Race and Ethnicity

From the Archives: Preserving the Complete History: Remembering Japanese Internment Camps

This was originally posted on May 28, 2017

A couple of months ago I did a day trip to visit the historical site of one of the 10 internment camps which were formed due to Executive Order 9066 issued on February 19, 1942. Manzanar Relocation Camp is located between the Sierra Nevadas and the Owens Valley. Manzanar held over 11,070 Japanese Americans from 1942–1945. EO 9066 forced 120,000 American citizens to leave everything and become in all accounts prisoners; two-thirds of those were native-born American citizens. This executive order largely focused on people living on the West Coast of the United States to eliminate the possible threat of a secondary attack. They were relocated far inland and the majority of the camps were outside of the West Coast. While this was done in the 1940s, our current climate is looming to make it seem like there are forces in this world that are attempting to perform different forms of subjugation and confinement.

Manzanar, in the middle of nowhere California (and I mean nowhere—it takes over three hours to drive the more than 230 miles from Los Angeles and it is not directly accessible from Central California), is divided by the great Sierra Nevadas. This is one of the things that struck me when I arrived at Manzanar—the stark beauty and ruggedness of the mountains, the immense flat lines of the valley, and the complete isolation. Due to being so close to the Nevadas and the desert valley conditions, the weather can be extreme. Many of the detainees documented the harshness of the weather conditions, from the high winds to the stark cold at night, and the barely adequate buildings to shelter them from it.

From the Archives: Does the Term “Women of Color” Bother You? By Grace Yia-Hei Kao

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that they tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted August 11, 2015. You can visit it here to see the original comments.

I recently came back from a weeklong camping retreat for Christian faculty and their families in beautiful Catalina (an island an hour’s boat ride away from the Southern Californian mainland). This year’s conference theme was “Power Revealed: Gifts, Dangers, and Possibilities.” Not surprisingly, the topics of race, race relations, and institutional racism came-up repeatedly in sessions and informal conversations.

Diversifying Marvel and the Monolith of Superheroes by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

It’s been some time since I penned a FAR post. Much has changed and much has stayed the same. I have since moved to a different part of the United States and have started a new teaching position at a large university. Yet, I am still a scholar who seeks out the connection between feminism, gender representation, religion, and popular culture. Which brings me to this new post.

We Are Not Oppressed Because We Remember by Chasity Jones

Many questions are asked of us as a community, but the answers which are so complex that we should be commended for even attempting to answer, are heard- if they are not interrupted- but rarely understood. As a Black mother and wife, I have accepted the fact that no one will understand my struggle outside of other Black mothers and wives. After being asked questions about how my community relates to slavery, I am convinced that no one outside of my Black American community will ever understand how slavery has impacted our lives, identities, family structures, trauma, and deaths. Furthermore, it has yet to be understood how the past of slavery continues to impact these areas as a people.

Firstly, although slavery has left an immense imprint on our racial memory, the Black community is not stuck in slavery simply because we bring it up. It is brought up because it is a part of our story and we should not be made to feel ashamed of it. Just because you are tired of hearing about it or uncomfortable does not mean that Black Americans should be made to feel as though should avoid speaking of our history. Some many pro-Black groups and movements emphasize and celebrate the achievements of Black Americans before, during, after, and despite slavery. However, these movements threaten the dominant culture, and much of their achievements are ignored or perceived as threats and terrorism. It is hard to educate ourselves and our children about our ancestor pre-enslavement because our legacy, history, sacred knowledge, and culture were destroyed and our memories were erased and replaced with the bible and colonialist interpretations of scripture. Many of these scriptures are interpreted to justify slavery and are still used to justify police brutality, mass incarceration, and psychological warfare on Black Americans. Nevertheless, we do what we can to celebrate ourselves and our heritage. In doing so, we cannot ever forget slavery.

Blinded by the White by Marcia Mount Shoop

White supremacy culture is on full display day in and day out in America. You don’t have to strain to see it—the President’s recent comparison of the impeachment proceedings to a lynching is the latest example.

