Posts Tagged ‘racial healing’
Eating with White Folks
WHITE BREAD, BROWN BREAD
I haven’t eaten with white folks in years and I’m getting a little concerned. I eat with black folks every day. They’re my family so I have no other choice. If I didn’t eat with my husband and kids I think they’d get a little concerned about me.
But from around 1995 to [...]
Closer to the Truth?
My family moved to Greensboro, North Carolina in the winter of 2003. My time was divided between being a mom to two young children, a kindergartner and an infant, and getting a small at-home Web design business off the ground.
In my spare mements, I was writing my second novel. To say the least I was [...]
Are You Ready to Reconcile?
I’m saddened each time I hear a church group say something like this: “We tried a racial reconciliation program and it didn’t work, so we just stopped it.”
To those in this predicament, I offer the list below.
You are not ready to reconcile …
if you seek to build a racial reconciliation “program”.
if you have [...]
Unity is a Game
High schools in Montgomery, Alabama have been doing something different for the past five years.
They’ve been playing basketball. For unity.
It’s called the Unity Games. Here’s an excerpt from a news report on this year’s game (held in March 2009).
The Unity Games consist of two basketball games (male and female) comprised of high school seniors. This [...]
Conversation on Race
Yesterday I happened to tune into ‘Talk of the Nation’ on NPR and found “Talk of the World” instead.
The topic: How Does Your Country Talk About Race?
Obama’s election has without a doubt changed the conversation of race in our country, but it has also changed the talk beyond U.S. borders. The program was eye-opening in [...]
When is a Monkey Not a Monkey
Note to all the men and women working in newsrooms, board rooms, back rooms of the American institutions:
In America, a monkey is not always a monkey.
A couple recent examples: Monkey cartoon and Lebron James on Vogue
And my own brush with the M word in the workplace.
Many would say America is ‘post-racial.’ Meaning ‘past race.’ [...]
Monkey Monkey Monkey
This blog article was written in late May 2006.
The person that coined the phrase ’sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’ was probably never publicly called a monkey.
I was a grown woman, working in the public sector as an environmental engineer, the first time I was called one. Thankfully, [...]
Knowledge
Knowledge: familiarity, learning, awareness
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
The other day I heard someone say that they had encountered Christians that had no clue that there was such a thing as ‘Christian’ fiction. These believing people, though avid readers, had no knowledge about something that been growing since the mid 70s in the U.S., in fact, thriving of [...]
Jesus
Jesus: Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, Christ, Savior, Good Shepherd, Redeemer, Deliverer (a teacher and prophet born in Bethlehem and active in Nazareth; his life and sermons form the basis for Christianity, circa 4 BC – AD 29), as adapted from wordnetweb
John 1:29
When I was a new Christian, I read the passage above for the [...]
Interdependence
Interdependence: being mutually responsible to and sharing a common set of principles with others.
1 John 3:16
I now have proof that I was dropped on the head as a baby. My mom may never confess but she doesn’t have to, I know the deal. I was dropped.
That’s the only way I can explain my reaction when [...]
Healing
Healing: tending to cure or restoring to health
The person who made up the ’sticks and stones’ axiom never had someone call them a monkey or a jiggabo or chink or a greaser. I could go on but you get the point.
Racial epithets are harmful not just because they hurt feelings but because they cause a [...]
Forgiveness
Forgiveness: the process of no longer feeling resentment or anger over an offense or mistake, and not demanding restitution, punishment, or repayment.
“Just do it.”
1 Samuel 15:25
Matthew 5:23-24
The other day I was talking to my children about the need for breaking bad habits like talking too much during class and using potty talk. Puzzled, my 6 [...]
Equality
Equality: being of the same value or status
2 Corinthians 8:13-15
“Talents, ideas, abundance left unused will disappear like left-behind manna.”
What does seeking equality mean for you? In the Bible passage it means to seek out fairness. Is it just limited to economic fairness? I think it’s more than that. It points to a higher level of [...]
