Natalie Burris

3 years ago: the Bible story you never heard in Sunday school

From May 2011:

Timothy Beal, in The Rise and Fall of the Bible, points out the story of Phineas, found in Numbers 25.  Israel is suffering from a plague, and Moses' explanation is that God is punishing them for their inter-ethnic marriages. A priest, Phineas, discovers an inter-ethnic couple, and impales both of them on the same spear.  As a result, God then lifts the deadly plague, blesses Phineas, and promises him an everlasting priesthood.  Today, many white supremacist groups rely on this story to bolster their ideas of racial and ethnic purity.

Chapter 7 of Beal's book paints the Bible as a library, a collection, rather than one univocal book.  In fact, the Greek word for Scripture was "ta biblia," which is a plural form of book or scroll.  Due to mistranslation, a word that was supposed to signify a collection of biblical literature now represents a single, unified, authoritative text. 

Beal quotes the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who fleshed out the idea of "impoverishment by univocality."  When we force a text to be univocal, having one voice, then we miss out on its richness.  Beal writes, "To interpret with the goal of 'getting to the point' about what a text really means is an act of impoverishment" (p. 147).  Not allowing the contradictions, tensions, and ambiguities to stand is making the Bible out to be something that it isn't.

Beal highlights the polyvocality of the Bible, to avoid forcing our univocal expectations on it.  He points out many instances of contradictory stories in Scripture - too many to name here.  Many are well aware of the contradictions.  

But Beal makes an excellent point that hit home.  This polyvocality can become difficult for those of us who emphasize the Bible's message of love and nonviolence.  

The Bible has been used to both support and abolish slavery.  It has been quoted to both oppress and liberate women.  It has served as fodder for both warriors and peacemakers.  As a progressive Christian, I get very uncomfortable, especially when I read stories like the one in Numbers 25.  Beal notes:

Countering such atrocious uses of biblical literature is not so simple as calling them misrepresentations of the Bible.  We must face the fact that stories like that of Phineas are there, generating suspicion of ethnic otherness and motivating violence against others in our midst. (p. 156)

Reading the text honestly, Beal remarks, it's difficult to deny that the text is a source of both oppression and liberation from that oppression.  If I'm going to accept the God-is-love message of the Bible, I have to come to terms with all of the Bible, even the parts that I want to push away.  I can't pretend that the verses that seemingly support a white supremacy movement aren't there.  Beal explains:

When we pretend that, deep down, all the voices are really saying the same thing and ought to be able to get along, we forfeit our responsibility as inheritors of this richly, sometimes disturbingly, contradictive literature. 

I am posting my thoughts about this book as I'm reading it, so I don't yet know where Beal will go after this.  It's times like these I wish I weren't a layperson, and that I had a biblical studies and/or theology background.  However, I don't think it should take a seminary degree to work out one's faith in the face of a Bible that can be disturbing to that faith at times.  

I will be sure to share what, if anything, Beal proposes. (Ah, how I so want everything to be all figured out and presented to me in a tidy box.  I'm afraid it won't be the case here...)

Were the suburbs built by racism?

The next part of Chapter 4 of Stephanie Coontz's The Way We Never Were shows the policies behind the creation of suburbia.

The suburbs were a product of government policy and federal spending, especially in two areas: 1) constructing  the roads that would ease suburbanites' commutes to and from cities and 2) housing.

Here on the blog, I've discussed the way that automobile manufacturers took advantage of federal funds in promoting a "car culture," and even going so far as to intentionally put public transportation out of business. Coontz details the federal government's role in building interstate highways, the prime beneficiaries of which were suburbanites. Ninety-percent of the interstate highway construction was funded by the federal government.

Every taxpayer may have financed the project, but not everyone benefited. "Despite arguments that road building served 'national interests,' urban interstates were primarily 'turned into commuter roads serving suburbia'" (p. 78). Coontz continues:

Such federal patronage might be unobjectionable, even laudable-though hardly a demonstration of self-reliance-if it had been available to all Americans equally. But the other aspect of federal subsidization of suburbia is that it worsened the plight of public transportation, the inner cities, poor families in general, and minority ones in particular.

(p. 78).