Of course, even such an extreme example is still defended by white people of all shapes and sizes: senators, voters, talking heads, and the offender himself. The grotesquery of such a distorted perspective is emblematic of a sickness in our country to be sure.

But there are even more sinister forms of white supremacy that afflict our collective lives. They are harder for many white people to see. And they are, therefore, harder for us to believe. This kind of whiteness is the whiteness that blinds us. This is the whiteness that creates the conditions for the extremes to be mistaken for the whole problem. But more importantly, this is the kind of whiteness that creates the conditions for whiteness to be even more tenacious in some dangerous and annihilating ways.

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Greenness, Whiteness, Blackness, and the Nature of the World by Marisa Goudy

There’s magic in hiking alone, but as women, we’ve been taught to worry about venturing far on our own. In fact, we’ve been taught to worry about a lot more than that.

Though once I merely shrugged off the warnings and the horror stories, confident that I was wrapped in some sort of “not me” protective veil, I don’t usually take my safety for granted anymore. Maybe it’s because I’ve outgrown the belief that I’m invincible. Maybe it’s because I’m a mother and have a different understanding of the fragility of life and the female body. Maybe it’s because that murderer on the Appalachian Trail went by the nickname “Sovereign,” appropriating the powerful, beautiful word that is so essential to my life’s work.

This particular day, however, my desire to be outside was more compelling than my new bend toward caution. I called my husband to tell him just where I’d be, joking that he needed to know where to look for me if I didn’t pick up the girls from camp on time.

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“Go Back to your Country!” OK. But … I’m From San Francisco! by Karen Leslie Hernandez

On December 15, 2018, at 10:22PM, I received a call and a voicemail from someone I didn’t know. The charming message left for me? “Hello, Karen. You fat, disgusting slob. Go back to your country. I hope your new year’s is great. You fat, disgusting slob. Goodbye.”

What to say?

With just the right amount of racism, misogyny and stereotyping, at first, I was scared. I remember sitting in my apartment, with the lights off thinking that no one should see I was at home – wondering who this person is? Was he close? Did he live in San Francisco? How does he know my name? How did he get my number? Does he know where I live? It completely freaked me out. I listened to the voicemail several times, wondering if I knew this person – perhaps he was someone I angered because I didn’t want to date him – I had no idea.

In the coming days, after a conversation with Verizon and a friend who works with AT&T, I got the caller’s name and some other pertinent information. An 18 year-old kid named Dominic, from Ohio, was the culprit, and after a bit of sleuthing on Facebook, I contacted Dominic’s dad. I left a voicemail at his dad’s work, sent his dad an email with a copy of the voicemail, and I called the Youngstown police – and I never heard back from anyone.

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Coming to Terms with Privilege: A Personal Reflection by Elise M. Edwards

In my two previous posts, I shared my recent experience talking about privilege at a church near me. Today, I will wrap up this short series with a more personal reflection about privilege from a Christian perspective. Last month, I was thinking theologically about what those of us who have privilege should do with it. But, as feminists and womanists, acknowledging our privilege can be complicated. Most of us in this FAR community do possess some forms of privilege while, at the same time, we lack other forms of privilege. Each of us remains the same person wherever we go, yet our status can change when we switch contexts. As a black woman, I do not have white privilege or male privilege. But I am privileged when it comes to education and class and physical ability. I am a Christian who works at a Christian university in a part of Texas that is culturally predominantly Christian. So that’s a form of privilege. Although as a single woman without children, I don’t fit the cultural norm where I live, my sexual orientation and cis-gendered identity afford me some privilege, too.

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What Can We Do to Weaken Privilege? by Elise M. Edwards

In my previous post, I talked about discussing the concept of privilege (male privilege, white privilege, and class privilege) with nuance. Earlier that week, I had led a workshop at a local church on “Fine-tuning Privilege,” using Peggy McIntosh’s 1989 essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” as a resource. (If you are unfamiliar with it, take a few minutes to read it and reflect upon it.) Part of my talk was about naming and understanding privilege. Discussion and comprehension are not enough, though. We must counter it.

