{"id":1272,"date":"2013-08-05T16:56:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T16:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/7-stages-of-white-identity.html"},"modified":"2013-08-05T16:56:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-05T16:56:00","slug":"7-stages-of-white-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/7-stages-of-white-identity.html","title":{"rendered":"7 Stages of White Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
I have had the joy of pastoring a multiethnic, economically diverse church in Chicago for the past 10 years.\u00a0 The journey has been challenging, perplexing \u2013 even painful at times \u2013 yet the joy and transformation I have experienced far outweighs them all.<\/span><\/div>\n
I could fill up volumes with some of the important theological and life principles that I\u2019ve learned along the way, but one that rises to the top is the importance for each of us as God\u2019s children to understand and embrace our racial-cultural identity.\u00a0 I have come to believe that this is one of the most understated yet critical components to holistic, Christian discipleship.<\/span><\/div>\n
My journey has been that of a white male, so much of what I\u2019ve learned along the way is undoubtedly unique to my path.\u00a0 My hope in sharing is not that my exact stages would be used to describe another\u2019s journey, but that instead, each person would gain clarity of where they are at on this journey of understanding and embracing our racial-cultural identity, and identify what terrain is still to be discovered.<\/span><\/div>\n
Though I was semi-conscious of other people\u2019s cultures growing up, it wasn\u2019t until my mid-twenties that I began to have any sense of belonging to a culture myself.\u00a0Because white culture and the dominant, overall culture of America overlap to such a high degree, it\u2019s hard for many of us who are white to understand and embrace our own racial-cultural identity.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 It\u2019s often compared to a fish trying to describe the water it lives in \u2013 he is unable to, even when he tries.<\/span><\/div>\n
A funny anecdote from my early twenties gets to this point. One of my good friends was getting married, and he happened to be South Asian\/Indian American.\u00a0 After his wedding rehearsal his family threw a party for those participating in the wedding, and the atmosphere was rich with Indian culture.\u00a0 The highlight for me was the\u00a0dandiya<\/span>\u00a0dance, where a group of people moved in two circles anti-clockwise holding two colorful sticks.<\/span><\/div>\n
Once the dance was over I told my friend how jealous I was of him.\u00a0 When he asked why, I told him I admired how much culture he had, and I lamented that I didn\u2019t have any culture myself.\u00a0 The groom-to-be placed his hand on my shoulder and said,\u00a0\u201cMy friend, not only do you have a culture, but your culture wins almost every time it comes in contact with another culture.\u00a0 It would be a\u00a0really<\/span>\u00a0good idea for you to learn about your culture.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
I never forgot those words, and they ignited within me a desire to begin a journey of understanding and embracing my own racial-cultural identity.\u00a0 I will describe some of the big stages involved with that journey, with the hopefully obvious disclaimer that each of these deserves a far more in-depth treatment:<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have had the joy of pastoring a multiethnic, economically diverse church in Chicago for the past 10 years.\u00a0 The journey has been challenging, perplexing \u2013 even painful at times \u2013 yet the joy and transformation I have experienced far outweighs them all. I could fill up volumes with some of the important theological and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n7 Stages of White Identity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have had the joy of pastoring a multiethnic, economically diverse church in Chicago for the past 10 years.  The journey has been challenging,\" \/>\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\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/7-stages-of-white-identity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"7 Stages of White Identity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have had the joy of pastoring a multiethnic, economically diverse church in Chicago for the past 10 years.  The journey has been challenging,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/7-stages-of-white-identity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-05T16:56:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andre E. 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