Housing policy, which was itself closely tied to the policies behind highway construction, was also inherently inequitable:

Federal loan policies systematized and nationalized the pervasive but informal racism that had previously characterized the housing market. FHA redlining practices, for example, took entire urban areas and declared them ineligible for loans. Government policy also shifted resources from urban areas into suburban construction and expansion. At the same time, postwar "urban renewal" and highway construction reduced the housing stock for urban workers.

(p. 78). The way in which transportation was set up automatically disadvantaged urban areas. Coontz argues that "government transportation policy systematically fostered improvements in private rather than public conveyances, favoring suburban development over the revitalization of urban life" (p. 79). 

I appreciated Coontz's discussion of the policies behind the creation of suburbia. I often hear white suburbanites claim that they personally are not racist or that racism simply doesn't exist anymore. These beliefs are an oversimplification of the structural, systematic nature of racism. Two or three generations of white suburban families have benefited from particular government policies, policies that systematically advantaged white, middle- and upper-class populations and disadvantaged poorer communities of color. These seemingly invisible advantages don't come into play when a white middle-class person considers racism. 

Selected quotes from Americanah

I learned more about environmentalism from Barbara Kingsolver's novels, and about misogyny and the ethics of scientific developments from Margaret Atwood, than I did from any textbook or lecture. I can add Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's latest novel, Americanah, as another brilliant, instructive work of fiction, this time with regard to race.

Adichie incisively critiques, among many other things, U.S. American culture. She does not leave liberals or progessives out of her critique. Adichie's deft criticisms take the form of a love story between two Nigerian immigrants, one of which  came to the U.S., while the other chose Great Britian. Ifemelu, who chose the U.S., began a blog about race, sharing her experience as a "Non-American black." In her hometown of Lagos, Nigeria, Ifemelu never considered herself "black;" rather, she became black when she moved to the U.S. Snippets of her blog posts are interspersed throughout the novel.

Adichie's work helped me realize that the struggle to end racism and to confront white privilege and white supremecy is quite frankly not about "me" or "my feelings" as a privileged white U.S. American. Here are some lines I wanted to share:

"Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it."

"Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black."

[Said to a white U.S. American:] "Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice."

"To have money, it seemed, was to be consumed by money."

"If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion."

"In America, racism exists but racists are all gone. Racists belong to the past. Racists are the thin-lipped mean white people in the movies about the civil rights era. Here’s the thing: the manifestation of racism has changed but the language has not. So if you haven’t lynched somebody then you can’t be called a racist. If you’re not a bloodsucking monster, then you can’t be called a racist. Somebody has to be able to say that racists are not monsters."

"[S]ome are lucky to have that white friend who you don’t need to explain sh*t to. By all means, put this friend to work. Such friends not only get it, but also have great bullsh*t-detectors and so they totally understand that they can say stuff that you can’t. So there is, in much of America, a stealthy little notion lying in the hearts of many: that white people earned their place at jobs and schools while black people got in because they were black. But in fact, since the beginning of America, white people have been getting jobs because they were white. Many whites with the same qualifications but Negro skin would not have the jobs they have. But don’t ever say this publicly. Let your white friend say it. If you make the mistake of saying this, you will be accused of a curiosity called 'playing the race card.' Nobody quite knows what this means."

"In America, you don’t get to decide what race you are. It is decided for you."

For more from Adichie, check out her Tedx talk: We Should All Be Feminists.

The "traditional" 1950's family was exclusively a white family

The next section of Chapter 2 of The Way We Never Were is titled, "A Complex Reality: 1950's Poverty, Diversity, and Social Change." Coontz's point during this section is that only white, middle-class U.S. Americans had the privilege of participating in the "traditional" family for which many are nostalgic today.

Coontz cautions against the 1950's as the "good old days": "The reality of these families was far more painful and complex than the situation-comedy reruns or the expurgated memories of the nostalgic would suggest" (p. 29). The increase in the quality of life during this time was directly related to consumer expansion, which itself was only possible for those with economic means to purchase appliances, vacuum cleaners, and ranch homes. Coontz notes that "[a] full 25 percent of Americans, forty to fifty million people, were poor in the mid-1950's, and in the absence of food stamps and housing programs, this poverty was searing" (p. 29). FDR began the "Aid to Dependent Children" program in 1935, so I don't agree with Coontz's statement that there was no social safety net at this time.

