White Religious Educators Resisting White Fragility: Lessons From Mystics

Abstract

Decades of work in dismantling racism have not yielded the kind of results for which religious educators have hoped. One primary reason has been what scholars term “white fragility,” a symptom of the structural racism which confers systemic privilege upon White people. Lessons learned from Christian mystics point to powerful ways to confront and resist the siren call of such formation and instead to make resisting racism an integral part of Christian identity for White people.

Notes

1 I have argued elsewhere, that “color-blindness” colludes with racism, and that instead we need to be “color conscious” or “color brave” (Hess 1998). Mark Hearn makes this argument as well (2009).

2 I am writing this article from a very specific location: as a Catholic religious educator who bears White privilege in the United States. My hope is that people who listen in from other spaces might find something here that provokes them, perhaps even invites dialogue or argument, but my fierce urgency in writing grows out of my social location and is oriented to other people who find themselves in a similar space. I write very specifically using examples from recent episodes involving Black persons in the United States, but I believe what I argue for here is relevant for White people in relation to multiple and differing communities of color. That is not to say that the issues are the same, but only that I believe the stance White people can inhabit in resisting White fragility and other elements of systemic racism ought to open us to listening to the distinctive concerns of many differing communities caught up in the system of racialization in the United States.

3 A brief and easily accessible entry point to these four is: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/alumni/bryan-stevenson-discusses-his-four-elements-for-creating-change (2015).

4 In this article I am choosing to capitalize both “White” and “Black” as a way to call attention to them as social constructs.

5 This resource is available at: http://meh.religioused.org/RaceAttitudeSource.doc

6 I have learned so much from the work of Myron Orfield, who heads the Institute for Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota, and whose work documenting rapid segregation through housing, as well as the effect of charter schools on segregation, is nationally known (https://www1.law.umn.edu/metro/index.html).

7 For a glimpse of the enormous amount that has been written, recorded, and in other ways shared, see the Racial Justice Collaborative in Theological Education's online bibliography: http://rjb.religioused.org

8 This is the label she uses, as is evident in her website's biographical information: http://robindiangelo.com/about-me/

9 A humorous “take” on micro aggression circulated on the net a few years back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWynJkN5HbQ; you can also find similar pieces by doing a search there for “If [Latinos, Blacks, Asians, etc.] said the stuff White people say.”

10 The literature on narrative, identity and religious formation is very wide and complex. Of particular note for the purposes of this article are: Anderson and Foley (1998); Avest, Bakker, and Miedema (2008); Avest and Bakker (2009); Baker (2005); Baker and Mercer (2007); Bischoff (2011); Clark and Dierberg (2013); Clark (2005); Conde-Frazier (2007); Court (2007); Dalton (2003); Davis and Weinshenker (2012); Erstad and Silseth (2008); Gilmour (1997); Irizarry (2003; 2008); Kaare and Lundby (2008); Mazzarella (2005); McQuistion (2007); Mercer (2008); Moore et al. (2010); Palmer (2003; 2006); Rogers (2011); Smith (2004); Turpin (2010); Wimberly (1994).

11 A brilliant example of one such retelling of a central Christian narrative is found in Mary Boys (2000), Has God only one blessing? Judaism as a source of Christian self-understanding, where she narrates the central story of the Passion while deliberately refusing supersessionist interpretations.

12 Here I cannot help hearing echoes of Paul's letter to the community at Corinth: “When I came to you, sisters and brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.” 1 Cor2:1–5, NAB.

13 Here I would note that the Great Commission—“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (Matt 28:19-20)—is in essence a command to go and make learners (disciples). Every educator knows that to learn is to risk one's own understanding. This is a command to go out and learn.

14 It can be difficult to differentiate between “structural” and “institutionalized” racism, with the words being used interchangeably. In this article I am relying on a handout I frequently use in my classes, which comes from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and defines “structural” racism as an overarching category that “includes aspects of our history and culture that have allowed the privilege associated with ‘whiteness’ and the disadvantage of ‘color’ to endure and adapt over time. It points out the ways in which public policies and institutional practices contribute to inequitable racial outcomes. It lays out assumptions and stereotypes that are embedded in our culture that, in effect, legitimize racial disparities, and it illuminates the ways in which progress toward racial equity is undermined.” “Institutionalized” racism can then be more narrowly defined as: “ways in which institutional policies and practices create different outcomes for different racial groups. The institutional policies may never mention any racial group, but their effect is to create advantages for whites and oppression and disadvantage for people from groups classified as non-white.” Handout available here: http://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Working%20Definitions.pdf

15 I have found it essential—both for my own learning, as well as that of the communities in which I teach—to become much more familiar with the history of racialization in the United States. Toward that end I find these texts particularly helpful: Ignatiev (1995); Loewen (2013); Lopez (2006); Wilkerson (2010); Zinn (2015). Jones recently offered a particularly compelling version of this argument in Time (http://time.com/4477582/heal-the-spiritual-pain-of-america/) (2016).

16 Each of the names in this paragraph carry the anguish of communities of color with them, and the systemic violence which our current system of law enforcement too often uses. If you are not familiar with these names, type them into a search box at Wikipedia.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mary E. Hess

Mary E. Hess is the Patrick and Barbara Keenan Visiting Chair in Religious Education in the Faculty of Theology, University of St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto. E-mail: [email protected]