Working Towards Ending Racism

  Anthea Butler paints a compelling picture of our current toxicity- through: White Evangelical Racism:  The Politics of Morality in America .    Examples of her words may be helpful. In the summer of 2019 in Mississippi, a couple was turned down when trying to rent Boone's Camp Event Hall for their wedding reception.  Why?  The couple, a Black man and white woman, was told by the event hall owner, "First of all, we don't do gay weddings or mixed race... because of our Christian race, I mean our Christian belief."  The hall owner's slip of the tongue was telling in its equation of Christianity with whiteness.  (p.8-9) Evangelical preoccupation with race. communism, and Catholicism would only ramp up in the 1960's.   (p.52) Understand that for those of us in the Black community, it was not the evangelical who came and taught us our worth and dignity as Black men.  It was not the Bible-believing fundamentalist who stood up and told us that Black was beautiful. 

Resma Menakem's: My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies  - is simply a classic - a Must Read! One can, perhaps, disagree with his splitting of American people in one way - having a third category besides "white" and "Black" with "Blue" (police, security and similar) - but he makes a forceful case for how we all are dealing or not dealing with our traumas - a most important perspective. If you have a white body, there will be times when it will reflexively constrict in order to protect you from some of the truths you'll encounter.  This constriction wil be followed by a thought such as "I'm not like that; I'm a good person," or "White-body supremacy has nothing to do with me," or "This isn't about me because I don't belong to a racist organization." When this occurs, just notice what you're experiencing without doing anything about it.  (p. xiii