm so glad to have your law enforcement voice in this conversation.
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