One strategy for fighting privilege is making it visible. The recipients of privilege are often unaware that they have to systemic advantage over others. Privilege, used in the context of racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and religious dominance, is not something earned on merit alone. In the essay linked above, McIntosh describes it like this: “I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was meant to remain oblivious.” These are conditions built into our culture that some groups receive which benefit them to the detriment of others. Making privilege visible means naming it and calling it out. Wage gaps, digital divides, and racial profiling practices exist; ignoring them perpetrates the problems.

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Talking about Privilege with Nuance by Elise M. Edwards

Yesterday evening, I led a seminar at a local church as part of their series on “Unpacking Privilege.” Once before, I’d been invited to this church, Lake Shore Baptist Church, to speak about intersectional feminism with one of my colleagues, so I expected them to be open-minded and welcoming. They were. Although the attendees were overwhelmingly white and older than me, they were attentive and engaged. We had an enriching time together diving into topics like male privilege, white privilege, and class privilege with Peggy McIntosh’s 1989 essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” as a resource. (If you are unfamiliar with it, I recommend taking a few minutes to read it and reflect.)

In the essay, McIntosh writes about becoming critical of male privilege and men’s obliviousness to it through her work in Women’s Studies, which then led her to see her own race privilege (as a white woman) and her obliviousness to it. The essay does not offer a precise definition of white privilege, but the entire piece is a reflection about it. She explains:

“I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.”

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I Am Her by Karen Leslie Hernandez

I hear this a lot: “You’re Mexican? You don’t look it?” A friend I have had for over 40 years always says, “I don’t think of you that way.” I am never quite sure how to respond to these opinions. So, here, I muse.

My grandparents on my Dad’s side came over from Mexico in the early 1900’s. My grandfather, Juvenal, was a farmer and rancher for most of his life. Blond haired and blue eyed, his twinkle and staunch demeanor always made me wonder about his story. Unfortunately, I never met my maternal grandmother, Sofia, as she died when my father was 12 years old.

On my mom’s side, my great, great grandparents (Leonardo Romero) came over from Mexico in the 1800’s and helped to settle Tucson. The Romero family has spread far and wide throughout the West, but you can still go to the Romero House in Tucson, where they have art classes and have kept it has a historical landmark.

I am incredibly proud of my heritage – as light skinned and green eyed as I am, I consider myself Mexican American, and I proudly state that. Funny thing is, so many are uncomfortable with it. And, I wonder why.

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The Hate U Give by Esther Nelson

These days I live in a perpetual state of simmering outrage given the popular support of the “goings on” and happenings within our current administration. The lies, the deceit, the xenophobia, the racism, the misogyny, the homophobia, the anti-intellectualism—things that have been around a good long time, but now seem to have settled in comfortably with those who have the power to keep it all in place. I’m discouraged.

But then, there’s this:

The Hate U Give, a YA (Young Adult) novel authored by Angie Thomas, spent 50 weeks at the top of the New York Times bestseller list after its publication in February 2017. The book has received numerous awards and also has enjoyed an immense popularity. It has also generated considerable controversy.

The following is the author’s profile from Amazon’s website: “Angie Thomas was born, raised, and still resides in Jackson, Mississippi as indicated by her accent. She is a former teen rapper whose greatest accomplishment was an article about her in Right-On Magazine with a picture included. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Belhaven University and an unofficial degree in Hip Hop. She is an inaugural winner of the Walter Dean Myers Grant 2015, awarded by We Need Diverse Books.”

