Tag: Dante Stewart

A Healthy Relationship With Anger

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Lindsay Lamont-Airey, LMFT (above), some initial musings on how people malformed by white culture can start to get free from our repressive relationship with anger (reflecting on a series of slides below, posted by Rev. Dante Stewart on IG)

Whiteness trains us to be emotionally controlled and repressed. Not whole and free. Do not let the spiritual bypassers shame you for anger at injustice. They are legion, and they dominate the spiritual/cultural/therapeutic waters. It is a reflection of a white western therapeutic culture that has focused far more on what to do with anxiety (the response one has to violation and threats to safety) than on what to do with abuse of power (what causes violation and threat to safety in the first place).

As a trained therapist, I can tell you: anger is a primary adaptable response to active violation – of the self, and also when witnessing violation being actively committed against others. If you struggle to feel, express and metabolize it freely, and in a way that assists you in acting meaningfully in response to violation (I.e.. holding violators accountable vs. shrinking, collapsing, staying silent), then please know you are not alone. It takes a lot of healing and liberating work to get free from the forces of domination that have shaped us, early and often, in the belly of this beast of U.S. empire.

Continue reading “A Healthy Relationship With Anger” →

Power, Accountability and Brett Favre

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race1 Comment

By Danté Stewart, re-posted from The Atlantic Magazine

I played Division I football as a cornerback at Clemson University. The players provide America with many things. We give fans memories and celebrations, we give them a time to escape the problems of America, and we give our audiences and white teammates the illusion that we are equal on and off the field.

“I know from being in an NFL locker room for 20 years, regardless of race, background, money you grew up with, we were all brothers; it didn’t matter,” the Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre once told a reporter at USA Today.

But although Favre may be happy to declare his kinship with Black people, I’ve never heard him mention the injustices we face daily. Rather, he has publicly criticized Black athletes for kneeling in protest during the national anthem. He said the athletes’ demonstration “created more turmoil than good.” Recently, we learned that he has been accused of misusing funds intended to help the poorest residents of his native state, who are disproportionately Black. Read the rest of the article here.