The National Football League recently announced its plans to stop the practice known as “race norming” after two black football players filed a civil rights suit.
Race norming has long been a part of the settlement process when retired players filed for disability benefits due to the brain damage we now know is
Pittsburgh Steelers’ Najeh Davenport is one of the players suing the NFL over its practice of race norming. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
caused by multiple concussions.
After years of resistance and legal wrangling, the NFL began a compensation program to help these players deal with the medical expenses and life adjustments made necessary by their brain damage.
That racist assumption systematically reduced the severity of claims made by black players as compared to white players.
Hopefully, the NFL will remain true to its word by not only abolishing race norming but by also reimbursing all the black players who received inadequate settlements in the past.
Race norming is yet another clear example of systemic racism at work in American society.
As far as I am concerned, these revelations about the NFL’s race norming practices puts a big, big score on the side of Critical Race Theory, which clarifies the many subtle ways in which systemic racism is embedded throughout our society.
Yet, far too many in the country continue to deny the existence of systemic racism! While evangelical Christianity has deepened its condemnation of Critical Race Theory.
The contradiction on display here is as palpable as it is repulsive.
Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from this particular intersection of events is the stark exposure of white evangelicalism’s moral turpitude.
The evangelical church is more concerned with fighting its culture wars while tilting at secular windmills than it is in following Jesus. For Jesus taught us to confess our sins and repent, daily.
Confession requires introspection and honest self-examination. Confession means that we ask the Holy Spirit to reveal our faults and then listen as He speaks to us through others who recognize the habits we have closed our eyes to.
This story of race norming in the NFL ought to be the final nail in the coffin for all those — I am thinking especially of the Southern Baptist Convention, where members will reschedule Sunday services around the afternoon football game — ethically calloused and racially obtuse Christians who refuse to recognize the facts of systemic racism in America.
Evangelicalism’s silence on this score is its own condemnation.
The extraordinary phenomena of last year’s protests over George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, combined with two Democratic victories in Georgia for the state’s seats in the US Senate has infuriated the Republican party.
Republicans have responded as Republicans do: undermine the power of the people.
First, they have introduced dozens of new voter suppression laws in local legislatures across the country. Naturally, Republicans object to this characterization, but Stacey Abram’s recent testimony before a Senate committee regarding Georgia’s new voter laws puts the lie to that Republican defense (watch here and here).
Second, Republicans have submitted numerous bills that would outlaw public protests and demonstrations. They would also immunize drivers who run into protesters with their cars. (All the videos I have seen show drivers who deliberately target peaceful demonstrators.)
Below is a lengthy excerpt of that article. (It is behind a pay wall). Or you can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above:
Republican legislators in Oklahoma and Iowa have passed bills granting immunity to drivers whose vehicles strike and injure protesters in public streets.
And in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed sweeping legislation this week that
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has used the term anti-riot bills for legislation that limits the right to protest. Credit…Phil SearsAssociated Press
toughened existing laws governing public disorder and created a harsh new level of infractions — a bill he’s called “the strongest anti-looting, anti-rioting, pro-law-enforcement piece of legislation in the country.”
The measures are part of a wave of new anti-protest legislation, sponsored and supported by Republicans, in the 11 months since Black Lives Matter protests swept the country following the death of George Floyd. The Minneapolis police officer who killed Mr. Floyd, Derek Chauvin, was convicted on Tuesday on murder and manslaughter charges, a cathartic end to weeks of tension.
But while Democrats seized on Mr. Floyd’s death last May to highlight racism in policing and other forms of social injustice, Republicans responded to a summer of protests by proposing a raft of punitive new measures governing the right to lawfully assemble. G.O.P. lawmakers in 34 states have introduced 81 anti-protest bills during the 2021 legislative session — more than twice as many proposals as in any other year, according to Elly Page, a senior legal adviser at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, which tracks legislation limiting the right to protest.
Some, like Mr. DeSantis, are labeling them “anti-riot” bills, conflating the right to peaceful protest with the rioting and looting that sometimes resulted from such protests.
The laws carry forward the hyperbolic message Republicans have been pushing in the 11 months since Black Lives Matter protests against racial injustice swept the country: that Democrats are tolerant of violent and criminal actions from those who protest against racial injustice. And the legislation underscores the extent to which support for law enforcement personnel and opposition to protests have become part of the bedrock of G.O.P. orthodoxy and a likely pillar of the platform the party will take into next year’s midterms.
