THE DAILY RACE

Updates

• Being or rather becoming a white person is not natural or self- evident. "The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's people is a very modern thing." ~ W. E. B. Du Bois
• Race must be defined again and again.  It is in so doing that race is not allowed to redefine us.  We must continue to remind ourselves of what race is.  This will also inform us as to what race is not.  If we do not maintain this practice, we will be subjected to its power and lose who we really are.    David Roediger defines race this way: "Race defines the social category into which peoples are sorted, producing and justifying their very different opportunities with regard to wealth and poverty, confinement and freedom, citizenship and alienation, and as Ruth Wilson Gilmore puts it, life and premature death.  Though genetic differences among groups defines as races are inconsequential, race is itself a critically important social fact; one said to be based on biology, as well as on color, and at times on longstanding cultural practices.  Race also defines the consciousness of commonality uniting those oppressed as a result of their assumed biology, perceived color, and alleged cultural heritage, as well as the fellow feeling of those defending relative privileges derived from being part of dominant-- in US history, white-- race." ~ David Roediger, How Race Survived U.S. History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon 
• Whiteness is personal "property" not a physical reality. "As late as the beginning of the seventeenth century, male northern European elites did not see themselves as physically white, and were further from imagining that the word 'white' had uses as a noun. ...The notion that one could own a skin color-- what the legal scholar Cheryl Harris calls 'whiteness as property' and the historian George Lipsitz calls the 'possessive investment in whiteness'-- came into being alongside the reality that only peoples who were increasingly stigmatized by their color could be owned and sold as slaves." ~ David Roediger, How Race Survived U.S. History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon
• The 1960s campaign to integrate churches needs to be remembered and re-examined says the author of “The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation.”  Stephen R. Haynes shares with readers another facet of the civil rights movement on Duke Divinity School's  Faith & Leadership blog.
• What are stereotypes? "Stereotypes, however inaccurate, are one form of representation.  Like fictions, they are created to serve as substitutions, standing in for what is real.  They are there not to tell it like it is but to invite and encourage pretense.  They are a fantasy, a projection onto the Other that makes them less threatening.  Stereotypes abound when there is distance.  They are an invention, a pretense that one knows when the steps that would make real knowing possible cannot be taken or are not allowed." bell hooks,"Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination"
• Q: Why is racism a religion? A: "As a religion, racism shares all the essential characteristics of every other religion (secular or supernatural).  Thus, racism has its own: (5) Community of worshipers, which is the social group that shares the beliefs and practices of the racist religion; the racist community may be a church, a tribe (and their practice is tribalism), a gang (whether respectable, like the apartheid government of South Africa, or ignoble, e.g. the Skinheads or Ku Klux Klan), or a nation (in which case the civil religion becomes known as fascism). ..." ~ Samuel Koranteng- Pipim, Must We Be Silent? : Issues Dividing Our Church, p. 324
• Q: Why is racism a religion? A: "As a religion, racism shares all the essential characteristics of every other religion (secular or supernatural).  Thus, racism has its own: (4) Symbolisms, which are an attempt to express the essence of the racist faith by evoking a religious emotion in the follower; in Nazi Germany the symbols included the swastika, the stretched- out hand and the phrase 'Heil Hitler. ..." ~ Samuel Koranteng- Pipim, Must We Be Silent? : Issues Dividing Our Church, p. 324
• Q: Why is racism a religion? A: "As a religion, racism shares all the essential characteristics of every other religion (secular or supernatural).  Thus, racism has its own: (3) Practices, which are the active observable sides of a religion (and may include acts of discrimination, violence, segregation, etc. and may involve rituals and ceremonies, such as wearing a special kind of clothing or hair style). ..." ~ Samuel Koranteng- Pipim, Must We Be Silent? : Issues Dividing Our Church, p. 324
• Q: Why is racism a religion? A: "As a religion, racism shares all the essential characteristics of every other religion (secular or supernatural).  Thus, racism has its own: (2) Sets of beliefs, which are creeds and myths that attempt to explain the origin and nature of reality." ~ Samuel Koranteng- Pipim, Must We Be Silent? : Issues Dividing Our Church, p.324
• Q: Why is racism a religion? A: "As a religion, racism shares all the essential characteristics of every other religion (secular or supernatural).  Thus, racism has its own: (1) Sacred realities, which take on the form of a tangible object (such as a Confederate flag or Nazi flag) or even a person (e.g. Adolf Hitler or Elijah Muhammad). ..." ~ Samuel Koranteng- Pipim, Must We Be Silent? : Issues Dividing Our Church, p. 324
• Did you know that "the structure of human hair was considered as a possible index to race?" "Blumenbach attempted to classify race by their hair but discovered that peoples who resembled one another respects differed so much in their hair structure that no racial system of classification  was possible." Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, p. 80
• Brad Paisley and L.L. Cool J attempt to talk about race and race relations in the song "Accidental Racist" and are criticized for the trivialization of the issues.  MSNBC host Toure sorely disappointed, shares this with his colleagues.
