Rhetoric Race and Religion
Here are the top posts for the week of June 15-June 22, 2015 on the Rhetoric Race and Religion Blog. We ask that you share this with others.
1. #RachelDolezal and Misconstrued Privilege
by Andre E. Johnson
Indeed, some wondered why would she want to pass as a black woman? However, could it be that in light of the suit against Howard alleging racial discrimination when she was “white,” she felt that Blacks somehow and in some way get more privileges than whites do? Could she be one of the people who believe “that anti-white racism is a “bigger problem” than what African Americans face?” Does she believe that the only way that she could find success in her chosen field was to become a Black woman?
2. #CharlestonShooting: Why I Want Us to Stop Praying for a While
by Crystal St. Marie Lewis
I continue in this day of sadness and bewilderment with a heavy heart and with the conviction that we religious folks may, perhaps, need a moratorium on our talks with God— for a short time at least. We need, instead, to start talking openly, honestly and without fear to one another about how people in our generation continue to participate in the oppressive phenomenon known as racism. We need to talk with one another about what it means for people of color to live in terror, what it means for a church like the historic Emmanuel AME to lose its sense of sanctuary, and what it means when outrage against events like these only lasts as long as the news cycle will allow.
3. #CharlestonShooting: Choose This Day Who You Will Serve
by Rev. Dr. Stephen G. Ray
To stand with the people of Mother Emmanuel AME Church in this moment of horror is to make a choice. For some it will mean repentance and real contrition for the peace they have made with the sea of anti-Black hatred in which we are awash as a Church and a society at this moment in history; for others it will mean reclaiming their call to be pilgrims in this world of hate being heralds of a new and different world that God has for us; and for some it will simply be the moment in which the work is too hard so they turn downcast and walk away. There is no quiet place. Today is a day of choice. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.
4. #CharlestonShooting: Dylann Roof and the Manifestation of Evil
by Rashad Grove, R3 Contributor
Ever since the inception of the American project Black life has been propertied, tortured, commodified, dehumanized, and “othered.” The fundamental premise of the ideology of White supremacy is domination and subjugation at all cost. This is just not the history of American but it is America. Angela Davis contended, “We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.” The death of our lives, hopes, dreams, aspirations, and yes even our humanity while we are still alive. Armed with an assault weapon and the privilege of his on whiteness, Dylan S. Roof had complete justification and authority in his own mind to carry out this heinous crime. One of the unnamed survivors observed Roof while reloading 5 times insisting, “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’ve take over our country. You have to go.”
5. #CharlestonShooting: No Place for Black Anger
Meanwhile, Black emotions are to be kept in check, “policed” up in the same manner as Black bodies are in the hyper-surveillance of the nation’s Stop and Frisk laws. I recall the raw emotions of Mike Brown’s father Louis Head, who in the hours after the grand jury announcement that his son’s murderer, Darren Wilson, was found to be innocent of no actions worthy of going to trial, turned to the crowd of demonstrators who had rallied in support and in his overwhelming grief and anger stated words that many of us would find ourselves stating after having our child murdered and hearing the news that his killer would not even go to trial. “Burn this bitch down” of which in the fall out the police investigated whether they could charge HIM for instigating a riot.
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