Applying for a social security card for my daughter, my hand stops over the voluntary ethnicity section. I know that these categories have changed over time (the boxes used to say ‘free’ or ‘slave’ or ‘mulatto’) and reflect a global system of white supremacy. While I know this history, when I fill out forms for myself […]
While I’m writing about white supremacy in Christianity for school, I’m also caring for our baby daughter (now nearly seven months old). So as I’m reading about how we become white, I can’t help but think of how she is becoming white, even at this young age. We talk about gender in our house and […]
What color is your God? I envy my friends their relationship with rocks and rivers, ocean and trees. God for me will always wear a human face: Our Lady, blessed mother of the world, and Jesus. I’m knee-deep in a thesis for my master’s degree about racism and White Christianity. Womanist scholar Mukti Barton writes […]
I’m a coward. Tonight’s class was full of cultural appropriation, racism and silencing. I said something, but not enough, and I drove home thinking of all the things I could have said if I’d been clever, clear-witted and focused instead of angry, hurt and sad. Theatre of the Oppressed gives the audience a chance to […]
Three weeks ago I hurt my back. It has been hard to walk, to sit, to write. I stumbled around and stopped writing, and when I finally picked up my pen again, I wrote this: There are many types of offerings in the world’s religions. Some people leave cups of grain or lentils, made into […]
I had the honor of sharing coffee and conversation today with my dear friend Rev. Melissa Bennett and new friend Dr. Dapo Sobomehin. We talked for a long time. We talked about isolation and the lack of accountability, how white and brown and black people are afraid of one another, how white people think and act […]
…so why can’t I borrow yours? Yours is so cool. I’m so fascinated. I’ll give it back. I promise. Half-awake this morning I had a dream that I was speaking to a large group of women of various ages, sizes and colors. I talked about culture, identity and history. I had a U.S. History textbook […]
Last week officials at Tucson Unified School District walked into classrooms and took books away from the students. The reason? Books which promote “resentment toward a race or class of people” are not permitted. While comparisons are being made to Nazi Germany, I am thinking instead about the books they didn’t take. The ones that evidently […]
Last night in my ethics class we spent two hours talking about war, primarily American: Revolutionary, Civil, Vietnam, Iraq. I did NOT tell the class that my Opa fought for the German army in World War II. It wasn’t a story I was prepared to tell. Since I kept silent last night, now I have to tell […]
It is late at night but I am too angry to sleep. I’ve been holding this blog in my body for the past few weeks, wondering when I could filch time to write from summer bbqs, family visits, river rafting, term paper writing, poetry manuscript reading, and freelance computer work. I was catching up on […]