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On Not Eating Gefilte Fish by Joyce Zonana

What does it mean to be an Arab-Jew in the twenty-first century? For me, it means recognizing and honoring Arab culture: the music, food, language, and customs my parents brought with them when they emigrated from Cairo in 1952; it means feeling a strong bond with other Egyptians, North Africans, and Middle Easterners, refusing efforts in the U.S. and elsewhere to demonize and “other” any of us. It means respecting the claims of displaced Palestinians and protesting Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. It also means not seeking to equate our displacement with Palestinian displacement, as some Jews from Arab countries have sought to do, in a transparent effort to discredit Palestinian suffering.

jz-headshot When I was growing up in 1950s Bensonhurst, in Brooklyn, NY, my identity as a Jew was often called into question. “You mean you’re Jewish? And you don’t know about gefilte fish?” my best friend’s Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jewish mother asked, shocked to discover that our family ate stuffed grape leaves rather than stuffed cabbage. “What kind of a Jew are you?” schoolmates challenged. When I answered “Sephardic . . . from Egypt,” they would reply. “But all the Jews left Egypt a long time ago, isn’t that what Passover is about?” “No,” I would say, having been taught the words by my father. “Some Jews returned to Egypt when they were expelled from Spain.” [Later I would learn that some Jews actually lived in Egypt for millennia, never having left.] “There are no Jews in Egypt,” my little friends would retort. “We never heard of any Jews in Egypt. You can’t be Jewish.”

It was puzzling, I knew, but I could find nothing further to say. Aside from a handful of relatives, I did not know any other Jews from Egypt either. An Egyptian Jew. To my neighbors, it seemed a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron. To myself as well. What was the Egyptian part, what the Jewish? How did they fit together? Maybe I wasn’t really Jewish. Later, when acquaintances continued to wonder about my identity, I was similarly stymied. “You mean you don’t speak Yiddish?” they would ask after I had painstakingly explained that my grandparents spoke Arabic and French.

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Priestess at the Crossroads by Joyce Zonana

In order to transform what is happening at the Mexico/U.S. “border” (and elsewhere) we must first break down the borders within our heads—all the borders in all our heads. Mr. Trump tells us “If you don’t have Borders, you don’t have a Country”; my response today is: “Who needs countries? Who needs genders? Who needs races or competing religions? What we need is Coatlicue.”

jz-headshot As so many of us recoil in horror at the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to enforce an impenetrable border between the U.S. and Mexico, I find myself struggling to understand what he and his supporters mean by “borders,” and why they are so invested in maintaining them. The administration’s vicious immigration policy, recently epitomized in a brief tweet on June 19^th, 2018—Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when slaves were finally freed throughout the U.S. at the end of the Civil War—“If you don’t have Borders, you don’t have a Country” has sent me back to Gloria Anzaldúa’s visionary 1987 book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.

Grounded in her experience as a queer mestiza raised in the Texas/Mexico borderlands, Anzaldúa’s bilingual, cross-genre manifesto argues for the transformative role of the mestiza, no longer “sacrificial goat” but “officiating priestess at the crossroads”:

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Celtic Myth, Moon Blood, and the White Beauty Standard by Marisa Goudy

My woman’s body is entering the dark time of the moon, even with blinding white snow lashing the windows, even with a full moon tracing its way far above thick clouds. My mood is black and soon I’ll be flowing red, and the snow will just drive on white, white, white.

In The White Goddess, Robert Graves tells us: “…the New Moon is the white goddess of birth and growth; the Full Moon, the red goddess of love and battle; the Old Moon, the black goddess of death and divination.”

The Celt in me feels cradled by this imagery, even if, as Judith Shaw and Carol P. Christ have pointed out elsewhere on this site, the idea of maid, mother, and crone is a modern invention, not gift from the past. I agree with Christ: “My suggestion is that we give up the idea that the details of contemporary Goddess Spirituality are rooted in and authorized by tradition. We can instead acknowledge that though we are inspired by the past, we are the ones who are creating contemporary Goddess Spirituality.”

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Did You Know…? Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

We are now more than a week into Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Since it’s not always clear to me what is generally known (or not known) about Asian Americans, let me test out a few things here.