• How long have those indigenous to the what is now the United States been on reservations? "As early at 1653, the English had begun the system of reservations-- assigning each warrior fifty acres of land and the privilege of hunting in unoccupied territory." ~ Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, p. 228
• There is only one Caucasian.  Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the "father of craniology", "coined the word Caucasian to describe the white race.  It is curious that this word-- which is still widely used-- is based upon a single skull in Blumenbach's collection which came from the Caucasian mountain region of Russia.  Blumenbach found strong resemblances between this skull and the crania of Germans.  Therefore, he conjectured that possibly the Caucasus regions may have been the original home of the Europeans." ~ Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, p. 37-8
• Okay, so I'm a few days late.  But, I didn't know that March 21 is the "International Day for the Elimination of Racism."  The date was chosen to mark the anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre that occurred on this day in 1960 in Sharpeville, South Africa.
• "Since racism assumes some segments of humanity to be defective in essential being, and since for Christians all being is from the hand of God, racism alone among the idolatries calls into question the divine creative action.  The central claim of the racist is fundamentally a proposition concerning the nature of creation and the action of God rather than a doctrine concerning the nature of man.  By implication, one part of the primary racist affirmation is the idea that God has made a creative error in bring out- races into being.  For Christians, the only possible theological alternative to the implication that God has made a creative error is the doctrine that out- races are the victims of a double fall." ~ George D. Kelsey, Racism and the Christian Understanding of Man, (New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1965), 25.
• Racism is a religion.  It is a faith. Ruth Benedict defines racism as"the dogma that one ethnic group is condemned by Nature to hereditary inferiority and another group is destined to hereditary superiority.  It is the dogma that the hope of civilization depends upon eliminating some races and keeping others pure.  It is the dogma that one race has carried progress throughout human history and can alone ensure future progress." ~Ruth Benedict, Race: Science and Politics, (rev. ed.; New York, 1947), 98.
• "When the racist is also a Christian, which is often the case in America, he is frequently a polytheist.  Historically, in polytheistic faiths, various gods have controlled various spheres of authority.  Thus, a Christian racist may think he lives under the requirements of the God biblical faith in most areas of his life, but whenever matters of race impinge on his life, in every area so affected, the idol of race determines the attitude, decision and action." ~ George D. Kelsey, Racism and the Christian Understanding of Man, (New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1965), 27-28.
• "It is this faith character of racism which makes it the final and complete form of human alienation.  Racism is human alienation purely and simply; it is the prototype of all human alienation.  It is the one form of human conflict that divides human beings as human beings.  That which the racist glorifies in himself is his being.  And that which he scorns and rejects in members of out- races is precisely their human being.  Although the racist line of demarcation and hostility inevitably finds expression through the institutions of society, it is not primarily a cultural, political or economic boundary.  Rather, it is a boundary of estrangement in the order of human beings as such." ~ George D. Kelsey, Racism and the Christian Understanding of Man, (New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1965), 23.
• Racism has two major forms of power. "As an ideology of power, racism takes two major forms: (1) legal or de jure racism and (2) or de facto racism. In legal or de jure racism, discriminatory practices are encoded in the laws of the land (such as was the case in the USA and in apartheid South Africa).  In institutional or de facto racism, on the other hand, racial practices though not encoded in the laws of the land, are still present (albeit, in subtle and sophisticated form), having been built into the very structure of society." ~ Samuel Koranteng- Pipim, Must We Be Silent? : Issues Dividing Our Church, (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Berean Books, 2001), 314.