Not only is searing poverty overlooked today, but also the overwhelming whiteness of the notion of the 1950's "traditional" family:

[C]ontrary to the all-white lineup on the television networks and the streets of suburbia, the 1950s saw a major transformation in the ethnic composition of America. More Mexican immigrants entered the United States in the two decades after the Second World War than in the entire previous one hundred years. Prior to the war, most blacks and Mexican-Americans lived in rural areas, and three-fourths of blacks lived in the South. By 1960, a majority of blacks resided in the North, and 80 percent of both blacks and Mexican-Americans lived in cities. Postwar Puerto Rican immigration was so massive that by 1960 more Puerto Ricans lived in New York than in San Juan. These minorities were almost entirely excluded from the gains and privileges accorded white middle-class families. 

(p. 29).

Racism kept black families from making the same moves as white families, namely the quintessential move from the city to the suburbs:

When Harvey Clark tried to move into Cicero, Illinois, in 1951, a mob of 4,000 whites spent four days tearing his apartment apart while police stood by and joked with them. In 1953, the first black family moved into Chicago's Trumbull Park public housing project; neighbors "hurled stones and tomatoes" and trashed stores that sold groceries to the new residents. In Detroit, Life magazine reported in 1957, "10,000 Negroes work at the Ford plant in nearby Dearborn, [but] not one Negro can live in Dearborn itself."

(p. 30).

Coontz makes it clear that the romanticized version of the family was based on exclusion. This chapter, especially as it pertains to race, strengthens my thesis in my Critical Race Theory class in law school that the notion of "family values" is a raced idea, from which people of color have been prohibited since slavery.

The raced image of family values prevails today: an ideal "traditional" family consists of a white stay-at-home mother and white working father with 2.5 children, who resides in the suburbs. This family has the economic means to do so, and has never been systematically prevented from moving into the tidy ranch home of their choice. It's troubling when what is viewed as a morally superior way of life has been systematically held from people of color and from all people who lack the economic means.

Selected quotes from The Good Lord Bird

I wanted to share a few quotes from James McBride's recent novel, The Good Lord Bird, which won the National Book Award last year. This was a long book and the language is crude, but McBride brilliantly shows how many of the white supremacist ideas in the antebellum U.S. are still around today. The novel is narrated from the point of view of a preteen African-American boy who somewhat involuntarily joins abolitionist John Brown during the years leading up to the Harpers Ferry raid. Below are the quotes that stuck out to me:

"Like most things in life, you don't know nothing till you want to know it, and don't see what you don't want to see."

"He was like everybody in war. He believed God was on his side. Everybody got God on their side in a war. Problem is, God ain’t tellin’ nobody who He’s for."

"Some things in this world just ain't meant to be, not in the times we want 'em to, and the heart has to hold it in this world as a remembrance, a promise for the world that's to come. There's a prize at the end of all of it, but still, that's a heavy load to bear."

"Whatever he believed, he believed. It didn’t matter to him whether it was really true or not. He just changed the truth till it fit him. He was a real white man."

"Truth is, lying come natural to all Negroes during slave time, for no man or woman in bondage ever prospered stating their true thoughts to the boss. Much of colored life was an act, and the Negroes that sawed wood and said nothing lived the longest."

"Being a Negro’s a lie, anyway. Nobody sees the real you. Nobody knows who you are inside. You just judged on what you are on the outside whatever your color. Mulatto, colored, black, it don’t matter. You just a Negro to the world."

 

The book reminded me of Oh Brother Where Art Thou, and had its fair share of humor:

"--Tell me. Which books in the Bible do you favor?"
"--Oh, I favors 'em all," Pa said. "But I mostly like Hezekiel, Ahab, Trotter, and Pontiff the Emperor."

McBride's work of historical fiction is a wild ride. It prompted me to check out his memoir, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother from the library. I expect I'll blog about it as it promises to touch on race and religion.