“This is consistent with the general trend of legislators’ responding to powerful and persuasive protests by seeking to silence them rather than engaging with the message of the protests,” said Vera Eidelman, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. “If anything, the lesson from the last year, and decades, is not that we need to give more tools to police and prosecutors, it’s that they abuse the tools they already have.”
Laws already exist to punish rioting, and civil rights advocates worry that the new bills violate rights of lawful assembly and free speech protected under the First Amendment. The overwhelming majority of last summer’s nationwide Black Lives Matter protests were peaceful — more than 96 percent involved no property damage or police injuries, according to The Washington Post, which also found that police officers or counterprotesters often instigated violence.
Police officers making an arrest during protests in Miami last year over the death of George Floyd Credit…Cristobal HerreraEPA, via Shutterstock
Most of the protests held across Florida last summer were also peaceful, though a few in Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville produced some episodes of violence, including the burning of a police car and a sporting goods store. Still, as they embraced the bill that Mr. DeSantis signed into law, Republican leaders expressed scorn for cities that trim police budgets and tolerate protesters who disrupt business and traffic.
“We weren’t going to allow Florida to become Seattle,” said Chris Sprowls, a Republican who is the speaker of the Florida House, mentioning cities where protests lasted for months last year and demonstrators frequently clashed with the police. “We were not going to allow Florida to become Portland.”. . .
. . . State Senator Shevrin D. Jones, a Democrat from Broward County and a vocal critic of the law, noted that Mr. DeSantis had been quick to emphasize how necessary the bill was the day after the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol but had made no mention of that event during Monday’s bill signing, focusing solely on the summer protests.
That was evidence, he said, that bills aimed at punishing protesters were disproportionately targeting people of color. “This bill is racist at its core,” Mr. Jones said.
So far, three bills aimed at limiting protests have been signed into law — Florida’s and new laws in Arkansas and Kansas that target protesters who seek to disrupt oil pipelines. Others are likely to come soon.
The bill’s author, State Senator Rob Standridge, said the Tulsa incident had prompted him to seek immunity for drivers who strike protesters. He said Tuesday he wasn’t aware of any drivers who had been charged after striking protesters in Oklahoma. “My hope is that this law never is utilized,” he said in an interview. Carly Atchison, a spokeswoman for Mr. Stitt, declined to say whether he would sign the bill, which passed with veto-proof majorities.
Tiffany Crutcher, whose twin brother, Terence Crutcher, was shot and killed in 2016 by a Tulsa police officer who was later acquitted on a manslaughter charge, said the Oklahoma proposal represents Republican efforts to extend the Trump administration’s hostility toward people of color.
The good news is that Derek Chauvin has been convicted for the murder of George Floyd. In this instance, the justice system has worked. A white police
Derek Chauvin
officer is being held accountable for his excessive use of force against an unarmed black man. Something that very rarely happens.
But this is also the bad news.
At this point in America’s history, Derek Chauvin’s conviction is a “black swan event.” Recall Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s bestselling book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Random House, 2010), reminding us that incredibly improbable events (like a black swan) may have considerable influence while remaining very rare.
Notice the two provisos: first, the transformative event is very rare; and two, it MAY have significant consequences. In other words, the possible results are far from assured, and the event itself may never be repeated.
Krystal Ball
Krystal Ball (yes, that’s her real name) reminded her viewers on “Rising” this morning of the extraordinary efforts that created the context for Chauvin’s successful conviction.
First, is Darnella Frasier, the teenage girl who had the presence of mind and the courage to pull out her cell phone and film the 9 minute video of officer Chauvin kneeling of Mr. Floyd’s neck.
Second, is the largest, most sustained protest movement in US history, which spread around the world.
Were it not for these two momentous actions, George Floyd would have been just another anonymous victim of police brutality. And Derek Chauvin would have gotten away with murder.
Hardly encouraging news.
Think about that. Let it sink in. It hardly indicates that this is the beginning of a new day in prosecuting police misconduct, let alone altering police behavior nationwide.
[Krystal’s remarks begin at about the 30 second mark.
Now is the time to keep the celebrations brief.
Because now is the time to insist that our legislators pass H.R. 1280, The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021. Though this piece of legislation is inadequate on its own, it may serve as a piece of the larger police reform puzzle.
Now is also the time to continue campaigning for local Defund the Police programs across the country. Numerous cities are testing these ideas now and the preliminary reports are very encouraging in places like Denver and Colorado Springs (see here, here, here, and here).
