Tag: white privilege

Black Transgender Lives Matter

by Hailey Lyons

Every day, our black trans siblings deal with the intersection of white supremacy and transphobia. Every day they risk misgendering, violence, and murder simply by living as themselves. They are targeted for hate crimes and are the targets of racist and transphobic jokes from construction sites to comfortable CEO offices. Our president propagates white supremacy. Our supposed democratic republic sets up barriers to the recognition of trans people and institutes policies to further the exploitation of people of color. Our prison system profits from the mass incarceration of black people.

We in the UCC need to be uncomfortable. We need to challenge white supremacy in our own spaces just as much as we fight the system. We need to recognize our complicity in and benefit from the systems of whiteness. The UCC has done and continues to do much of that work, but we need to go further than consciousness-raising and discomfort. We must destroy white privilege. We must tear asunder the structures in place that affirm whiteness. We must reconsider our beloved traditions that keep many of our congregations in a bygone era rooted in whiteness.

Black trans activists started the LGBT equality movement in America, and it is precisely their voices that are being erased in current movements toward LGBT equality and recognition. Being Open and Affirming is not enough, we need to aggressively model celebration of the trans community in our congregations and in public. Too often the Open and Affirming creed is simply an open door that trans people walk through and realize that our congregations are just another heteronormative, cisgender-dominated space.

When Jesus stormed the temple grounds, upending tables and tossing out people and animals alike, he called out the temple for becoming a house of commodities. Rather than a holy place, the temple commodified the acts of worship into a system of profit condoned by the so-called priests of God. Jesus violently cleansed the temple of its commodification, disrupting an economy benefiting those in power and exploiting the people. The first Isaiah delivered a stinging rebuke on the stench of the multitude of burnt offerings given to God because they are rooted in the commodification of worship itself. He attacked the very system set up to atone for the sins of Israel because it was a morally empty venture intent on appeasing God by adhering to tradition without passion. Rather, the Israelites should, “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow,”.

The churches of my Evangelical upbringing denied the existence of racism, denied the existence of those who weren’t cisgender. Even as they brought in diverse people, the theological message never strayed from white supremacy. The worship style changed, and the music became more upbeat and ‘contemporary’ – which was just a few thousand rip-offs of whatever U2 was producing – but the theology itself was morally bankrupt, leading them to commodify both the acts of worship and worship itself.

It is a privilege to be in the UCC where our theology acknowledges the sin of white supremacy and actively works to dismantle systemic racism. But don’t stop there. Let us carry forward the work into our liturgies, our polity, and our acts of worship. Let us dismantle the systems of whiteness still present in our congregations and hierarchies. For all lives to matter, black trans lives must also matter, and that means confronting our ideologies of white supremacy and transphobia, challenging those legacies wherever we see them, especially in our congregations.

What Will the Church DO About the Lynchings?

“You can lynch a people by more than just hanging them on a tree. How long will this terror last?!” Dr. James Cone, 2013, Vanderbilt University

Dear white Christians,

Every Black life matters. That is not a cliché, hashtag, or a movement moniker. That is a Divinely pronounced, immutable, moral truth. Despite this Truth, three black people – Ahmad Aubrey in Georgia, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, George Floyd in Minnesota – three children of God, three of our human siblings, three of our neighbors, three beloved family members – were lynched in America in as many months. Each of their lives mattered. And God is inviting us to remember the Divine Words in Genesis. “What have you done?! Listen! your brothers’ and sister’s blood cries out to me from the land.” (Gen. 4:10)

To say that the murders of Ahmad Aubrey, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, happened because they were Black is to blame the victims. Mr. Aubrey, Ms. Taylor, and Mr. Floyd were lynched because their killers were racists. The initial non-response to Mr. Aubrey’s murder happened because the prosecutors’ decisions were rooted in racism. Bystanders realized the police were killing Mr. Floyd and begged the officers to stop using lethal force; officers refused because they were racists. When I ask prayerfully, “Would what happened to Ahmad Aubrey, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd have been different if these beloved children of God had been white?” the answer is, “Yes!” But their Blackness was not to blame. Their deaths are the fruit of white privilege left unchallenged, racism gone viral, and white supremacy running rampant and glorified on our airwaves and in our streets. Racist white people are to blame. Racist white people lynched them! “What have you done?! Listen! your brothers’ and sisters’ blood cries out to me from the land.”

