by Matthew Lynch | October 2019
Racial biases are not unknown to the history of the U.S. education system. Dating back to the 1800s, Native American children were taken from their homes and forced into boarding schools where they were pushed to abandon their native language and adopt a foreign religion. Education was used to assimilate these Native American children to White culture forcibly. This institutional racism created a belief that White culture was far better than the Native American Way. These racial biases expressed themselves with the Chinese in a different manner. Instead of forcing them to assimilate into the prescribed White educational system, Chinese-American children were barred completely from going to school. Later legislation stated they had a right to public education but segregated them into Chinese-only schools. Latinos faced the same fate as the Chinese in being methodically shut out from education. Latinos were later granted access to education under the ruling of a judge with a particular belief; the judge asserted that Latinos were of White descent and therefore above other minorities. In the American South, laws against African-Americans completely obstructed their ability to get an education. By law, it was illegal for an African-American to learn how to read and write. African-American communities had to turn to schools established by Quakers and Christians in order to get an education. But turmoil and violence would always find their white allies, forcing these schools to close their doors. Fear of uprising was palpable in these plantation states, and illiteracy became a weapon used against African-Americans. If African-Americans remained uneducated, plantation owners and Southern Whites believed, they would not revolt, maintaining the status quo of slavery.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [History] [Implicit Bias] [Indigenous] [White Culture] [Asian] [Black Lives Matter] [Quaker] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Slavery] [Social Justice] [White Privilege] [Teachers]
Resource Links Tagged with "Faith-Based/Spiritual"
American Churches are Apologizing for a Centuries-Old Injustice That Still Reverberates Today; How We Can Start to Undo the Damage
by Melissa J. Gismondi | September 2018
In 2016, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) repudiated the historic “doctrine of discovery.” Although it might sound benign, the doctrine was the pernicious theory that Christians could claim and conquer land inhabited by non-Christians. It helped justify and promote the violent colonization of indigenous lands throughout the Americas. This summer, the Assembly followed up on that repudiation by issuing a report outlining specific actions the church can take to grapple with the doctrine’s legacy. They include official acknowledgments before meetings of the indigenous nations on whose land the meeting is taking place, as well as more discussion of indigenous theologies and educational resources on the doctrine.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Indigenous] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Justice System] [Denial] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [Accountability] [Economics] [White Privilege] [Role Model] [Strategies] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]
Are Jews Indigenous People? Here’s What a Native American Jew Thinks
by Hen Mazzig | October 2020
Von Schlegel draws her definition of indigenous peoples from the United Nations, which defines the term as inheritors of unique cultures who have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. She noted how indigenous peoples have sought recognition of their identities, lifestyles and their right to ancestral lands throughout history, but their rights have continuously been violated by empires, nation-states and external colonial powers. … As a member of both communities, von Schlegel has experienced firsthand how Pueblo People and Jews share ritual practices of giving thanks for the food, land, knowledge and other gifts from our Creator. In particular, she believes what Jews do every Friday, as we ritually welcome in the “Angels of Peace” to mark the beginning of Shabbat, resembles customary native rituals of welcoming spirits or ancestors.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [Indigenous] [2020’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Advocacy] [Social Justice] [Economics] [Politics] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Denial]
The Pre-Civil War Fight Against White Supremacy; In a Country Driven by Racial Politics, Three Women Strove for a Just Society
by Dorothy Wickenden | January 2021