Now is also the time for Christian leaders to continue speaking out about justice and equality for all people, regardless of race, color, ethnicity, or class.
Do not swallow the Fox News cool-aid insisting that this trial was only about one bad apple who did one bad thing, and that his conviction proves the reliability of our glorious criminal justice system.
That predictably conservative framing of the issues is a recipe for going back to sleep and maintaining the status quo. A status quo that ignores the larger context of US policing and police training which allows police brutality to continue unabated.
No. Now is the time to keep the pressure on, to continue protesting, to insist that the culture of American policing is in dire need of regeneration.
Now is also the time for the evangelical church to break ranks with the Republican party, Fox News, and the politics of fear.
It will mean wanting to become more like Jesus, releasing our vice-like grip on worries over personal security and caring more for those who suffer than we care for ourselves.
Canadian reporter David Doel of The Rational National shares the speech made by Dante Wright’s aunt at the family press conference held yesterday.
We all need to listen to her. Hear why she not only grieves the death of her nephew but is angry over the way he died. She points out details in the shooter’s actions that raised my eyebrows, too.
Afterwards, Mr. Doel goes on to provide excellent commentary, placing Mr. Wright’s murder in its historical context. His challenge must be taken seriously by everyone, please.
In the midst of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s trial for the death of George Floyd, a new wave of demonstrations has erupted protesting the death of another unarmed black man, 20 year old Daunte Wright.
Here is a video of Mr. Wright’s shooting:
Almost simultaneously, a Virginia state police video was released showing the unnecessary use of force, bullying, and intimidation against another unarmed man of color, Army second lieutenant Caron Nazario. Fortunately, though both officers had guns drawn at this traffic stop neither pulled the trigger.
Here is a video of lieutenant Nazario’s police encounter:
Naturally, each of these situations is unique in its own way. I won’t discuss those differences here. I will simply encourage you to follow these stories on your own if you aren’t already.
But all of these incidents have at least two traits in common.
First, notice how quickly the police begin to apply force (verbally, emotionally, and physically) against the black suspects. Yelling, threats, intimidation, grabbing, pulling, pushing, handcuffs, tasers, and guns are all on display almost immediately.
It looks as if the police have just received a dramatic, red-alert dispatch warning them that the man they are pulling over is a violent mass murderer transporting a nuclear bomb in the trunk of his car.
From my perspective — and I have been on the receiving end of such treatment — the police are needlessly escalating a situation that could have been handled much more calmly.
Why are they acting like marines on a search-and-destroy mission?
Second, a tipping point seems to occur when the black man refuses to get out of his car (or climbs back inside). The police are clearly angered by this display of personal autonomy, which they interpret as another act of lawlessness that requires physical restraint and arrest.
As best as I can determine (I am not a lawyer), citizens are legally obligated to comply with an officer’s “lawful orders” (emphasis on lawful). If a police officer orders a driver to get out of his/her car, for example, then the driver is supposed to obey (see here and here; for a detailed discussion in the Santa Clara Law Review, look here).
Unsurprisingly, conservative reactions to such arrests and shootings are typically straightforward. Just comply! Do what the officer says, and you will be fine. Or so says the white guy…
[I am reminded of an old joke. Question: What is a liberal? Answer: A liberal is a conservative who just got arrested.]
It is now well known that the increasing militarization of US police training encourages officers to view citizens (whether explicitly or implicitly) as “the enemy” and every engagement as a combat situation. Trainees are now taught to to think of themselves as “warriors” not as “guardians” or public servants.
Frankly, I can easily understand why black men and women are afraid to get out of their cars when pulled over by police. This country has a long history of unarmed black citizens winding up dead after meeting with the police.
Recent events show that little has changed.
I would be afraid to get out of my car, too, if I shared the same history and personal experiences of black Americans who are often mistreated, even terrorized, by our so-called peace officers.
Really now, how many more George Floyd type videos does white America need to see?
Of course, the naysayers have their come backs. Most commonly, we are told that police shoot more unarmed white people than black people every year.
That is true.
But what these conservative, racial apologists neglect to mention is that, according to the US Census Bureau, African-Americans make up only 13% of the US population.
It’s not surprising, then, to learn that a larger percentage shootings occur within the majority of the population. More white people means more police encounters which means more shootings. It only makes sense.,
But what is truly shocking, and often erased from the equation, is the dramatic increasein the percentage of police shootings against unarmed African-Americans given their minority status in our population.