The assault against Black bodies on our streets is personal. It was personal for Ahmad Aubrey and his family. It was personal for Breonna Taylor and her family. It was personal for George Floyd and his family. What has happened to them and to their families is personal for everyone in America who is not white. I want to say something to the Church without becoming too personal for me or for you. But that is not possible.

Dismantling racism is personal work. Racism will only be dismantled when each of us personally dismantles our own racism. An honest moral inventory of myself specifically and of white people generally tells me that white people do not interact with Black people the same way they interact with white people. White people feel a different set of feelings when we interact with Black people than we feel when we interact with white people. White culture believes and perpetuates stereotypes and untruths about Black culture in order to sustain our white privilege. That is why just this week a Central Park dog-walker, Amy Cooper, who is white, called the police and reported her life was being threatened when a birdwatcher, Christian Cooper, who is Black, asked her to comply with posted rules and put her dog on a leash. Sometimes we don’t realize what we are doing and that is the crux of the problem. Sometimes we do.

My integrity compels me to admit that I am a racist. I was taught racial biases, not always tacitly. I have willingly learned and practiced these patterns of behavior because that is what white people expect of other white people, and because ‘our systems’ reward racism. My whiteness has become unmanageable in that I am addicted to my privilege. I do not want to be a racist. Yet, I commit racism every time I interact with or feel or believe differently about someone who is not white, or when I act to preserve my privilege. While I am working to be more aware of and to overcome my privilege and my racism, that does not mean I am not racist. That means when I succeed, I am a racist in recovery. Until white people confess and change what is happening inside of ourselves, Black people will continue to bear our sins in their bodies. “What have you done?! Listen! your brothers’ and sisters’ blood cries out to me from the land.”

Let us agree to make no more assumptions that because we are progressive Christians, we are not racists. Let us put as much work into dismantling our own individual racism as we have put into our collective statements of solidarity with communities of color, protests, expressions of outrage, and social media posts. Let us agree as clergy and lay leaders, members together of the Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ, we will intentionally and overtly act to dismantle racism in all of our ministry settings and in the systems in which we live socially, economically, legally, and politically. Let us agree to educate ourselves about Black history, read books by Black authors, quote Black teachers and theologians, and elect Black leaders. Let us agree to call out racism from our pulpits and in our pulpits, from our seats and in our seats at board and committee meetings, our private conversations, our decision making, our interpretation of Scripture, our classes and workshops. Let us agree to give one another permission to hold each other accountable when we miss the opportunity to hold ourselves accountable for racist and privileged behavior.

The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:6-7) What world becomes possible when we, white Christians, live into that kind of covenant with one another? I hope a world without lynchings, where no person dies because of the color of their skin, a world from which “the blood of our neighbors” no longer cries out against us, a just world for all.

Rev. Dr. William M. Lyons, Conference Minister
Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ

Adventures in Privilege

by Karen Richter

Shadow Rock begins the first section of the UCC’s White Privilege: Let’s Talk curriculum (Part 1 – Spiritual Autobiography Told Through the Lens of Race) next Sunday.

I’m excited. I’m anxious.

I’m excited because being a witness (on my best days, a catalyst) to people’s spiritual growth and maturation is my calling. This curriculum, used wisely and gently, is a formative experience. It’s easy to cast aspersions on this kind of topic… can you imagine someone – maybe you – saying, “well, that’s just politics,” in a dismissive tone? The women’s movement is known for equating the personal and the political. I’d like to make an argument equating the political and the spiritual. It’s all part of life.

I’m anxious because I know what I experienced when reading this material. Since September, I’ve studied the Spiritual Autobiography Told Through the Lens of Race section, reading deeply about 3 times. And as I read, I remembered.

