{"id":1275,"date":"2013-08-05T09:13:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T09:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/everything-i-know-about-racism-i-learned-in-the-church.html"},"modified":"2013-08-05T09:13:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-05T09:13:00","slug":"everything-i-know-about-racism-i-learned-in-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/everything-i-know-about-racism-i-learned-in-the-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Everything I Know about Racism I Learned in the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
WHEN I LEARNED THAT I WAS A NIGGER<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
Every summer, my mom would sign us up for vacation bible school (VBS) programs at local churches so we could experience God in diverse settings. The summer I turned six, we attended VBS at an all-white church in a neighboring city. During recess, my brother and I were so engrossed in our tetherball game that we didn\u2019t hear the teacher calling us to return to the classroom.\u00a0Exasperated, she yelled at the top of her lungs, \u201cGet in here, niggers!!\u201d<\/strong>Being six and all, I had no idea what the word nigger meant; I just knew that it referred to me and that it was negative. I ducked my head in shame and ran toward the classroom. \u00a0The teacher\u2019s words violently contradicted the VBS theme: \u201cGod loves all the children in the world\u201d and made me question whether God\u2019s love was meant for me too.[i]<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
The church taught me<\/em>\u00a0that God\u2019s love is only for the white kids.<\/span><\/div>\n
WHEN I LEARNED THAT ALL BLACK PEOPLE RAP<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
Many people recall junior high as a dark and stormy stage in their identity development timeline. But as one of two black girls in my class at my Christian school, I had the unenviable task of figuring out who I was and where I belonged while surrounded by a sea of white classmates who only interacted with me long enough to ask to touch my hair. Feeling different and excluded, I signed up for choir class, hoping to find a place to belong.<\/span><\/div>\n
That year, the Christmas musical script un-ironically called for a \u201cRapping Angel\u201d who rapped Luke 2:14. Without holding auditions for the part,\u00a0our choir director (with obvious support from my classmates) cast me as the rapping angel, saying, \u201cYou can do it, right Christena?\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Nope, I couldn\u2019t.<\/span><\/div>\n
But since I did not fit in with my classmates, I was desperate to prove that I belonged to another relevant social group \u2013 namely, black people. So I went along with our director\u2019s decision and now have the distinction of being the most woefully miscast Rapping Angel in the history of cheesy Christmas musicals.<\/span><\/div>\n
The church taught me<\/em>\u00a0that I belong nowhere \u2013 not even in the tiny stereotypical box that they tried to stuff me into.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WHEN I LEARNED THAT I WAS A NIGGER Every summer, my mom would sign us up for vacation bible school (VBS) programs at local churches so we could experience God in diverse settings. The summer I turned six, we attended VBS at an all-white church in a neighboring city. During recess, my brother and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nEverything I Know about Racism I Learned in the Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"WHEN I LEARNED THAT I WAS A NIGGEREvery summer, my mom would sign us up for vacation bible school (VBS) programs at local churches so we could experience\" \/>\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\/everything-i-know-about-racism-i-learned-in-the-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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