• There exists no superior race or collection of people whether by physical, intellectual or economic measurement.  All of humanity is equal in the eyes of God and under the law of sin. God has no superiors.  "Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God." ~ Psalm 62.11, NRSV
• Race as a category for identity or a means by which to identify one's self is a modern concept. "The very category of 'race'-- denoting primarily skin color-- was first employed as a means of classifying human bodies by Francois Bernier, a French physician, in 1684.  The first authoritative racial division of humankind is found in the influential Naturae Systemae (1735) of the preeminent naturalist Carolus Linnaeus." ~ Cornel West, Prophetic Fragments (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1988), 100.
• Why are the following statements true? "By and large, the people who have been the racists of the modern world have also been Christians or the heirs of Christian civilization.  Among large numbers of Christians, racism has been the other faith or one of the other faiths" (George D. Kelsey, Racism and the Christian Understanding of Man (New York: Scribner's, 1965), 10. "Although the Protestant churches stress (1) the dignity and worth of the individual and (2) the brotherhood of man, the racial behavior patterns of most church members have not been substantially affected by these principles" (G. E. Simpson and J. M. Yinger, Racial and Cultural Minorities, An Analysis of Prejudice and Discrimination, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953), 546. David R. Williams reports that "there is more racial prejudice in the Christian church than outside of it, that church members are more prejudiced than nonmembers, that churchgoers are more biased than those who do not attend, and that regular attenders are more prejudiced than those who attend less often.  It's also been shown that persons who hold conservative theological beliefs are more likely to be prejudiced than those who do not" (David R. Williams, "The Right Thing to Do," Adventist Review, February 20, 1997), 24.
• I am praying for all of us "good, racist people," for the strength to try again when it seems that there is nothing more to talk about, to forgive again when we are tired of being offended, to hope again when healthy relationships with persons of other cultures seems impossible after reading Ta-nehisi Coates op- ed, "The Good, Racist People."
• You will love your socially colored skin with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You will love your neighbor if he or she "looks" like you.  On these two commandments hang racial hatred and division.
• I am praying for the students and staff of Oberlin College in the wake of multiple expressions of hatred on campus.  May the spirit of Jesus Christ rule their hearts and minds, restore hope so that forgiveness is sought and given and renew courage to continue to build bridges toward cross- cultural friendship and fellowship.  Amen.
• “Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.” ~ Joseph Campbell
• Hope Yen of the Associated Press reports that "Negro will no longer be used on U.S. Census surveys."  How does this change influence your understanding of identity in America?
• Race was not a social category in the ancient world of the Bible. "The ancient world did not make skin color the focus of irrational sentiments or the basis for uncritical evaluation. ...(T)he ancient world did not fall into the error of biological racism; black skin color was not a sign of inferiority; Greeks and Romans did not establish skin color as an obstacle to integration in society; and ancient society was one that 'for all its faults and failures never made color the basis for judging a man.'" "In spite of the association of blackness with ill omens, demons, the devil and sin, there is in the extant records no stereotyped image of Ethiopians as the personification of demons or the devil, no fixed concept of blacks as evil or unworthy of conversion. ... The early Christians did not alter the classical color symbolism or the teachings of the church to fit a preconceived notion of blacks as inferior, to rationalize the enslavement of blacks or to sanction segregated worship.  In sum, in the early church blacks found equality in both theory and practice." ~ Frank M. Snowden, Jr., Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983), 63 & 107-108.
• The social colors of race, here being black/ white/ red/ yellow/ brown/ beige people, are a modern invention. "The terms Indian and Negro were both borrowed from the Hispanic languages, the one originally deriving from (mistaken) geographical locality and the other from human complexion. ... After about 1680 ... a new tern of self- identification appeared-- white." Winthrop Jordan, The White Man's Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States, (London, England: Oxford University Press, 1974), 52.
• Race is a social construct, a human invention.   "Since 1970 there has been a progressive decline in the use of the term race in anthropology textbooks published in the United States.  This decline occurred most precipitously during the late 1970s, when either the term was no longer mentioned in the texts or the authors argued that races do not exist or are not 'real.'  There has been less emphasis on racial typologies and classifications than on descriptions and explanations of biophysical variation.  Documentation of the lack of support for the retention of the term race as a scientific concept is seen as dramatic evidence of the development of a 'no race' position in the science of humankind (Littlefield, Lieberman and Reynolds 1982).  Experts in fields such as evolutionary biology and genetics have also concluded that there is no biological basis for the term race in science." ~ Audrey Smedley and Brian D. Smedley, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview (Fourth Edition), (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2012), 1-2.