Race, suburbia, and the missional movement

I guest posted over at Zach Hoag's blog as part of his series on the missional church. I critique the whiteness of the North American missional movement, as well as its historical amnesia. Black churches were missional long before Lesslie Newbigin published his first work. Check out my article here. There are some really great guest posts over there, so be sure to check them all out!

This is never neutral

"When I first started appearing before a judge, I kept being reprimanded from the bench. I was losing my cases and I couldn't understand why. Then I realized the following: when some floppy-haired chap from Surrey stands before these judges, all his passionate arguments read as 'pure advocacy.' He and the Judge recognize reach other. They are understood by each other. Very likely went to the same school. But Whaley's passion, or mine, or yours, reads as 'aggression.' To the judge. This is his house and you are an interloper within it. And let me tell you, with a woman it's worse: 'Aggressive hysteria.' The first lesson is: turn yourself down. One notch. Two. Because this is not neutral" She passed a hand over her neat frame from her head to her lap, like a scanner. "This is never neutral."

--a veteran black woman attorney giving advice to a black woman in law school, from Zadie Smith's novel NW.

Systems, privilege, and the "Top 200 Church Blogs" list

The Church Relevance blog recently compiled a list of the "Top 200 Church Blogs," which raised concerns over the overwhelmingly white, straight, and male nature of the list. The mechanics behind the creation of the rankings are a great illustration of systems and privilege. 

Critical race theory does an excellent job of exposing racism in social systems and groups. This field's most basic tenet is that race is an integral part of social organizations, and racism is an  institutionalized, ingrained feature of social systems. Critical race theory holds that everyone in a social system furthers that system through social practices, reproducing the power and prestige of the system. Those with the most power and prestige are the most privileged, which means they have the most advantage over others, even if this advantage was passed down through generations. (For more on privilege, check out Dianna Anderson's great series, starting here.)

Systems (including religious, legal, and academic systems--and even the blogosphere) tend to be affected by inertia. Most systems, by their very design, are resistant to changes to their usual state. This means it is exceedingly difficult to push against the norms inside the system. The system itself does the work for the privileged individual.

With discrimination, for example, an institution can be raced and gendered in ways in which the institution appears to be race- and gender-neutral, but in reality is dominated almost exclusively by white men or other groups who enjoy privilege. The system works in such a way that the institution discriminates on behalf of its individual members against women, LGBTQ people, and people of color, while favoring white, straight men. The individuals themselves do not have to be racist or sexist in order to perpetuate inequality. In fact, most participants in a system would vehemently deny that they intend to focus exclusively on white, straight men. They are nice people for crying out loud!

For instance, when Kent Shaffer at Church Relevance describes his efforts to compile a list of "top 200 church blogs," he points to seemingly objective measures, such as Alexa Rank and Google Page Rank. While Shaffer acknowledges that his criteria are flawed and subjective, the mechanics behind creating the list reveal that those who have power and prestige will continue to have power and prestige. The "system" reinforces, reproduces, and perpetuates itself, the "system" here being networking and influence of white, straight, Christian men. Claiming to look at the blog-world in a purportedly "neutral" way, using traffic and subscription numbers, masks the fact that one group of people holds the most power and prestige in Christian blogging. One does not have to be a blatant racist, sexist, or homophobe to create a list consisting almost exclusively of white, straight, Christian men - the system works it out for you.

To fight this inertia, I hope one realization that results from rankings like these is that people with the most power and prestige must make a conscious effort to ensure that the voices of women, LGBTQ people, and people of color are heard. If you are a white, straight, Christian man, please take a look at the blogs you read and the people you follow on Twitter. Do they look like you? Take a look at the books you read on theology and ministry. Do their authors look like you? If so, would you be willing to join with me and fight the inertia?

Photo source

Privilege and silence of white "beyond evangelicals"

Encouraging things are happening within U.S. evangelicalism.  No longer solely aligned with Religious Right politicians, six-day creationists, anti-gay movements, and other conservative-leaning groups, many evangelicals are questioning the status quo.  We're concerned about the environment and poverty, and have moved away from a premilennial dispensationalism that disregards the now.  Rather than dish out condemnation, we've learned to be more willing to extend grace.  