  • the black friends I knew and loved, even though we never attended the same birthday parties or church services, never visited one another’s homes
  • the awkwardness in high school homeroom when the teacher suggested that the black students nominate a black girl for the homecoming court
  • the shock I felt in college when I had my first honest conversation about race with black and white friends late at night in the dormitory
  • the realization, too little too late, that I have been in work environments with differing expectations, standards, and assumptions for colleagues based on race
  • the embarrassment I felt recently when a salesperson ignored store policy for my convenience because I’m white.

I remembered. I felt things. Sometimes as I engaged with the curriculum and the personal histories of the authors, I felt gratitude, appreciation, impatience for the world to be better. And yes, sometimes I felt guilty.

You see, the curriculum doesn’t have a goal to “make” anyone feel guilt or shame. BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU WON’T. Guilt can be a healthy reaction when we realize a mismatch between our actions, inactions or complicity and our deeply held values.

I am white. I can’t help that. I don’t feel guilty about being white.

I am white. I am responsible for what I do with my whiteness.

What does it mean to take responsibility for my own privilege? Over the next few weeks at Shadow Rock, we’re going to be leaning into that question. I’m excited. I’m anxious. Pray for us, friends… for our churches, our communities, our nation.

A White Boy and His Toys

by Tyler Connoley

When I was fourteen, I got my first computer — an Apple IIe. Actually, it was my family’s computer, and my dad used it pretty much all day doing his work. However, at night, I was allowed to play on the computer. I remember one time when I stayed up all night writing a simple program in BASIC. The next day, I proudly showed off what the computer could do, as it went through it’s paces of answering questions based on the users “Yes” or “No” inputs. I thought about that Apple IIe this week when I heard the story of Ahmed Mohamed’s arrest for building a clock and bringing it to school.

You see, when I was a geeky teenager, no one thought anything of it. Kids like me — white boys — were allowed to be geeks, and were allowed to dream of building robots like R. Daneel Olivaw, who captured my imagination when I was sixteen. My parents joked with their friends about my silly BASIC program, and everyone thought it was funny and cute and a sign of great things to come. I was on my way to becoming the smart, successful man I was expected to be.

If I had been a girl doing the same thing in 1984, people might have thought me strange. There might have been a worry that I was too masculine. (Believe me, that was never a worry with me, but that’s another story for another time.) I sometimes wonder what my sister could have done with our Apply IIe, if it hadn’t been hogged by her brother who figured she should be doing girly stuff anyway.

Or what if I’d been born a person of color? We now have the rise of the Blerds, but in 1984 — five years before Geordi La Forge — black nerds were unheard of. Even today, we feel the need to give them a special category and their own term, because we find them so exotic. What message does that send to a young black man who loves to goof around with technology?

And then we have Ahmed Mohamed. Like me, at fourteen, he spent the night creating a fun project that he wanted to show off. However, unlike me whose white skin is a blank slate onto which I’m allowed to paint any future I want, all people could see in young Ahmed was a potential terrorist. He kept saying, “It’s a clock,” and everyone around him kept looking at those wires and those digital numbers and thinking, “It looks like a bomb.”

I also remember my first digital watch. My Grandma gave it to me for Christmas, and it made me feel like James Bond. It never occurred to me that someone might think of me as the villain in the story, because I didn’t have a deformity, or an accent, or brown skin, or boobs. That’s what happens when you grow up in our society as a white boy.

I pray for a day when the same is true for every little Ahmed or Levar playing in his room with wires and digital clocks or reading books into the wee hours of the morning.

Rev. Tyler Connoley is the pastor of Silver City United Church of Christ, a new church start in Silver City, New Mexico. Tyler has a Master of Arts in Religion and a Master of Divinity, both from Earlham School of Religion, and is the co-author of The Children Are Free: Re-examining the Biblical Evidence on Same-Sex Relationships, which has been translated into multiple languages including Spanish (Dios Nos Ha Hecho Libres). In 2014 and 2015, Tyler worked as the Immigrant Care Coordinator for the Southwest Conference. He lives in Silver City with his spouse, Rob Connoley, who is Chef at the Curious Kumquat, a restaurant they own together.