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr. asks, "Exactly How 'Black' Is Black America?" on The Root's website that discusses the percentage of African ancestry in African Americans.
• Using insight from the field of psychology and hoping to bring unity to the Body of Christ, Christena Cleveland offers techniques for small groups to influence their church or organization in a recent post: "How a small group of reconcilers can influence a church or organization."
• A new three part PBS series, The Abolitionists, will premiere today (Jan.8) and highlight the role of faith in the anti- slavery convictions of American abolitionists. Resources Religion News Series, "PBS series depicts American abolitionists as fired by faith" PBS, American Experience: The Abolitionists (a video)
• Created in 2005, Duke Divinity School's Center for Reconciliation seeks to "inspire, form, and support leaders, communities, and congregations to live as ambassadors of Christ’s reconciliation."  The Center offers several programs to include a Reconcilers Weekend, a summer institute and a pilgrimage to Uganda.  In addition to these programs and others, the Center also offers resources for reconciliation.
• Political activist, Alan Keyes asks of African Americans who are Christians if their "conscience will sleep forever" in an article posted by WND.  Keyes questions the Christian conviction of those who support President Barack Obama in spite of his support of abortion and homosexuality, things that the Bible opposes.  Keyes believes that this is evidence of their choosing to worship the "idol of false racial pride" even if it means distancing themselves from the Word of God.
• The Religion News Service offers a contribution to a dialogue concerning the socially constructed race of Jesus Christ. While the socially constructed race of Jesus Christ does not influence the "reason for the season," this article provides a noteworthy opportunity to examine the image in which we have created the Son of God.
• The U.S. government officially apologized to the indigenous people of what is now the United States of America on December 19, 2009 but it was not publicized.  As a result, there will be a public reading of the apology on December 19, 2012 in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.  For more information about this event and to join the conversation on reconciliation, please visit http://www.wirelesshogan.com/home.
• This is what Denzel Washington told his daughter, Olivia, who is currently a student at NYU as shared with the Hollywood Reporter and posted on the Color Lines website: "I tell my daughter — she’s at NYU — I say: 'You’re black, you’re a woman, and you’re dark-skinned at that. So you have to be a triple/quadruple threat.' I said: 'You gotta learn how to act. You gotta learn how to dance, sing, move onstage.' That’s the only place, in my humble opinion, you really learn how to act. I said: 'Look at Viola Davis. That’s who you want to be. Forget about the little pretty girls; if you’re relying on that, when you hit 40, you’re out the door. You better have some chops.'" "Black... a woman... and you're dark- skinned at that."  So, the social construct of race, her gender and the social coloring of her skin are/ will all work against her?  She needs more than education, more than training, more than talent.  It is not even satisfactory to be gifted.  She must be a prodigy, head and shoulders above the rest because of the texture of one and the social coloring of the other.  Does it even matter that she might just want to act without having to outperform others based on what her appearance suggests to others?  May we forget the lines and roles of race.  I don't ever want to play this part.
• In an article titled "Riots, Slave States, and Kool-Aid: Race Talk After the Election," the website offers a review of some of the responses to the re-election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.  May the Lord grant us peace and understanding during this time of seeming economic uncertainty and political disappointment, remembering that God's control is not based on whose campaign wins.  Amen. Please join me in praying for those persons who have been affected by the stories listed above.
• The Applied Research Center is hosting the 2012 Facing Race Conference in Baltimore, Maryland from November 15-17, 2012.  "Facing Race is a conference like no other– it is the largest national, multi-racial gathering of leaders, educators, journalists, artists, and activists on racial justice. Attendees share their knowledge on advocating for racial justice in all walks of life."  Workshops include "Structural Racism 101: Critical Concepts for Getting to Racial Justice", "Race and Masculinity: Perils, Pride and Pushing the Boundaries of Perception", "Entrepreneurship and Racial Justice" and "The Roots of Racism: Say What?"  Pulitzer Prize winning author and a 2012 MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius’ Grant recipient, Junot Diaz, will serve as the keynote speaker.