Discrimination
Discrimination: the unfair treatment of a person or group of people based on a prejudgment; to recognize or perceive a difference.
Discrimination involves perception and judgment. Perception and judgment, by themselves, are good things. When hiring a person, a employer looks for good judgment in a candidate for hire. When picking a life partner, a single [...]
Comfort
Comfort: the state of being at ease, at rest, relaxed, feeling no pain.
“Go and be reconciled to your brother.”
Matthew 5:24
Let’s face it, racial reconciliation is not at all comfortable. There’s nothing easy or relaxing about it. And there is certainly no guaranteed pain-free path to John 17 oneness.
According to Dr. John Perkins, internationally known civil [...]
Change
Change: (verb) to make something different or cause a transformation; (noun) to lay aside or abandon, to become something else.
Micah 4:3.
It would seem that 2008 was the year of change. Americans saw things happen on political and economic fronts that we’ve never seen before. The world has changed. Forever.
But what of the church in racial [...]
Assimilation
Assimilation: the act of absorbing another, more dominant, culture by abandoning your own.
A few days ago, I received this comment on one of my blogs:
“… where I live I am the minority. By a long shot. And I hadn’t seriously contemplated its implications in my life until just a short while ago. Ever since moving [...]
Top 10 on 17Seeds
So here it is. My “top 10″ for 2008. Actually they’re in no particular order. I’d love to hear about your favorite.
Little Bill: Reconciler
An Interracial Marriage
How Black is Racial Reconciliation?
A Confession
Racism on Exhibit
Moving to Utopia
So What You’re Saying is …
Conquer Racism?
Blind, Tired, and Angry
The Pearl Bailey I Never Knew
It has definitely been a good and [...]
Are You O.N.E.?
Are you …
On the front lines, working toward racial reconciliation and social justice?
Not afraid to speak out against prejudice and racism in your workplace, family, or church?
Embracing other Christians in intentional and affirming ways regardless of color, culture, denomination, or social standing?
If you are O.N.E., I’d like to hear about it. Is your Sunday school [...]
“Skin Again”
Adapted from urbanministry.org
Celebrating all that makes us unique and different, [bell hooks's] Skin Again offers new ways to talk about race and identity. Race matters, but only so much-what’s most important is who we are on the inside. Looking beyond skin, going straight to the heart, we find in each other the treasures stored [...]
“Free to Be Bound”
************* From urbanministry.org *******************
Its a fact: We live in a divided world. Christians have become so immune to the division that we dont notice it infecting the church. But were compelled to live with a worldview that brings unity instead of division. Rediscover the power of faith as one believer crosses the color lines. Jonathan [...]
“Why are all the Black Kids …”
************* From urbanministry.org ***************
Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see black youth seated together in the cafeteria. Of course, it’s not just the black kids sitting together-the white, Latino, Asian Pacific, and, in some regions, American Indian youth are clustered in their own groups, too. The same phenomenon can be observed [...]
“The New Conspirators”
************* From Urbanministry.org ******************
Tom Sine is the emerging church’s answer to Thomas Friedman, realistic yet hopeful for the future of the world and God’s people.
The New Conspirators unhesitatingly portrays how globalization threatens the integrity of ancient cultures, the economic well-being of the most vulnerable, the ecological balance of the world, and the values of Biblical [...]
“My First White Friend”
************** From urbanministry.org *********************
Newspaper columnist, writer and NPR commentator Patricia Raybon admits that she hated whites for years. She even tried unsuccessfully to whip up a similar rage in her parents. But anger got her nowhere. Eventually, in the philosophies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, she found an alternative: forgiveness. The first [...]
“Passing By Samaria”
****** REVIEWED ON URBANMINISTRY.ORG *******
When the discovery of a schoolmate’s lynched body puts her own life in jeopardy, Alena is sent by her parents from her beloved Mississippi home. With thousands of other African-Americans, Alena begins making her way north to the Promised Land of turn-of-the-century Chicago. On the way she meets two men who [...]