Over 76% of the US population is white. 18.5% is Hispanic/Latino. 13% is black. Yet, when fatal police shootings are calculated as a percentage per million of the total population, incidents involving African-Americans jumps to the top of the list by a wide margin.
This more equitable calculation shows that of all (fatal) police shootings in this country, 14% of the victims are white, while 35% are black (Hispanics are 26%). In other words, black Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be shot by police than white Americans.
Predictably, many conservatives and others will suggest (if only behind closed doors) that perhaps African-Americans are 2.5 times more likely to behave like criminals.
If you were holding on to that opinion, let me say two things: first, it is demonstrably false, but that argument must wait for a future post; second, get down on your knees, confess your sins, and repent. Your white privilege and racism are showing.
Every American, but especially anyone with even a passing acquaintance with our God, should be outraged at that statistic. If anyone can produce as many videos of white men and women being strong-armed from their cars, pushed to the ground, punched, stepped on, handcuffed, arrested, and finally shot as we have of African-Americans suffering such treatment, please send them to me.
Produce the evidence and I will recant.
But I’m not holding my breath. The fact that the police ever treat anyone so shamefully, with such unwarranted brutality and violence, is more than enough reason to campaign with Defund the Police organizers.
The fact that America’s black citizens continue to live in fear; the fact that they have good reason to be afraid of an approaching police officer; to suspect that getting out of their car may be their first step into the morgue; to know that they are consistently handled with more violence and aggression than their white neighbors; all of this and more means that this country has a long, long ways to go in the fight for racial justice and equality before the law.
This is why the Black Lives Matter movement remains essential for our society.
This is why all God’s people must share in these same goals.
While writing my latest book about the Jewish-supremacist state of Israel, its ongoing decimation of the Palestinian people, and the role played by
Professor Miguel de la Torre
American, conservative Christianity (i.e., Christian Zionism) in perpetuating this Middle Eastern tragedy, I became convinced that two perspectives were crucial to understanding the Zionist-Palestinian conflict.
The first perspective requires grasping that the creation of Israel was the last venture of Western colonialism, launched – quite ironically – at the dawn of a purportedly post-colonial awakening in the West. (Actually, it was the beginning of a neo-colonialist era, but that’s a subject for another post). Israel is and always has been a settler-colonial state. This insight is key to understanding everything that happens there.
The second perspective developed as I explored the close affinity that Americans have long harbored for Israel – an affinity rooted in the colonial history, a white colonial history, that Israel and America hold in common. The power structures of both nations maintain and applaud this white, colonial heritage. Consequently, large swaths of their citizenry continue to maintain a white, colonial mindset that perverts their view of themselves and the rest of the world. The deadly results appear in the domineering policies directed by national commitments to American and Israeli exceptionalism.
Thinking about these matters made me eager to read Dr. Miguel A. de la Torre’s new book, Decolonizing Christianity: Becoming Badass Believers (yes, I object to the subtitle, too, for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into here). Dr. de la Torre is the author of over thirty books and a professor of social ethics and Latinx studies at Iliff School of Theology. He is also an activist and a major voice crying out for justice on behalf of the Hispanic/Latinx/Immigrant community in the United States.
A more apt title for the book would be something along the lines of Ending White Christianity’s Addiction to Colonialism. As it is, the book’s title implies (intentionally or unintentionally) not that Christianity is inclined towards colonialism, but that Christianity itself has been colonized by some foreign, oppressive power. Perhaps that is the title’s intent, though it is unclear to me. If it is, then the title (remembering that author’s rarely get to select their own book titles) introduces a book that aptly and insightfullyindicts white Christianity for allowing itself to become colonized by a demonic belief in white superiority and privilege.
Professor de la Torre argues (correctly in my view) that the Body of Christ has been infested with anti-Christian beliefs that have made white Christianity an eager agent of white supremacy throughout world history. One obvious consequence has been “missionary Christianity’s” collaboration with Western colonialism (including Jewish, political Zionism in Israel, curiously enough, but you’ll have to buy my book to learn about that); another is the contemporary power dynamics that entrench structural racism into American life.
Decolonizing Christianity offers a rigorous dissection of the crass immorality endorsed by white evangelicalism during the Trump presidency, exposing the many, pernicious ways in which “The Donald” brought the ugly reality of American race-consciousness to light for all to see. Nope, the Obama presidency did not prove that America had finally become a color-blind nation. Quite the opposite. Professor de la Torre rightly insists that Trump was not an aberration. He was/is the age-old, proverbial pig of historic, American white supremacy with all the fashionable make-up and lipstick wiped off its pasty mug.