Various labels describe these movements: emergent, missional, progressive.  Frank Viola chose the name "beyond evangelical."  I'm conflating several different strains here, but the general direction has been away from the evangelicalism that emerged in opposition to modernism.

While these developments are encouraging, I've noticed most progressive evangelicals are no different from their predecessors when it comes to race.  The heavy-hitters in these movements are white, and the privilege that comes with being white remains even in the new evangelical streams.

Efrem Smith often points this out, and I've shared how evangelicalism's growth was spurred by corresponding growth of white suburbia and its racist underpinnings.  If you follow Anthony Bradley on Twitter, he also provides great critiques of evangelicalism's whiteness, and Lisa Sharon Harper discusses the black-white divide here.

What most determines what progressive evangelicals believe or what they feel worth promoting is not their faith.  The dividing line is actually race.  

A great illustration of this color line is the death penalty.  Attorneys have meticulously researched the psychology behind jury selection.  Researchers have found that "similar religious beliefs can lead to completely opposite policy preferences among respondents of different racial backgrounds." Black evangelicals are more inclined to oppose the death penalty than white evangelicals, who are more likely to support it.¹ 

Although it's fair to say that most of these new kinds of white evangelicals have reconsidered their stance on the death penalty, to have a more consistent pro-life ethic, another illustration of the color line between white evangelicals, including the more progessive ones, and Christians of color is happening right now.  

Natalie Burris ‏ @natalieburris

Such a color line in my timeline re: Trayvon Martin. Who do you think is tweeting about his murder, who do you think has made barely a peep?

Yes, Twitter is anecdotal and unscientific.  But the radio silence from white evangelicals - even the more progressive ones - is disappointing.  White evangelicals yield a lot of influence, politically, economically, and in the media, enjoying massive amounts of privilege.  Invisible Children's recent "Kony 2012" campaign demonstrated that earnest, well-meaning, young evangelicals are capable of spurring world leaders to action and causing 100 million hits on a YouTube video.

 

But when the uproar over the murder of a black child, Trayvon Martin, goes viral, most white evangelicals are silent.  Despite adhering to a religion that came from the margins, many white evangelicals' privilege keeps them silent.  White evangelicals are oblivious to the invisible knapsack of privilege they carry around.  Most don't have to worry if their children will be shot when returning from the corner store.  Most don't even have to think about race itself.

Whiteness is neutral, the air they breathe.  White evangelicals can remain oblivious to the injustices that people of color face in the U.S.

Sadly, their whiteness, rather than their faith, is what informs their thinking.  Here's another take on the color line:

Blacks [...] support the death penalty less than any other major social group (about fifty-eight percent in the 1998 election survey), largely because they are keenly aware of the way in which capital sentencing values the lives of black victims and offenders less than those of their white counterparts.  More white conservative Christians would be likely to appreciate this flaw at the heart of the system if they interacted more with their black brothers and sisters. 

[...]

[M]any black leaders are skeptical of [white evangelicals' efforts to add black members to their churches]. In their view, such contacts have gone on for years, are largely symbolic, and have not increased white suburban evangelicals' concern about the situation of racial minorities or the needs of the inner cities.  Black leaders remark that whites want to form individual friendships with blacks, but that they balk at confronting social and political issues such as inequality in the economy and racism in the criminal justice system.²

Trayvon Martin's murder is a major issue in the African-American community.  It must hurt deeply to see a group as influential as white evangelicals not take initiative to spread the word, despite taking very energetic initiative recently to "make Kony famous."

White "beyond evangelicals:" if you haven't tweeted, blogged, signed a petition, or otherwise promoted the unjust circumstances surrounding Trayvon Martin's murder, I'm interested to know why.  As you can tell from the absence here on my blog, I've been busy, so I understand many simply don't have time to react to every current event.  But many are online all day, and many have smartphones.  

I also have a broader question: do you know any people of color?  If not, why not?  Do you actively make efforts to read or listen to perspectives from Christians of color?  If not, why not?

I'm curious about the general silence from my fellow white Christians with regard to Trayvon Martin. This silence should give us pause.  Let's examine whether our whiteness is the most important factor in our lives, rather than our faith in a subversive Christ.  And to white evangelicals who push against the status quo: let's keep pushing.