Did you know…

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An Algorithm for Capturing White Heteropatriarchy: The Woman Caught in Adultery and the Failure of the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements to Embrace Intersectionality by Blanche Cook

The church occasioned one of my first conscious experiences with inequality — Sunday school to be exact. I was nine and bedecked in black platform shoes and a bright pink polyester suit. It was the 70s, a moment in fashion history never to be revisited. My Sunday school teacher, a spiritually angelic woman, was explaining the demise of the Woman Caught in Adultery. According to the story, the leaders of law and religion wanted to stone the woman to death for having intercourse with a man that was not her husband. Although she was vulnerable to the death penalty, the man was not exposed to any punishment. This lopsided sanctioning plagued my young mind. Little did I know, I would spend my legal career, as a federal sex trafficking prosecutor and as a legal scholar, trying to vindicate the Woman Caught in Adultery.

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Empowering Toys and the Problem of Class Divisions by Katie M. Deaver

I recently noticed that I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about financial security, the way class systems work in the United States context, and how these types of realities inform my feminism. Part of this is no doubt due to the fact that for the first time in my life I am not a student with multiple part time jobs, but rather am a “real” adult working full time at a job that offers retirement and medical benefits.

As I’ve written about before, I grew up in a poor family in rural Wisconsin and as a result I am often hyper vigilant about my finances. While I likely go a bit overboard when organizing my budgeting, balancing, saving, and spending this type of organizing is something I can control. The simple act of paying a bill, or determining how much I can spend on groceries this week gives me a profound sense of safety because for the first time there really is enough coming in to support my basic needs.

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On the Removal of the Confederate Statues by Stephanie Arel

In the wake of Charlottesville, and following Xochitl Alvizo’s recent post on the topic, I review the May 2017 speech from New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu who made a compelling case for the removal of confederate statues from public view in his southern city. In his argument, he poses a simple question related to how an African American mother or father explains to their 5th grade daughter the reason why a statue of Robert E. Lee holds a prominent visual position on the New Orleans landscape. He asks, pointing to the audience, “Can you do it? Can you do it? Can you look into her eyes and tell her why Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her?” The implication of course is, “No,” because Robert E. Lee is not placed upon high in this stronghold of southern history to inspire her.

Landrieu asserts in the speech that the wounds of slavery remain raw because they are wounds that have not only gone unrecognized but they are wounds that have never been allowed to heal. Instead, he says, American cities have committed “lies by omission” failing to honor memory through the confederate emblems, instead erecting statues to pay reverence to men and only parts of their legacies. If this were not the case, if the whole story were told, then memorials at lynching sites and monuments of slave ships would be present in the United States, but they are not.

The statues celebrate, he asserts a “fictional sanitized confederacy ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, ignoring the terror that it actually stood for” erected to send a message about who was still “in charge.” Continue reading “On the Removal of the Confederate Statues by Stephanie Arel”

In This Fractured World, I Will Not Remain Silent by Karen Leslie Hernandez

The recent killing of 17 year old Nabra Hassanen is on my mind. Not only was she killed—brutally beaten with a baseball bat—but it is thought that she was raped, too. Twice. During Ramadan. By an undocumented Latino from El Salvador.

It is said to be a case of “road rage.” I am having a difficult time believing this. Maybe this man was drunk. Maybe he was angry at his partner. Maybe it was a hate crime. Maybe we’ll never know the whole truth.

What matters, however, is that Nabra—a young woman, black, and a Muslim—was killed. Do not tell me, or anyone, that these three aspects were not factors in her death. That her death had nothing to do with her being a person of color. Or that her death had nothing to do with her wearing an identifying, religious headscarf. Or that her death had nothing to do with misogyny. Because it did. All of it did. Continue reading “In This Fractured World, I Will Not Remain Silent by Karen Leslie Hernandez”

Preserving the Complete History: Remembering Japanese Internment Camps By Anjeanette LeBoeuf

Hate Trumps Love? by Gina Messina

Gina Messina-Dysert profile This election cycle has left many of us in a serious state of mourning. The idea that Donald Trump could be elected president following the many bigoted, xenophobic, and sexist statements he has made seemed impossible, and yet it has happened. Our nation has been left divided with various reactions to our President Elect. Likewise, I have been wondering if hell has frozen over, because for the first time ever, Glenn Beck and liberals agree.