More than that, de la Torre aptly excoriates white evangelicalism for abandoning Jesus Christ our Savior in exchange for Donald Trump our president. His lengthy exposé on the many ways church leaders compromised the gospel by extolling Trump as Christian America’s savior figure (supported with example after example) makes for shameful reading – even for an anti-Trump person like me. Professor de la Torre rightly argues that in making this exchange so fervently, white evangelicalism revealed its true nature: it is an apostate church body eager to embrace the latest anti-christ, primarily because it never understood Jesus and his gospel in the first place.
From this perspective, professor de la Torres offers a much-needed prophetic critique of American Christianity and the role it plays in normalizing some of our society’s worst characteristics. However, even though I deeply appreciate his prophetic message, I have several problems with the route he takes to arrive at his criticisms (that is, his methodology). Since my area of expertise is New Testament studies, I will focus my criticisms through engaging his troublesome use of scripture. (A related set of differences are foreshadowed in my recent survey of Critical Race Theoryhere, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
Professor de la Torre roots his theology of social transformation in a long-standing (albeit totally mistaken) interpretation of Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31-46). By his reading of Matthew 25, caring for the poor, the naked, the hungry, and the imprisoned is the sole measure for determining who is and who is not embraced by the Lord Jesus on Judgment Day. It is hard to avoid the impression that, according to professor de la Torres, radical social transformation, prioritizing the marginalized and afflicted, is the Christian church’s #1 mission in this world.
Of course, de la Torres is not the first to make this particular reading of Matthew 25 central to his understanding of the church and the Christian life. Mother Teresa was also convinced of its centrality to her mission and never hesitated to say so. However, regardless of its ancient roots, this interpretation of Matthew 25 has always been wrong. Unfortunately, its errors have shaped the false starts in professor de la Torres’ analysis, marring an otherwise excellent dissection of the American church. I will explain what I mean by this in an additional post (coming soon — it is now here) that will focus on the proper way of reading Jesus’ parable within its Matthean context and the radically different view of the church which results. Stay tuned.
But here I can more fully explore a briefer example of how professor de la Torres misinterprets scripture by looking at his use of Matthew 15:21-28, Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman (69-78). Here Jesus initially refuses a woman’s request for help, and even likens her to a dog(!). De la Torres explains Jesus’ reaction by claiming that she was rejected because she came from a “mongrel race of inferior people” (69), just like modern-day immigrants at the southern border. Here de la Torres gives us an example of Biblical interpretation from the margins, as they say nowadays; that is through the eyes of the marginalized.
De la Torres argues that this uncomfortable encounter was pivotal in teaching Jesus to outgrow his parochial, Jewish chauvinism (77-78). He was being forced “to mature” in his humanity. The Canaanite woman taught him to become more inclusive and to reject his upbringing in Jewish, racial privilege. When Jesus suggests that the woman is like a dog begging for food (de la Torres prefers the word bitch) de la Torres draws from his own experience to make a connection with Latinx immigrants in this country who regularly are treated as dogs. For de la Torres, the Canaanite woman is a prototypical Latinx immigrant while Jesus exemplifies what the white Christian church ought to be doing – growing up and leaving its racial privilege behind.
Unfortunately, the professor does not recognize (or has deliberately rejected the idea) that Jesus initially rejects this woman because she is a Gentile, not because Canaanites were especially “mongrelized.” This is an important theme throughout Matthew’s gospel. There is a tension, an unfolding development, between the initial exclusivism of Jesus’ early mission (recall that he sends out the Twelve only to the people of Israel, explicitly instructing them not to visit any Gentiles or Samaritans; see Matt. 10:1-6), on the one hand, and the emerging universalism that arises after Jesus is rejected by Israel’s leadership, on the other.
Regardless of what we modern-folk think about it, Jesus arrived as the Jewish messiah for the Jewish people first, just as the apostle Paul regularly went “first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.” In rejecting the Canaanite woman, Jesus was not rejecting mongrelized Latinx farm workers or other marginalized groups, as de la Torre suggests. He was rejecting all Gentiles at that point in his ministry as a feature of salvation-history. Gentiles needed to wait their turn, and their turn would come. Remember that the woman’s persistent faith quickly overcame Jesus’ reticence to help her. (Space limits prevent me from exploring this issue further here).
