Category: Race

Let’s Talk

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jyarlandBy Jyarland Daniels, CEO/Founder of Harriet Speaks: Strategies and Communications for Racial Equity, an open letter to Bookies co-owner Marko Jerant, originally posted at Michigan Chronicle:

When I first heard there had been a shooting of yet another unarmed Black man, this time in Tulsa, Oklahoma I did something that I normally don’t do: I watched the video being shared in my Facebook newsfeed. Nothing prepared me for what I saw; a stranded motorist, walking slowly away from an officer and toward his car, with his hands up was in an instant hit with a taser and then fatally shot. His body fell to the ground where he was left unattended, receiving no immediate medical attention. His blood spilled to the ground while police arranged to divert traffic and a voice in a helicopter above, only able to see the fallen man’s blackness, proclaimed this father of four, “…looks like a bad dude” and “might be on something.” Continue reading “Let’s Talk” →

Something Much Greater At Stake

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire51 Comments

michelle-alexanderAn announcement from Michelle Alexander on social media (September 16, 2016):

I am taking a long break from social media, but tonight I want to thank the Heinz Foundation which offered me today a large monetary award (along with several amazing individuals). See https://medium.com/…/announcing-the-21st-heinz-awards-honor….

Continue reading “Something Much Greater At Stake” →

It Simply Becomes “Force”

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CoatesFrom Ta-Nehisi Coates (see full article from The Atlantic here):

To understand the lack of police legitimacy in black communities, consider the contempt in which most white Americans hold O.J. Simpson. Consider their feelings toward the judge and jury in the case. And then consider that this is approximately how black people have felt every few months for generations. It’s not just that the belief that Officer Timothy Loehmann got away with murdering a 12-year-old Tamir Rice, it is the reality that police officers have been getting away with murdering black people since the advent of American policing. The injustice compounds, congeals until there is an almost tangible sense of dread and grievance that compels a community to understand the police as objects of fear, not respect. Continue reading “It Simply Becomes “Force”” →

Bearing The Brunt of Climate Change

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
The John Amos coal-fired power plant is seen behind a home in Poca
The John Amos coal-fired power plant is seen behind a home in Poca, West Virginia on May 18, 2014. Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

By Leah Wiste & Bob Chapman, Michigan Interfaith Power & Light

This July, the African Methodist Episcopal Church—the oldest Protestant denomination founded by African Americans—became the latest religious body to pass a resolution on climate change.   

Many religious groups have issued statements about the urgency of environmental stewardship in an age of global warming and the need for action on behalf of those who suffer most: the world’s poor—the “least of these” in the language of Christian scriptures. Continue reading “Bearing The Brunt of Climate Change” →

To Connect Our Children to Black Faith

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, RaceLeave a comment

Kelly Brown DouglasFrom Kelly Brown Douglas in Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (2015):

To connect our black daughters and sons to the faith of their enslaved forebears is, therefore, to provide them with a faith that fosters self-definition and self-determination. It is to let them know they are created in the image of a God that is free from anything human beings can conceive or construct; thus, they too are meant to be free. Put simply, to connect our children to the black faith tradition is to give them the tools to know that “what white people say about [them]…what they do and cause [them] to endure, does not testify to [their] inferiority but to [white people’s] inhumanity and fear” (James Baldwin). To connect our children to black faith, therefore, is to provide them with a firm foundation on which to stand in the midst of the absurdities of black life without being overcome by them.

During one of her many speeches in her fight for black freedom, nineteenth-century black female activist Maria Stewart said this to her black audience, “Many think, because your skins are tinged with a sable hue, that you are an inferior race of beings; but God does not consider you as such. He hath formed and fashioned you in his own glorious image, and hath bestowed upon you reason and strong powers of intellect.” Maria Stewart clearly understood that if oppressed people are going to withstand the assaults against their lives and well-being then they must be equipped with the knowledge of their sacred humanity. This is why poet and essayist Audre Lorde says, “The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations we week to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is implanted deep within each of us.”

 

The Ferguson Declaration: A Black Lives Matter Creed

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

BlmFrom Rodney Thomas, Pierre Keys, and Friends–originally posted at The Christian Century: 

We, the heirs of Black Churches and their traditions, in the Spirit of the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Early Church

1.1 We believe in God Our Creator and the Father, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the Source and Fountain of Love (1st John 4: 8) who loves all people from every tribe and nation and who is the same God who appoints seasons of justice and peacemaking (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). Continue reading “The Ferguson Declaration: A Black Lives Matter Creed” →

Willful Blindness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

FlintFrom economist and Wayne State University Law School professor Peter J. Hammer who recently submitted written testimony to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission as part of their hearings on the Flint Water Crisis titled, “The Flint Water Crisis, KWA and Strategic-Structural Racism.” Click here to download the report:

The problem is the often willful blindness of people in positions of privilege and authority (Knowledge-&-Power) to the needs, perspectives and interests of others, particularly when the “other” is from a community that differs from their own in terms of race or class or ethnicity. The problem is that the information and beliefs held by people in authority often reinforce that blindness and permit the unquestioned projection of policies and programs on others, even when it is clear that those policies are inappropriate or have harmful consequences. The problem is that vulnerable populations are often subject to exploitation that strategically manipulates the very vulnerability created by express racism, structural racism and unconscious bias, and yet this exploitation finds ready shelter in the very forces it exploits.

The Need For Whiteness to be Protected

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire4 Comments

Nick PA series of social media posts from Rev. Nick Peterson:

Last night me and a friend were talking inside the Chick fil A when they closed. We continued our conversation outside and after a while 3 male employees came out to tell us that we were not allowed to be in the parking lot after 10:30 pm. We did not know what time it was or that it was already past 10:30. We spent another few minutes wrapping up our conversation. In the intervening time the employees called the police on us. We of course did not know this when we pulled off and one of the young men who initially came to us bid us a good night as we were pulling out of the parking lot.

As we were waiting at the light, two police vehicles pulled in, drove past my white friend in his truck in front of me and when they locked eyes on me pulled a U turn and put there flashers on. My friend was able to make the right turn on Lincoln highway without any officer following him. He proceeded to park across the street and witness both officers round my car for the next 10 minutes. Continue reading “The Need For Whiteness to be Protected” →

A Prophetic Week at Proctor

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses, Race1 Comment

By Tommy Airey

Michael Brandon McCormick
Photo: Ct Carmello

I brought you my son because there is a spirit trying to kill him and whenever it seizes him…whenever it grasps him, whenever it grabs him, whenever it accosts him, whenever it subjects him to force without his consent. Let me try it this way: whenever it arrests him! We’re dealing with folks who know what it means to deal with search and seizure. We are people who have been subject to seizure: seized from Africa, seized and thrown into the belly of slave ships. We’ve had our bodies seized, our language seized, our culture seized, our history seized, our resources seized, our economy seized, our possibilities seized, our hope seized, our dreams seized.
Dr. Michael Brandon McCormack (photo above), on Mark 9:14-29 (the episode of the young man seized by a demon)

Measured by its very spirit and structure, the every-four-year American political party national convention is nothing but an intoxicating religious revival meeting, a well-choreographed (mega)church service. Last week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland highlighted the privilege-blind, fear-based, power-hungry religion of (mostly) white American elites and their Southern and suburban foot soldiers. Imperial chants of “Blue Lives Matter,” “Make America Safe/Great Again,” “Build The Wall” and “Lock Her Up” liturgically scripted delegates into worship. Continue reading “A Prophetic Week at Proctor” →