On the Trump side we have seen racist acts of violence across the nation. Signs that say “white power” or “make America white again” have been showing up on church lawns, schools, and more. And let’s not forget how many women have been told they are going to be grabbed by the pussy. If President Elect Trump can do it, why can’t they? Continue reading “Hate Trumps Love? by Gina Messina”

Racism: We Still Don’t Get It by Esther Nelson

esther-nelson

I was in Las Cruces, New Mexico, this summer for several weeks, spending much of my time unpacking boxes the moving van had delivered while simultaneously trying to create an aesthetically-pleasing and comfortable home. I also went to the Unitarian Universalist church–twice! (I haven’t attended church or any other place of worship regularly for decades.) But, moving is a socially-disruptive experience and church is one place you can connect with individual people as well as with the larger community. So, I decided to visit the local UU congregation.

Unitarian Universalism has a fairly long and circuitous history in the United States. It’s roots are in liberal Protestant theology and practice, but the institution has branched out from its roots, seeking to be more “inclusive and diverse.” Some of the historical background and development of the church can be found on Wikipedia. As fascinating as this history and development is, I want to focus here on “Black Lives Matter”–a theme the congregation chose to use as it centered its worship on one of the Sundays I attended.
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A Crisis of Faith-We’re Not Listening by Karen Hernandez

karen hernandez Orlando. Syria. Sandy Hook. Belgium. Somalia. Ethiopia. Venezuela. Paris.

After the shooting in Orlando I was numb. In fact, every time a mass shooting occurs now, I am numb. I think we all feel that way, but we all handle it in various ways. Within hours, there are blog posts, articles, and news pieces. People explode on social media with memes, arguments, and debates. There’s a whole lot of projection, a whole lot of persecution, and a mess of ideologies. Yet, what have I noted that is lacking? The ability to listen.

It seems Omar Mateen was gay. No one will ever know for sure. Lovers have come forward, information was found on his computer and phone that points to him being gay, yet, it is all speculation. Mateen didn’t just attack a gay nightclub because he was homophobic. It seems his inner demons ate away at his soul. The fact that he was Muslim on top of that, which, if you follow the doctrine, forbids homosexuality, obviously lent to his actions that fateful night.

Let’s say Mateen was gay. His faith dictated to him that he couldn’t be. He struggled. He prayed. He married two women. Then, he killed 49 people.

Yet, what people aren’t seeing is the real crisis here. We’re not listening. Continue reading “A Crisis of Faith-We’re Not Listening by Karen Hernandez”

Hamilton Part 2 – “You want a revolution, I want a revelation,” Changing the Narrative by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

Anjeanette My April FAR post introduced the phenomena that was sweeping the nation; Hamilton the Musical blending contemporary hip hop to the Broadway musical scores. The show has been breaking barriers with its success, intelligence, and fortitude. Hamilton is showing that a diverse cast can be successful. “Hamilton has created a space on Broadway for black and brown performers that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Opening up roles designed specifically to be played by performers of color means encroaching on that space.” It is showing mainstream that including dialogue surrounding immigration, race, class, and gender equality can be highly successful. The director has stated that this show is about America, past and present and one can look at the cast to see it is true.

Continue reading “Hamilton Part 2 – “You want a revolution, I want a revelation,” Changing the Narrative by Anjeanette LeBoeuf”

Hamilton Part 1 – “History Has Its Eyes on You” by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

Hamilton The Musical, the newest sensation to hit Broadway is sweeping the nation. It is being touted as a fresh new way to produce a Broadway play, introducing hip hop and rap into the lexicon of musicals. From the very beginnings, Hamilton has been turning heads, moving mountains, and making waves. Its unorthodox lyrics and beats help to give life to key American historical figures. The sick beats of the music are only part of why Hamilton is storming the nation. Of the 10 principle cast members, only one is a white male (in the role of mad King George). Hamilton is a racially diverse cast; one that is very rare amongst the streets of Broadway. Black and Latino actors play key American figures like Hamilton, Washington, Jefferson, Burr, and Madison.

