White Supremacy: The Air We Breathe

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An alley just off 23rd & Butternut in Detroit.
An alley just off 23rd & Butternut in Detroit.

By Tommy Airey
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The Confederacy is a southern thing, but white supremacy is not.
Bree Newsome

Economist Paul Krugman came out with a piece last week in The New York Times lambasting the South for its ongoing racist drama, while proclaiming “we really have become much less racist, and in general a much more tolerant society on many fronts.”

He scaffolded his arguments with two key economic studies: one that studied the massive white working class exodus away from the Democratic Party in the 70s and 80s (the Southern Strategy) and another that pegged the downsizing of the U.S. welfare state to racial discrimination. Krugman argues that, unfortunately, these forces are still very powerful in the U.S., beckoning readers to take a quick glance at the states that have denied Medicaid expansion to its residents. Surprise, surprise: almost of them are in the South.
Continue reading “White Supremacy: The Air We Breathe” →

Learning from Laughter: Speaking Truth to Innocence

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

lydia die inBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. First published on Geez’s blog.

The sun hits my face hard as I listen to the water from the fountain. As I look up and around, I am aware how little this downtown resembles the city I know anymore. The faces are all young and white (not unlike my own) playing beach ball, listening to live bands, sipping mid-day cocktails, and eating from food trucks. I look down at the 25 black bodies lying on the cement draped with signs and names of those killed at the hands of the police. On my lap sits the one-and-a-half year old who is my constant companion and teacher these days. He watches intently holding an air of seriousness in his body. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Speaking Truth to Innocence” →

To Take Up The Ancient Lesson

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

popeFrom Pope Francis’ recent earth-loving encyclical:

Christian spirituality proposes an alternative understanding of the quality of life, and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of the obsession with consumption.  We need to take up an ancient lesson, found in different religious traditions and also in the Bible.  It is the conviction that ‘less is more’…Our goal is not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.

Dear White People

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

melanieBy Melanie Morrison, Executive Director, Allies for Change

DEAR WHITE PEOPLE: Difficult as it may be, you and I MUST listen to and grapple with the words that Dylann Roof spoke as he began shooting the people who warmly, graciously welcomed him into that Bible study circle at Emmanuel AME Church: “You are raping our women and taking over the country. You have to go.” Those words are a mirror for us as a people – as white people. Those words are not only the isolated rantings of a tormented soul. We can’t simply scratch our heads and wonder how someone could be so hate-filled. We can’t only conclude that we need stricter gun control. We don’t need to interview his family and friends to understand where those words came from. The words Dylann Roof spoke are quite literally the white narrative that has undergirded and sustained systemic racism for centuries. That narrative continues unabated. Those words represent the fears and stereotypes that undergird present day racial profiling, state sanctioned violence, and mass incarceration. Those words feed anti-immigrant hysteria. Those words ring out in the chant, “Give us our country back.” Dylann Roof’s words are a mirror we must face as a people — as white people — if we are going to do the deep work required of us. None of us is exempt from this work. You and I and all of us must do this.

60 Years Later: Roberto Clemente’s Rookie Season

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses2 Comments

ClementeAnytime you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on earth.
Roberto Clemente (1934-1972)

It was six decades ago that Roberto Clemente–black and Puerto Rican–made his major league baseball debut. Throughout his career, he endured discrimination and hatred based on his skin color, ethnicity and nationality. It was so bad that, in 1960, Clemente led the Pirates to the World Series title and the MVP was given to Bobby Richardson, a white player from the losing Yankees.

After the ’72 season, a vicious earthquake devastated Managua, Nicaragua. Clemente immediately began organizing relief efforts, sending plane loads of basic necessities. When he discovered these goods were being diverted by the corrupt Somoza government, he chartered a jet and joined the mission. It plunged into the ocean almost immediately after takeover on New Year’s Eve.

WHAT IS EVANGELISM? STRANGER AT HOME, AT HOME AMONG STRANGERS

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological AnimationLeave a comment

LessonsBy Ched Myers, the 6th Sunday of Pentecost (Mk 6:1-13) 

Note: This is an ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B, 2015.

At this point in Mark’s narrative we are given some background on each of the three major “protagonists” of this story: Jesus (6:1-6), the disciples (7-13) and John the Baptist (14-29, the gospel for 7 Pentecost). These three episodes each concern “rejected prophets,” which opens up a central theme of the second half of the gospel: the cost of discipleship.

This narrative sequence begins with Jesus’ return “to his own country” (6:1). For a third time, he teaches in a synagogue on the Sabbath (see 1:21ff; 3:1ff), and for a third time he encounters opposition. But this time it is not from the authorities, but from his neighbors and kinfolk. They are suspicious of this local boy’s notoriety, objecting that he has no distinguished lineage (6:3). Because of the domesticating constraints of nationality, kinship and household expectations (6:4), the “prophet without honor” is unable to effect change in his hometown, and returns to his itinerant mission (6:5f).
Continue reading “WHAT IS EVANGELISM? STRANGER AT HOME, AT HOME AMONG STRANGERS” →

The Good News on Masculinity: There is Another Way

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

jim harbaughIn patriarchal culture males are not allowed simply to be who they are and to glory in their unique identity. Their value is always determined by what they do. In an anti-patriarchal culture males do not have to prove their value and worth. They know from birth that simply being gives them value, the right to be cherished and loved.
bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2004)
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Lydia Wylie-Kellermann and Tommy Airey, co-editors of RadicalDiscipleship.Net & “backdoor neighbors” in Detroit, are both white and both come up solid INFJs on the Myers-Briggs personality test. When it comes to the Enneagram, Lydia is a 2 with a 3 wing. Tommy is a 3 with a 2 wing. But the similarities may end there. Lydia grew up in Detroit, is in a traditional same-sex marriage, the mother of a 2-year-old, a disciple of the Harry Potter series, an avid gardener and knitter. Tommy grew up in suburban Southern California, is scandalously married to a former student, an avid distance runner and starts every morning sipping on home-roasted coffee, journaling and reading the sports page and academic theology. Below is the transcript of an eDialogue we recently had on the current state of North American masculinity.
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TA: I’m not sure if you are familiar with Jim Harbaugh (photo above: in a recent game of shirts and skins). He might be the most popular white guy in Michigan right now. The University of Michigan recently signed him to a $7 million per year contract to be their football coach. He’s coaching football clinics all over North America to try to recruit the best players to play in your native Michigan. I came across this quote last week: Continue reading “The Good News on Masculinity: There is Another Way” →