Pam Nath has been living and working in New Orleans for the past seven years. She works for Mennonite Central Committee Central States and is a Roots of Justice trainer. She wrote this post for distribution to various Mennonite church publications as well as ROJ. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Luke 4:18-19 “…the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs.” W.E.B. DuBois
0 Comments
Pew Research has released a new poll showing that merely 37% of White people believe that the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, raises important issues about race. (Compare to 80% of African Americans.) I know that there will always be some who “don’t see race” (supposedly), but a full two-thirds in what seems like such a clear case to me…. I’m not sure what to do with this. What is going on? Since the poll doesn’t get into the reasons why people chose their answers, I’ve been trying to imagine why so many people say that Michael Brown’s killing doesn’t “raise important issues about race.” Maybe it’s these arguments:
I came across an interesting article summarizing a study that found that “Favoritism, not hostility, causes most discrimination.” The main point of the findings is that social scientists have studied discrimination as hostility towards out-groups (negative discrimination) and have not spent much time studying the effects of favoritism towards in-groups (positive discrimination). I find this helpful in bringing to light that the driving force of oppressions is usually not hostility toward other groups, but to favoritism one’s own group – i.e. white privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, etc. A co-author of the study, University of Washington psychologist Tony Greenwald, also made this point about the good intentions of decent people: “We can produce discrimination without having any intent to discriminate or any dislike for those who end up being disadvantaged by our behavior.”
Since 2000, colonialism has been an important part of the Damascus Road Antiracism Analysis Training. Andrea Smith brings her insightful analysis in this fine piece on her Decolonization blog, “The Colonialism That is Settled and the Colonialism That Never Happened.” With a historical analysis, she points to the interconnections between settler colonialism and anti-Black racism:
Tammerie Day wrote this post reflecting on 2 workshops ROJ presented at #WildGooseFest:
"Roots of Justice (an anti-oppression training organization I have the privilege of working with) was invited to the Wild Goose Festival to offer a couple of workshops on intersectionality, an approach to understanding the way oppressions interlock and reinforce each other. Understanding intersectionality is important because it underlies unjust realities faced by people experiencing oppression on more than one front; also, coalitions can use that understanding to more realistically and effectively address the injustices and violence people face as a result of those interlocking oppressions." Read more at her site: http://ow.ly/yyXDi A lot is being written about the mass killing spree of Elliot Rodger. I though I’d just post a quick summary and link to some articles, but the more I read, the more wished articles took on a more rounded, intersectional analysis. Rodger’s complex story includes male entitlement and misogyny, internalized racism/white supremacy, heteronormativity, mental illness, and adolescent angst. Rodger’s misogyny — well-documented through his YouTube videos and manifesto — has been covered pretty well. He intended to kill women because they were women. He said as much.
Vincent Harding, one of the great Civil Rights leaders, died yesterday. Roots of Justice feels a special connection to him, since he and his wife Rosemarie we involved in some early racial justice work with Mennonite Central Committee, ROJ’s former parent organization. “You can’t start a movement,” Harding said, “but you can prepare for one.”
It’s been a good week for those who like to be incensed. Two aging white men said some very offensive and racist things on tape and the media has showered us all with righteous anger. Donald Sterling, owner of the LA Clippers pro basketball team, has been banned from pro ball and fined as much as possible by the NBA commissioner and he may lose ownership of his team. That’s all great. Seriously, I’m glad he’s paying a hefty price.
Charles Blow lays out some statistics in his opinion piece in the NYTimes today. He focuses on the increasing segregation by class and race that US neighborhoods are experiencing, like “about 40 percent of white Americans and about 25 percent of nonwhite Americans are surrounded exclusively by friends of their own race.”
|
AuthorRoots of Justice trainers and friends share reflections on historical and current events Archives
April 2024
Categories
All
|