View from the Park: January 2017

Race, Class, Gender, Education, Sexual Orientation, Religion.

These are just some of the major dividing walls that exist in American culture in 2017. Majority culture favors one group in these categories over the others. The particular wall that I'd like to work on tearing down today is Race. This has been an issue in America since.... well, since white people stepped foot on this land. In all the years since, there has not been one single moment in history when there was peace between races. People of privileged races—who are, at best, blind to their privilege, and at worst, working to keep it intact—have been the keepers of oppression, whether wittingly or unwittingly. But that's never any easy thing to cop to, and it's an even harder thing to forgive. And now we are bound together in this dance of denial, fragility, offense, and bitterness.... and our different experiences only continue to push us farther apart.

So, to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (which was technically yesterday but I'm still awake), as a white, educated, middle-class, christian, straight female, here I am do to my part in dismantling the twin yokes of privilege and oppression. I've assembled here a far-from-comprehensive list of resources for anyone who might be ready to listen to some experiences that differ from their own, to learn about the institutions in history that kept privilege and oppression alive, to dive into the sea of their own privilege.

Welcome to the Privilege Primer.

With St. Francis, this is my payer for myself and for you, as we all take some time to hear and understand the experiences of God's Image-Bearers around us:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

And now, categorized and linked, here you will find your syllabus for White Privilege 101:

TOPIC: WHITE PRIVILEGE / BIASES

Unpacking the Knapsack of Privilege: The foundational work on helping white people understand privilege, by Peggy McIntosh

Code Switch Podcast: "Can We Talk About Whiteness?"

Harvard’s Implicit Bias based on Race test

All Harvard Implicit Bias Tests

"White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo Abstract: White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium. This paper explicates the dynamics of White Fragility.

The intersection of class, race, gender, and sexual orientation privileges. NSFW language/themes; included in spite of a decidedly non-christian viewpoint, because understanding privilege means understanding all privilege.

On Class Privilege; NSFW language

TOPIC: RECONCILIATION

Shaun Groves on How To Listen, and 5 videos of Propaganda on Race Relations
Mike Cosper on preaching about racism -- (and audio of Mike Cosper's sermon in question)
Jemar Tisby on the ARC of Racial Reconciliation (Awareness, Relationship, Commitment): Article, Podcast
TGC's Book Recommendations for Racial Reconciliation in the Church
Tim Keller Sermon: Hope, Race, and Power: Racial and cultural differences exist. They cannot be resolved by simply embracing broad-mindedness,but by adjusting our lives and forming deep relationships with people from whom we are different. These relationships will enable us to finally view all aspects of God's glory.
On not being an arrogant, unhelpful woke person

TOPIC: BLACK LIVES MATTER / ACTIVISM

Pass the Mic, Podcast of RAAN: Black Lives Matter
List of resources for White Christians: “It‘s not the job of the African American community to teach white people about racism, so we must intentionally and humbly lean in, listen and learn how white culture is killing black lives. Specifically, they want us to grasp our role in the visible and invisible structures that are threatening to crush them.”

TOPIC: RACISM TODAY / CURRENT STATUS QUO / GET EDUCATED

This American Life Podcast on What Integration and Segregation looks like today: Part One, Part Two
The Exhaustion of Facing Racism Everyday
Timeline of Police Brutality, 2012-2015
No Federal database analyzing police shootings or police brutality exists. This is one attempt to understand the raw data of police shootings and uncover any bias.
Ta-nehisi Coates: Are We Post-Racial?
What not to say: Real-Life examples of racial micro-aggressions
Police response after shooting a black man
This American Life Podcast on the good/bad of american law enforcement culture and what works/doesn’t work: Part One, Part Two
The White Space, by Elijah Anderson. Abstract: Since the end of the Civil Rights Movement, large numbers of black people have made their way into settings previously occupied only by whites, though their reception has been mixed. Overwhelmingly white neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, restaurants, and other public spaces remain. Blacks perceive such settings as “the white space,” which they often consider to be informally “off limits” for people like them. Meanwhile, despite the growth of an enormous black middle class, many whites assume that the natural black space is that destitute and fearsome locality so commonly featured in the public media, including popular books, music and videos, and the TV news—the iconic ghetto. White people typically avoid black space, but black people are required to navigate the white space as a condition of their existence.