Two years into the cataclysmic war, Lincoln found a way to justify emancipation, as a “military necessity.” Frances greeted the proclamation with relief, but not euphoria. She was equally subdued when the Thirteenth Amendment eventually passed, on January 31, 1865, inscribing into the Constitution the eradication of slavery. Back in Auburn, she read the Herald Tribune’s report about the giddy scene in Washington. The visitors’ galleries were full, and senators and Supreme Court Justices squeezed onto the House floor. Finally, Speaker Schuyler Colfax stood and gavelled the room to order, announcing in a quavering voice that the ayes had a hundred and nineteen votes, the nays fifty-six. As Democrats looked on stonily, Republicans threw their hats in the air, cheering and roaring. Women in the gallery waved their handkerchiefs. Artillery at the Capitol fired a hundred-gun salute. The Tribune’s headline declared, “freedom triumphant. commencement of a new era. death of slavery.” It was a historic victory, but it had been won as much by political horse-trading as by deep principle. Henry and Lincoln, in a months-long backroom campaign, had lobbied wavering representatives with bribes and offers of jobs. And, Frances thought, it was too soon to celebrate. The amendment still had to be ratified by three-quarters of the states. Half a million men had died in the war, and it was not over. General William Tecumseh Sherman was moving through the Carolinas, and Ulysses S. Grant was eight months into his siege of Petersburg. There were rumors that rebels would attempt to assassinate the President. After reading about the joyous outpouring in the House, Frances wrote Henry a bracingly solemn note: “I congratulate you on the passage of the Constitutional amendment which I know you had much at heart. The prospect of abolishing slavery throughout the United States is indeed cheering.” The battle for equality had barely begun.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Slavery] [Justice System] [Civil War] [History] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Racial Terrorism] [Prison System] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Quaker]
Episcopal Church Established by Baltimore Slave Owners Creates $500,000 Reparations Fund
by Jonathan M. Pitts | January 2021
A Baltimore Episcopal church founded by slaveholders in the 1860s says it will spend $500,000 over the next five years to establish a fund intended as reparations for slavery.
Members of Memorial Episcopal Church in Bolton Hill voted Sunday to set aside $100,000 to donate in the next year to community organizations doing “justice-centered work.” The fund aims to address race-based inequalities that took root during slavery and proliferated for generations in the church and in the community at large.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Reparations] [Social Justice] [Systemic Racism] [Role Model] [Housing] [Environment] [Politics] [Racial Covenants] [History] [Civil War] [Collective Action] [Confederate Monuments] [Advocacy]
Embracing Reparations for Slavery
by Cabaretic Community | January 2021
Quakers have historically taken unpopular stances throughout history. We favored abolition and freed our slaves before most others did. We allowed women the right to participate in Worship, providing them the agency to contribute vocal ministry from the very beginning. Many women helped establish the Religious Society of Friends (our official name) as well. We revere our First Wave feminist foremothers who were suffragettes and indeed, many Second Wave feminists called themselves Friends as well. In recent times, Pendle Hill, a Quaker resource and learning center based outside of Philadelphia, has made tentative strides towards a potentially greater embrace of white wealth being transferred to black hands. The details of the proposal are below.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Quaker] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [History] [Slavery] [Politics] [Economics] [Reparations] [Systemic Racism] [Social Justice]
PWB: Preaching While Black! Ten Indicators of Racism in Predominantly White Church Bodies and What You Can Do To Address Them; The Unholy Union of Racism and Christianity
by Rev. Dr. Jack Sullivan, Jr. | August 2015
Racism and Christianity are no strangers to each other. While no theologically and biblically alert and informed person of our day would dare to defend racism as a legitimate, holy expression of Christianity, it is important to note that United States church bodies were on both sides of the matter of the enslavement of Africans, with some “Christian” ministers and theologians taking the time to bend some biblical texts while remaining silent on others, in order to offer heretical justification of the evil practice of slavery while crafting the doctrine of White supremacy and Black inferiority to provide a perverse platform on which it was placed. Of course, segregation, discrimination, and White privilege as hallmarks of societal racism, were found in organized church bodies as well. Several predominantly White church bodies continue to struggle with racism in both society and their organizational bodies. Some have made defeating racism a priority, while other church organizations have gone so far as to call racism a sin and to issue apologies for their historic and contemporary silence and complicity with racist orientations, laws, and church practices. Still, a large number of church bodies choose to remain silent on the matter perhaps while not realizing that this option actually emboldens racist practices.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [-ing While Black] [Employment] [Policing] [Slavery] [Latino/a] [Asian] [Indigenous] [Black Lives Matter] [Social Justice] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]
White Violence, Church Silence; Many white churches have been guilty of not only espousing racist rhetoric, but also of preaching a theology that urges Christian silence when it comes to standing up for justice.