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Social Transformation in the Urban Context (a.k.a. PANAAWTM 2016) By Grace Yia-Hei Kao

In a few days I’ll be heading to Chicago to attend another conference—PANAAWTM to be exact. PANAAAWTM stands for “Pacific, Asian, and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry.” As I’ve explained in a previous blog, PANAAWTM’s deepest roots can be traced back to two groups of women: Continue reading “Social Transformation in the Urban Context (a.k.a. PANAAWTM 2016) By Grace Yia-Hei Kao”

Blindness, Lethargy, and White Supremacy by Marcia Mount Shoop

With Black History Month fast approaching, it is fitting to investigate the latest call to get rid of it.

This investigation may seem futile to some feminists/womanists since we know denials of racism are part of life in white supremacy patriarchy. As a feminist theologian, however, I’ve got nothing in my tool kit if I lose my hope for redemption and transformation. The following is my attempt to not give up on the possibility that white supremacy culture can be dismantled.

White patriarchy has all kinds of messengers of its narrative—not just white men of privilege, but anyone who has internalized the muscle twitches of white supremacy. This time, the messenger is Stacey Dash, an African-American actress and contributor to Fox. Ms. Dash chastised Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith for saying they will boycott the Oscar awards because of the all-white list of nominees. She called their protest “ludicrous.” She added that if we want to end segregation, we need to “get rid of BET and Black History Month.” oscars image

Having a person of color deny the existence of systemic racism is a big win for white supremacy patriarchy. A person of color as the carrier of white supremacy culture is a Trojan Horse full of social capital for those in power—enough to fool scores of people into thinking they are justified in their misconceptions about race. Dash’s protest of the protest comforts everyone who is tired of all the “whining” and “anti-white” rhetoric they hear in the #blacklivesmatter movement.

A brief scroll down through #OscarsStillSoWhite encapsulates white supremacy apologetics rhetoric. Actress Charlotte Rampling suggests that Black actors just weren’t good enough to make it. Actor Michael Caine asks Black actors to “be patient.” Others say that since Denzel Washington won two Academy Awards the Oscars can’t be racist. And there are several using the tired old accusation of “reverse racism.”

All the bases of white defensiveness are covered: asserting the inferiority of people of color, the benevolent call to be patient, the case in point of the person of color who “made it,” and the accusation of Black on white “racism.” The tenacity of this defensiveness is remarkable. And it is time for its demise.

Why can’t the race discussion in the United States break through this moral inertia? I believe it is because of the two archenemies of healing and justice: moral lethargy and willful blindness.

No matter how many times white patriarchy’s apologists want to accuse people of color of “reverse racism,” they cannot alter the very nature of racism itself. Racism is only racism when it comes with the power of systems, institutions, cultures, and a societal pay off. Racism is a system of privilege based on race in which there is power to create disadvantage with things like access to power, social capital, and accumulation of resources.

If people of color think too many white people and not enough Black people have access to the social capital of the Academy Awards, that is not racism. That is an observation. There is no payoff to this observation. There is no power imbalance solidified. There is no oppression created. If people of color even just don’t like white people, that is not racism. That may be a racialized bias, but it is not racism.

All biases based on race do not equal racism. Some of those biases are a result of racism. But not all of them are expressions of racism. Racism is, at its core, about power: the power to create and entrench advantage and disadvantage. And many of the subtleties of systemic racism and racialized biases carry with them the power to entrench disadvantage for people of color and advantage for people who are identified as white.

It is moral lethargy and willful blindness that keep so much of American culture from seeing the contours of racism and its resulting racialized disadvantage.

Moral lethargy is failing to listen to the cues of our conscience when racism is pointed out. Defensiveness is the way moral lethargy gets its way. If you push back against the narrative you don’t want to hear with enough denial, then you don’t have to change. Moral inertia is like eating too much sugar—at first, you are hyped up on indignation, and then you slump back into a poorly nourished fog of familiar ethical fatigue.