• In a chapter titled "The Discipline of Meditation- Prayer" from James Earl Massey's Spiritual Disciplines: A Believer's Openings to the Grace of God, we learn that "the deepest meanings of selfhood are realized when a person is with God.  The self reaches its highest expression when one prays.  Realized order marks the path of an individual who walks and talks with God.  Each conscious moment spent with God in conversation and communion of prayer becomes a window on life as God intended it."
• Allan Boesak, co- author of Radical Reconciliation: Beyond Political Pietism and Christian Quietism, recently brought this image to my attention.  I  was in attendance at Howard University's School of Divinity's 96th Annual Alumni Convocation for which he and Curtiss DeYoung were the guest speakers.  Boesak shared with us his insights on race, South African apartheid and divinization and demonization of its leaders.  He used this image as an example. Why do we do this?  Why do we replace Jesus Christ with political figures and in doing so, subject his humanity to his divinity?  Why would we believe that a social deliverance be it from South African apartheid or the American South's Jim Crow segregation could be found equal in comparison to Christ's salvific and redemptive work on the cross?  Race is simply no excuse to defile the Lord's table. Additional Resources Mandela's 'Last Supper.'  New works by the artist., Times Live, October 20, 2010.
• Today, on Facebook, someone posted this acronym:  V.O.T.E.--Victory Over The Enemy.  It is messages like these that I seek to address and undo through my writings.  The Church must be Christ's Church but it seems that this election has revealed that there is a Church of the Democrats, a Church of the Republicans and a Church of the Independents.  But, Christ's body is not divided as we shared in Sunday's post. And who is the enemy here?  Is it Satan or a candidate that we are equating with this incalculable evil presence?  If we think we can reduce such a being to flesh and blood, then we have not truly comprehended the nature, power and ability of evil?  And we are simple and immature if we believe that we can vote evil in and out of anything.  God didn't hold an election in order to save humanity but sent the Son, Jesus Christ.
• "Race and the Halloween Mask of Ignorance," an article on The Root, reminds us that the creepy holiday should not be used as an opportunity to take a vacation from being sensitive to cultural stereotypes.
• "Precious Puritans," a song written and performed by rap artist Propaganda, is drawing both criticism and praise from Christian leaders.  While I am not a fan of the genre or in agreement with some of the language employed, I can appreciate his attempt to discuss the lack of confrontation regarding one's allegience to race through an uncritical use of Puritan theology or at least an honest examination of it by pastors, whom he speaks to directly.  Propaganda addresses socially colored white evangelicals specifically but I would raise the question of all Christians who choose not to acknowledge, discuss and challenge race both in its historical and present use in our practice of faith.  In the blog post provided below, Dr. Bradley, an Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics in Public Service at the King's College in New York City, reminds us to "confess the sins of our fathers" (I would add our mothers.), employing Nehemiah 9.2 and I would agree.  No one is "above reproach" not even our "Precious Puritans" (Second Timothy 3.2). Additional Reading Anthony Bradley, "Puritans and Propaganda", www.urbanfaith.com, October 2, 2012.
• I am utterly dumbfounded after reading the recent report of a Louisiana woman who accused three men of setting her on fire and writing racial slurs on her car.  It was later determined that the "hatred" that twenty year old Sharmeka Moffitt experienced was self- inflicted.  Did race make her do it?
• Washington City Paper has decided to no longer refer to the D.C.'s NFL team as the Washington Redskins.  Their new name?  The Washington Pigskins.  I think that it has a nice ring to it.  What about you?
• Today, a New York Times article discussed the Supreme Court's task to determine the necessity of affirmative action in determining admission into institutions of higher education in the case of Fisk vs. University of Texas in "A Changed Court Revisits Affirmative Action in College Admissions." NBC Nightly News' Brian Williams asked tonight in his summary of this news, "Has affirmative action run its course?"  Well, has it?  Should race be used as a determinant for admission into American colleges and universities in the 21st century?  Why or why not?
• Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey detail in The Chronicle Review how the image of Jesus has been made and remade in American history, contrasting the socially colored black Jesus with short hair portrayed in now historic 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama with that of a replica of Christus, an eleven foot high chiseled all- white marble image of Jesus Christ with long flowing hair adopted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  The writers suggest that this election cycle's candidates are just as different as these two images of Christ and invite us to examine our ideas about the color of Christ.