by L.A. Justice | November 2020
While Black people are being relentlessly pursued because our lives have been determined to be expendable, numerous churches across this country have not only been silent, but too many have been complacent and complicit with these atrocities. Myriad white churches have been guilty of not only espousing racist rhetoric, but also of preaching a theology that urges Christian silence when it comes to standing up for justice, especially when it means standing against the racially motivated brutalization of Black bodies. This encourages the perpetrators of such inhumane violence to continue to act with impunity, no matter how abhorrent the violence committed against us may be.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [Denial] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [Accountability] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Black Lives Matter] [Collective Action] [Cognitive Dissonance]
Why I Stopped Talking About Racial Reconciliation and Started Talking About White Supremacy
by Erna Kim Hackett | March 2020
Recently, people have asked me, “Why isn’t talking about white privilege enough, why white supremacy?” There is an obvious discomfort with the term by white people. The one exception to that is when things like Charlottesville happen. When people march around with Nazi flags, most folks I know feel comfortable saying, “I’m not down with that.” Which is a pretty low bar, but OK. However, when the term white supremacy is used for anything less obvious than tiki torch-wielding, Nazi flag-waving people, lots of folks get uncomfortable. Most of my crowd was taught to use the terms “white privilege” and “racial reconciliation”. Here is why I no longer focus on them and instead teach on white supremacy.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Policing] [History]
[White Fragility/Tears] [White Privilege]
What Toni Morrison Taught Me about My People, the Quakers
by Becky Ankeny | July 2020
Mr. and Miss Bodwin, brother and sister, Quakers, for decades worked to abolish slavery from their home in Cincinnati. Their anti-slavery stance was based on the teaching that “human life is holy, all of it.” This work gave their lives meaning and purpose, so much so that to Edward Bodwin, life after the Civil War had lost its “spit and conviction.”…Nearly a decade after emancipation, when 18-year-old Denver goes to ask the Bodwins for work, she knocks on the front door. The Black maid tells her that the first thing she has to learn is which door to knock on, namely, the back door. On her way out the back door, Denver sees a figurine of a kneeling Black man, head back, mouth wide open to hold any number of small objects or even jelly. Painted across the pedestal he knelt on were the words “At Yo Service.”
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Quaker] [Slavery] [History] [Civil War] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Faith-Based/Spiritual]
White Supremacy Shaped American Christianity, Researcher Says
by Carol Kuruvilla | July 2020
It wouldn’t be hard for many white Christians to find examples of white supremacy’s claims on their own family’s trees, Jones said. But white Christians’ image of themselves and their religion has been warped by what Jones calls “white-supremacy-induced amnesia.” Jones wrestles with that amnesia in his new book, “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity.” He argues that white Christians ― from evangelicals in the South to mainline Protestants in the Midwest to Catholics in the Northeast ― weren’t just complacent onlookers while political leaders debated what to do about slavery, segregation and discrimination. White supremacist theology played a key role in shaping the American church from the very beginning, influencing not just the way denominations formed but also white Christians’ theology about salvation itself.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [History] [Slavery] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [Police Shootings] [Accountability] [Politics]
The Long History of How Jesus Came to Resemble a White European
by Anna Swartwood House | July 2020
The historical Jesus likely had the brown eyes and skin of other first-century Jews from Galilee, a region in biblical Israel. But no one knows exactly what Jesus looked like. There are no known images of Jesus from his lifetime, and while the Old Testament Kings Saul and David are explicitly called tall and handsome in the Bible, there is little indication of Jesus’ appearance in the Old or New Testaments.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Myths] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [History]
William Penn Kept Enslaved People. These are Some of Their Names. An Important Piece of Pennsylvania’s Founder’s Legacy.
