Monday, January 16, 2017

The Privilege Primer: Woke 101

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


TOPIC: RECONCILIATION

TOPIC: BLACK LIVES MATTER / ACTIVISM

TOPIC: RACISM TODAY / CURRENT STATUS QUO / GET EDUCATED

TOPIC: HISTORY


TOPIC: THE CHRISTIAN RESPONSE / CARING FOR MINORITIES



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Louisville, KY, United States
Believer of God. Follower of Christ. Wife of Casey. Violinist, Singer, Guitarist. Unequal parts feeler and thinker, but striving for balance. Enneagram 8, 4, 7, 3.

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