Willfull blindness takes more effort to maintain itself. It requires a counter narrative to the one we choose not to see. And so, it gets filled up with rights and wrongs, shaming and blaming, and all sorts of other value judgments and norms that are seen as “right,” “good,” and “common sense.” This willful blindness then can actively NOT see racism, because it sees all the ways people of color are, themselves, the problem. And every day, this willful blindness is infused with more reasons not to see what we need to see because of what we think we see all around us.

If it sounds circular, it is because it is.

Willful blindness is a tightly wound system of millions of tiny little choices not to see what is right in front of our eyes because of what we’ve trained our eyes to see.

Racism depends on moral lethargy and willful blindness from all kinds of well-meaning people. These habits are racism’s lifeblood. Overt racism is just the gravy. The everydayness of moral lethargy and willful blindness do the heavy lifting to keep the systems of racism working smoothly.

These should be two maladies that the academy and the church could cure. Both of these institutions claim to be all about giving sight and light and cultivating moral courage and fortitude in human beings. But unfortunately these institutions embody the same habits we so desperately need them to disrupt.

Would that 2016 be a year for consciences to be elevated and eyes to be opened. And maybe it could be the year of white defensiveness’s demise.

Black History Month can’t get here soon enough.

Marcia Mount Shoop is an author, theologian, and minister. Her newest book, released from Cascade Books in October 2015, is A Body Broken, A Body Betrayed: Race, Memory, and Eucharist in White-Dominant Churches, co-authored with Mary McClintock Fulkerson. Marcia is also the author of Let the Bones Dance: Embodiment and the Body of Christ (WJKP, 2010) and Touchdowns for Jesus and Other Signs of Apocalypse: Lifting the Veil on Big-Time Sports (Cascade, 2014). Find out more at www.marciamountshoop.com

On Planning: Reflections on Control and Hope by Ivy Helman

We plan so many areas of our lives. We make big complex plans, like family get-togethers, vacations, business trips, conferences, large events, etc. We also plan weekly, daily and monthly smaller tasks. Some examples are doctors appoints, day trips, sports schedules, weekly dinner menus and perhaps even the clothes we are want to wear for a job interview or the first day of school.

Many plans happen without a hitch and then there are those plans that don’t. Usually we attribute a plan falling through to something unexpected like an illness leading to cancelling vacation or because of some mistake on our part like when we burnt dinner because we forgot we had food in the oven (which has never happened to me!). All of this is assuming we have some level of control over our plans, our lives and, even, our destiny. But how much control do we really have, and likewise, how much control do others have over our lives?

I’m not so sure there is any sort of easy answer to this question. However, if I were to offer my view, I would say it’s a mixed bag. There are so many parts of our lives we have no control over even if we’d like to think we do. We can’t control where and when we were born. It is debatable if we have some control or not over the ways in which our lives are affected by patriarchy, capitalism, racism, classism and the like. We can’t control whether others drive drunk. We can’t control thunderstorms, tornados or earthquakes. Continue reading “On Planning: Reflections on Control and Hope by Ivy Helman”

Thoughts on Race and Being Jewish by Ivy Helman

When studying the Shoah, it is extremely important for teachers to introduce students to the 1800s concept of race “science,” which is what I have been doing in my classes over the past few weeks. An American and European development, this “science” was deeply connected to the development of racism. Through a “scientific” method, humans were classified based on certain characteristics (i.e. head size, posture, gait, etc.) and traits (i.e. aggression, passivity, even temperament, etc.). Physicality was linked to personalities that were “typical” as well as desirable or undesirable.

Race “science” supported the slave trade, colonialism and the exhibition and exotification of non-European peoples. In the case of the Shoah, race “science” was heavily relied upon by the Nazi Regime in their propaganda, law and ideology. For the Nazis and all nations under their purview, “Jewish” was a racial identity, “scientifically-proven” through measurements and observations and set out by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, previous and subsequent anti-Semitic decrees and the systematically-planned extermination of 6 million of us.

Continue reading “Thoughts on Race and Being Jewish by Ivy Helman”