____________________

¹ Melynda J. Price, Performing Discretion or Performing Discrimination: Race, Ritual, and Peremptory Challenges in Capital Jury Selection. 15 Mich. J. Race & L. 57, 87-8 (Fall 2009).

² Thomas C. Berg, Religious Conservative and the Death Penalty. 9 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 31, 58 (2000).

Wheaton problems, evangelical problems

It wasn't until my senior year at Wheaton, in 2005, that my friends and I signed up for Facebook.  "Status updates" weren't yet an option.  Twitter wasn't even launched until after I graduated from Wheaton.  This means that my peers and I didn't have an instant social media forum to share our opinions.

Even in our oh-so-ancient pre-Twitter era, we still found a way to communicate, converse, and share opinions on campus, but I bet the advent of smartphones and easily-accessible social media has dramatically changed how information flows in such a tight-knit community.  One such change is students tweeting during chapel services, using the #chapeltweets hashtag.

Each February, usually in honor of black history month, Wheaton has a chapel dubbed "Rhythm and Praise," in which students (of all backgrounds, but the majority are black) lead a "gospel-style" worship service.  Keep in mind that the college is overwhelmingly white, with very few students of color.  Last Friday, some white students sent out a series of racially insensitive and derisive tweets during this particular chapel.  Noah Toly, an urban studies professor and director of the Urban Studies Program, summarized the tweets here.

My heart is heavy for the students who led worship that day.  I can't imagine how painful it must be to know that your fellow Christians take your worship style lightly, or wish for a return to business-as-usual. 

As I'm no longer on campus, I don't want to portray the events incorrectly.  However, I did want to comment on many white students' and alumni's responses I've seen online.  What may seem like an isolated incident at a Christian college reveals, to me, a bigger issue within white evangelicalism as a whole.  One white professor thinks we should be quiet about the incident, because "talking it out" sometimes piles on to the hurt.  One presumably white alum sees nothing wrong with stating a preference toward "traditional" worship styles.

White evangelicals have a complicated, uncomfortable history with our black neighbors, and we don't come to a historically-neutral table.  Christian Smith has asked believers to "stop excluding, dismissing, discounting, and ignoring other Christians" who don't belong to their own "in-group."  Speaking of in-groups, many white evangelicals have created an "insider" culture, with our own unwritten grammar of conduct and nuances of cultural idiom.  

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a preference for a European or white U.S. American style of worship.  But when we white evangelicals convince ourselves that our worship services, music, preaching style, and other aspects of church life are simply "neutral" or "traditional," we effectively shut out Christians of color, even if excluding others is not our intent.  When Christians of color point out how hurtful it can be to "joke around" about a particular worship style--even when the comment was made with no harm intended--a defensive response only makes the wound grow deeper.  

Anthropology professor Brian Howell, who was extremely influential during my own time at Wheaton, explains that a seemingly neutral statement or preference can still perpetuate hurtful racism, even if the person who makes such a statement or has such a preference isn't a racist:

When someone listens to gospel music and declares it "disorganized," (true example from #chapeltweets), he may just be intending to say that he doesn't know where to look; there's a lot going on; he is confused. At the level of intention and reference, nothing racial there. But indexically there are some layers here. Mind you, the performance in question did not involve people forgetting the lyrics, bumping into each other, or not knowing who should step up to the mic. At that level it was orderly. But it was more complex than some other (European based) forms of music. To call it "disorderly" is to make a comparison. To what? To "orderly" worship. To "normal" worship. To "white" worship. 

On a broader scale, I wonder what white evangelicals could learn from this teachable moment.  Perhaps we could realize that worship styles and church services are not race-neutral.  Worship and the theology that underlies it are rooted in a specific context, which includes race.  White evangelicals may not think our views about church or worship have a racial influence. We instead consider them race-neutral.  Only allowing space or only legitimizing white, suburban, middle-class preferences, then, can speak volumes. 

When it comes to worship, one of the most vulnerable times in the practice of one's faith, perhaps we should unpack our preferences and question our assumptions, as Dr. Howell mentioned.  What seems completely natural to one group of believers may have a different meaning for another.  At the foot of the cross, why would we make value judgments or insist that one's preferences are somehow neutral?