by Michaela Winberg | August 2020
Penn, though a pacifist Quaker, kept several Black enslaved people during his time overseeing his colony — even as the practice grew increasingly unpopular among Pennsylvanians. The records that exist aren’t totally clear, but it seems as if Penn enslaved roughly 12 people at his Pennsbury Manor estate, which was located in what is now the Philly suburbs. These people were purchased off the first slave ship known to have arrived in Philadelphia, and were of African and Carribean descent.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [History] [Slavery] [Indigenous] [Quaker] [Systemic Racism] [Economics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Denial] [Accountability]
Do’s and Don’ts for Bystander Intervention
by American Friends Service Committee Staff | Date Unknown
If you witness public instances of racist, anti-Black, anti-Muslim, anti-Trans, or any other form of oppressive interpersonal violence and harassment, use these tips on how to intervene while considering the safety of everyone involved. Available to download as a PDF.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Bystander Intervention] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Role Model] [Individual Change] [Strategies] [Advocacy] [Quaker] [Faith-Based/Spiritual]
Should the Church Take Sides or Stay Neutral with the #BlackLivesMatter Movement?
by Drew G.I. Hart | November 2015
When is it the right time to take sides, standing with those that live with the daily threat of violence, suffering, and death? Who decides? In the midst of 400 years of white supremacist terrorism many Christian communities still do not want to take sides.
TAGS: [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Black Lives Matter] [Strategies] [2010’s] [History] [White Supremacy]
The Role Of Spirit In The #BLACKLIVESMATTER Movement: A Conversation With Activist And Artist Patrisse Cullors
by Hebah H. Farrag | June 2015
While the involvement of church groups and traditional religious leaders in various aspects of Black Lives Matter has been noted by news outlets, there is another spirit that animates the Black Lives Matter movement, one that has received little attention but is essential to a new generation of civil rights activists….Images of a white-clad black woman burning sage across a militarized police line. Altars using sacred images and symbols from multiple faiths placed to hold space for those murdered. Events ending with prayers for the oppressed. Protests called ‘ceremonies’ in front of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s house, with attendees asked to wear all white.”
TAGS: [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Strategies] [2010’s] [Black Lives Matter] [Collective Action]
Addressing Racist Rhetoric in the U.S. Elections- Updated
by John Michael | December 2015
“The language of hate is often coded, but was understood by two Boston adults, who beat a homeless Hispanic man. They pointed to Donald Trump as their inspiration. The use of hate speech threatens all people of color. Citizens of this nation need to promote the “Beloved Community,” not walk down a road of racism.”
TAGS: [2010’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Advocacy] [Strategies] [Collective Action]
In the morning, you won’t find me here: A meditation in Blackness
I am a black man.
I was planted in deep, loamy, black soil by my black father.
Cradled, cultured and coaxed out like a tuber of yam by my black mother.
Though I came from one womb, I am birthed by many mothers – some of skin like bark and timber, some of eyes of yellow like cassava.
I have a scandalous affinity with shadows in this here regime of light.
Hope for the White Supremacist Within
by LVM Shelton | September 2016
The author, a Black woman, writes: “Understanding white supremacy as addiction and as a disease of the spirit brings many of the tools of the well‐proven 12‐step recovery paradigm to hand…. Some individual spiritual practice for self‐examination is needed for progress in becoming whole. However, community—indeed, communion—is an essential feature of practicing a 12‐step program.” The author ends the article by proposing “12 Steps to Overcoming White Supremacy.” The 12 steps she then lists follow the pattern of traditional 12-step programs.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Supremacy] [Quaker] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [2010’s]
Quakers, Social Justice, and Revolution: NNA [National Network Assembly], Race and Community Building
by Jeff Kisling | August 2019
It is not enough to talk about racial injustice. White people must experience, live it. We can only be authentic when we speak from our own experience. I am so grateful I was given the opportunity to spend significant amounts of time in the Kheprw Institute (KI) community, a black youth empowerment organization. That taught me that white people must spend significant amounts of time, in a variety situations, with black people to even begin to understand racial injustice. Developing friendships is essential, before any real work can be done together.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Quaker] [White Supremacy] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Privilege] [Accountability] [Myths] [Faith-Based/Spiritual]
Quakerism and racism: Reclaiming Faith From the Wreckage of White Supremacy
by Greg Elliott | December 2015
With the recent rise in hate speech and hate crimes against Muslims, the ongoing white backlash against Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives, and the recent non-indictment of the border patrol agents responsible for the murder of Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas, the need for racial justice organizing has never been more urgent. As mosques are burned, as unarmed Black people are murdered by police, and as millions of undocumented migrants are detained and deported, Communities of Color and their white allies, co-conspirators, and comrades are responding with a sense of urgency that is required by these dire times.
