{"id":4323,"date":"2015-07-02T09:52:01","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T15:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=4323"},"modified":"2015-07-02T09:52:01","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T15:52:01","slug":"when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html","title":{"rendered":"When I Talk About Race I Feel Like a Phony: The Problem of Being White & Talking About Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"race.001\"<\/a>Many black leaders have been bitterly disappointed that President Obama has not shown more leadership in the arena of race. They might have a point. It\u2019s not as though he hasn\u2019t had the opportunity. From Travon Martin, to Ferguson, to Charleston, the opportunity for a President to actually do something with regard to\u00a0the issue of race has not been this auspicious since JFK.<\/p>\n

I must admit I am no better. I am white, educated, and male. I am mostly blind to my own affluence, and privilege. I live in the suburbs of Kansas City, a city that is still largely segregated along racial & socio-economic lines. I am a pastor in an era when the church is also largely segregated along racial lines. I feel like I need to do or say something, but I have a huge problem:<\/p>\n

When I talk\u00a0about race, I feel like a phony.<\/p>\n

Fifty years after civil rights legislation we are back to burning black churches in the South. White cops are shooting, beating, and killing unarmed black men and women. Why is this still happening? What is my responsibility in terms of response?<\/p>\n

I fear that most white Christians struggle to find anything to say that doesn\u2019t sound glib or insincere or outright racist. It\u2019s like we think that by refusing to talk about race, we are proving that race\u00a0doesn\u2019t factor in for us. It\u2019s the contemporary version of the\u00a0\u201cI have several friends who are black,\u201d and\u00a0it isn\u2019t\u00a0any more effective. Plus, the disavowal of racism is perhaps the least effective way to combat it, if for no other reason that it is patently not true. Most of us are racist in one way or another.<\/p>\n

Maybe the acknowledgement of our own complicit racism is a better place to start? The acknowledgement of white privilege should be the basis on which we open our mouths to speak.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a great interview about race in The New York Times <\/em><\/a>today. It\u2019s with philosopher John Caputo, but don\u2019t let that scare you off. Caputo actually\u00a0lets his hair down in this interview and he is very nearly\u00a0comprehensible. He says that the problem for all of us is that we are unaware of how prejudiced we are. \u201cWhite\u201d is the water we swim in, so we are blind to our own racial prejudices:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhite is not \u201cneutral.\u201d \u2026 as if white is not a color or is closest to the purity of the sun, and everything else is \u201ccolored.\u201d Purification is a name for terror and deportation, and \u201cwhite\u201d is a thick, dense, potent cultural signifier that is closely linked to rationalism and colonialism. What is not white is not rational. So white is philosophically relevant and needs to be philosophically critiqued \u2014 it affects what we mean by \u201creason\u201d \u2014 and \u201cwe\u201d white philosophers cannot ignore it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How do we get white people to speak on race a bit more? Caputo\u2019s answer is good:<\/p>\n

\u201cMore often than not I do not analyze race explicitly unless I am asked to; it\u2019s only then I find there are new things for me to say. I guess that means that one solution is to do what you\u2019re doing now \u2014 ask us! Interrupt us. Stop us and ask, \u201cTo what extent is everything you just said a function of being white?\u201d There\u2019s a fair chance we never asked ourselves that question. And get the courses that do raise this question into the curriculum.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Caputo also had a few pointed words for Evangelicals:<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>In the gospel Jesus announces his ministry by saying he has come to proclaim good news to the poor and imprisoned and the year of the Jubilee, which meant massive economic redistribution every 50th year! Can you imagine the Christian right voting for that? The great scandal of the United States is that it has produced an anti-gospel, the extremes of appalling wealth and poverty. But instead of playing the prophetic role of Amos denouncing the American Jeroboam, instead of working to close that gap, the policies of the right wing are exacerbating it.<\/p>\n

That has been felt in a particularly cruel way among black men and women and children, where poverty is the most entrenched and life is the most desperate. The popularity of such cruel ideas, their success in the ballot box, is terrifying to me. The trigger-happy practices of the police, not all police, but too many police, on the streets of black America should alert everyone to how profoundly adrift American democracy has become \u2014 attacking the poor as freeloaders and criminals, a distorted and grotesque ideological exaggeration of freedom over equality. The scandal is that the Christian right has too often been complicit with a politics of greed and hatred of the other.<\/p>\n

To be sure, younger evangelicals are becoming critical of their elders on this point, and I am trying to reach them in my own work\u2026 The secular left, on the other hand, won\u2019t touch religion with a stick and abandons the ground of religion to the right. So both the left and the right have a hand around the throat of prophetic religion.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Any thoughts?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many black leaders have been bitterly disappointed that President Obama has not shown more leadership in the arena of race. They might have a point. It\u2019s not as though he hasn\u2019t had the opportunity. From Travon Martin, to Ferguson, to Charleston, the opportunity for a President to actually do something with regard to\u00a0the issue of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[115,1105,409,723,1312,1110],"class_list":["post-4323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-ferguson","tag-john-caputo","tag-justice","tag-race","tag-racism"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen I Talk About Race I Feel Like a Phony: The Problem of Being White & Talking About Racism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many black leaders have been bitterly disappointed that President Obama has not shown more leadership in the arena of race. They might have a point. It\u2019s\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When I Talk About Race I Feel Like a Phony: The Problem of Being White & Talking About Racism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many black leaders have been bitterly disappointed that President Obama has not shown more leadership in the arena of race. They might have a point. It\u2019s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Paperback Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=654515438\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-07-02T15:52:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/files\/2015\/07\/race.001.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tim Suttle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Tim_Suttle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tim Suttle\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html\",\"name\":\"When I Talk About Race I Feel Like a Phony: The Problem of Being White & Talking About Racism\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-07-02T15:52:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-07-02T15:52:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/#\/schema\/person\/63a7ffe567a014f809abae15ebfc44a6\"},\"description\":\"Many black leaders have been bitterly disappointed that President Obama has not shown more leadership in the arena of race. They might have a point. It\u2019s\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"When I Talk About Race I Feel Like a Phony: The Problem of Being White & Talking About Racism\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/\",\"name\":\"Paperback Theology\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/#\/schema\/person\/63a7ffe567a014f809abae15ebfc44a6\",\"name\":\"Tim Suttle\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ce6d230b7d3a7d50e5fc4b6c265691fb?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ce6d230b7d3a7d50e5fc4b6c265691fb?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Tim Suttle\"},\"description\":\"Find out more about Tim at TimSuttle.com Tim Suttle is the senior pastor of RedemptionChurchkc.com. He is the author of several books including his most recent - Shrink: Faithful Ministry in a Church Growth Culture (Zondervan 2014), Public Jesus (The House Studio, 2012), & An Evangelical Social Gospel? (Cascade, 2011). Tim's work has been featured at The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Sojourners, and other magazines and journals. Tim is also the founder and front-man of the popular Christian band Satellite Soul, with whom he toured for nearly a decade. The band's most recent album is \\\"Straight Back to Kansas.\\\" He helped to plant three thriving churches over the past 13 years and is the Senior Pastor of Redemption Church in Olathe, Kan. Tim's blog, Paperback Theology, is hosted at Patheos.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=654515438\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@Tim_Suttle\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/author\/timsuttle\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"When I Talk About Race I Feel Like a Phony: The Problem of Being White & Talking About Racism","description":"Many black leaders have been bitterly disappointed that President Obama has not shown more leadership in the arena of race. They might have a point. It\u2019s","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"When I Talk About Race I Feel Like a Phony: The Problem of Being White & Talking About Racism","og_description":"Many black leaders have been bitterly disappointed that President Obama has not shown more leadership in the arena of race. They might have a point. It\u2019s","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html","og_site_name":"Paperback Theology","article_author":"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=654515438","article_published_time":"2015-07-02T15:52:01+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/files\/2015\/07\/race.001.jpg"}],"author":"Tim Suttle","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Tim_Suttle","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tim Suttle","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html","name":"When I Talk About Race I Feel Like a Phony: The Problem of Being White & Talking About Racism","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-07-02T15:52:01+00:00","dateModified":"2015-07-02T15:52:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/#\/schema\/person\/63a7ffe567a014f809abae15ebfc44a6"},"description":"Many black leaders have been bitterly disappointed that President Obama has not shown more leadership in the arena of race. They might have a point. It\u2019s","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/07\/when-i-talk-about-race-i-feel-like-a-phony-the-problem-of-being-white-talking-about-racism.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"When I Talk About Race I Feel Like a Phony: The Problem of Being White & Talking About Racism"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/","name":"Paperback Theology","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/#\/schema\/person\/63a7ffe567a014f809abae15ebfc44a6","name":"Tim Suttle","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ce6d230b7d3a7d50e5fc4b6c265691fb?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ce6d230b7d3a7d50e5fc4b6c265691fb?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Tim Suttle"},"description":"Find out more about Tim at TimSuttle.com Tim Suttle is the senior pastor of RedemptionChurchkc.com. He is the author of several books including his most recent - Shrink: Faithful Ministry in a Church Growth Culture (Zondervan 2014), Public Jesus (The House Studio, 2012), & An Evangelical Social Gospel? (Cascade, 2011). Tim's work has been featured at The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Sojourners, and other magazines and journals. Tim is also the founder and front-man of the popular Christian band Satellite Soul, with whom he toured for nearly a decade. The band's most recent album is \"Straight Back to Kansas.\" He helped to plant three thriving churches over the past 13 years and is the Senior Pastor of Redemption Church in Olathe, Kan. Tim's blog, Paperback Theology, is hosted at Patheos.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=654515438","https:\/\/twitter.com\/@Tim_Suttle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/author\/timsuttle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}