TAGS: [Quaker] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [2010’s] [Strategies] [Advocacy] [Collective Action]
‘Now is a Time for Theology to Thrive’
*Paywall Alert
by Ryan Herring | October 2015
The Black Lives Matter movement offers a challenge to the church–and an opportunity. Another senseless killing of an unarmed black man Micheal Brown, who was killed in Ferguson, Missouri by police office Darren Wilson. “For many young people in the United States, especially those of us involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, this was our Sept. 11.”
TAGS: [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Black Lives Matter] [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Police Shootings]
I Don’t Discuss Racism With White People
By John Metta | July 2015
Despite what the Charleston Massacre makes things look like, people are dying not because individuals are racist, but because individuals are helping support a racist system by wanting to protect their own non-racist self beliefs. Here’s what I want to say to you: Racism is so deeply embedded in this country not because of the racist right-wing radicals who practice it openly, it exists because of the silence and hurt feelings of liberal America.” Racism is the fact that “White” means “normal” and that anything else is different.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Systemic Racism] [History] [Collective Action]
Beyond the KKK: Getting at White Supremacy in the Church
by Rebecca Florence Miller | May 2017
White supremacy is a loaded term, conjuring up hooded robes, burning crosses, and Heil, Hitlers. But there is another way to understand it, and the phrase is increasingly becoming a helpful conceptual marker, helping us to understand the core of racial problems in society. The term white supremacy gets at the heart of what some would call colonialism or giving precedence to white culture. Ultimately, what is comes down to is believing or living as if whites are superiors to blacks or people of other races. As if Whites are “supreme.”
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [White Culture] [Colorblindness]
When Spiritual Bypassing Meets Racism Meets Gaslighting
by Camille Williams | October 2017
Racism and spiritual bypassing are harmful in and of themselves, and their combination compounds the harm. Add gaslighting, and you’ve got an exponentially toxic brew. Add gaslighting, and you’ve got an exponentially toxic brew. In this case, the manipulative elements and dizzying doublespeak were staggering. There were acknowledgements that racism had in fact occurred, followed by denials that it did, round and round. There were fauxpologies followed by defending, round and round. There were expressions of caring for those who had been hurt, immediately followed by not-so-subtle digs at them, round and round. Article also provides a list of more articles on racism, white privilege, and white fragility.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual]
Some of Us Are Complicit in Racism
By Rabbi Shai Held | May 2017
Amidst all the carnage, you may have missed the story of Richard Collins. If so, you missed a story that we must not ignore: Richard Collins III, a young black man and a student at Bowie State University, was murdered after he refused to step aside to let a white student pass by.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Accountability] [-ing While Black] [Black Lives Matter]
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Dear White People
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Dear White People
Being Allies
Reparations
Spiritual Foundations
Public Displays
Performance Art
Workshops
Activist Resources
Assessment Tools
History
Appropriation / Aggression
White Privilege / Supremacy
Introduction
Definitions
Facts
Maps
Dear White People
Being Allies
Reparations
Spiritual Foundations
Public Displays
Performance Art
Workshops
Activist Resources
Assessment Tools
History
Appropriation / Aggression
White Privilege / Supremacy
Introduction
Definitions
Facts