De la Torre’s twisting of Matthew 15 to his own political/social application illustrates several problems endemic to the current trend of racializing biblical interpretation. De la Torre regularly indicts what he perceives as the endemic racism of white Christianity as the inevitable result of “white, Eurocentric” philosophy and theology. Though he never fleshes out the specific intellectual connections he sees between white academic theology and the inevitability of white Christian racism, the clear implication is to highlight the importance of Latinx, Black, and Native American theology and interpretation. The fact that most academic theology has been written by white, Eurocentric men is (in de la Torre’s view) the prime facie reason to lay all responsibility for the racism of white Christianity at the door of Eurocentric white theology.
However, I suggest that more substantive evidence is required to demonstrate such cause and effect in this case. Perhaps the professor has fleshed this out more fully in his earlier writings. If he has, he does not refer to it here.
As an interpretive method, this racialization of theology and Bible reading is really no different than the subjective, impressionistic, reader-response approach to Bible reading so common in the average neighborhood Bible study. Failing to understand the difference between a text’s meaning (understanding it accurately within its original contexts) and its significance (making a contemporary, practical application) everyone proceeds to share their personal impressions of the biblical text and “what it means to me” (which is actually a misstatement referring to what its significance is to me). After an evening of communal, subjective impressionism, everyone then goes home marveling at the Bible’s magical ability “to mean” so many different things to different people. Thus, Dr. de la Torre’s misuse of scripture illustrates how the current emphasis on “reading from the margins” is actually no different than evangelicalism’s habit of “reading from the white suburbs.” The only difference is the change in neighborhoods.
Though I am not familiar with the full body of professor de la Torre’s writings, Decolonizing Christianity certainly demonstrates that his voice needs to be received and taken seriously by everyone in the white church in this country.
I must differ, however, in diagnosing the root cause of the American church’s crippling illness. In my opinion, the most basic problem of white Christianity and its scandalous love affair with Donald Trump is not that it is the product of white, Eurocentric theology, whatever that may be, but that it is not the product of sincere, sacrificial allegiance to the crucified Palestinian Jew, Jesus of Nazareth.
And that is an unavoidable, lifelong challenge for everyone who calls him/herself a Christian.
Scientific researchers still discover new, previously unknown species of animals as they explore our world. Believe it or not, hundreds a new species were discovered in 2020 alone.
Each new discovery requires study, weighing, measuring, and analysis in order to figure out where to locate this new creature within the current taxonomy of known animal life.
The biological description required is not inventing anything truly new, but is merely describing a creature that has always existed. The animal is only “new” to us.
No sensible person would read a scientific report describing a newly discovered creature and say, “I don’t believe this! I have never seen such a creature before; therefore, it cannot be real. The sphere of my current understanding encircles all that can be truly known. And my understanding does not include this!”
But, alas, certain qualities of “conservativism” never change. That’s why they are conservative.
Knee-jerk reactions against new ideas – especially if those ideas are developed by the dreaded “non-Christian secularists” – have always characterized conservatism, whether politically or religiously.
As I continue my series discussing Critical Race Theory (see the previous post here), you may recall that I have defined this Theory according to three analytical grids: White Privilege, Systemic Racism, and Intersectionality.
This post will briefly discuss Intersectionality. (For more explanation of Intersectionality, I suggest looking here and here for starters.)
The principle of Intersectionality recognizes that each person represents the intersection of different individual characteristics. In western society, the most pertinent characteristics are gender (male/female; I am not discussing transgenderism in this post), race/ethnicity (white, black, Asian, Arab, etc.), and class (rich, middle-class, poor, educated, uneducated).
Each individual instantiates, or incarnates, a different combination of these various characteristics. These distinctions are important to recognize because each of them, in their many combinations, can bring a different range of social and economic status to the individual.
For example, for several summers during college my wife worked in Alaska salmon canneries. When I recently explained Intersectionality to her, she immediately recognized it from the working conditions and payment schedule in Alaskan canneries.
She described a very rigid hierarchy of power and privilege, with white men at the top (with the most authority and highest wages) and Eskimo women at the bottom (with the least authority and lowest wages). Ranked in between (I don’t recall the exact order) were Japanese men, white women, and Eskimo men.
It’s not hard to see how the intersection of race and gender (and perhaps class) determined very different treatment for different people who were all doing basically the same work.
So, Intersectionality merely recognizes the obvious: that in many respects African-American women have had a much harder row to hoe than white women, and both have faced many more difficulties than white men.
It recognizes that white applicants from wealthy families of alumni have a far easier time getting into Ivy League schools than white (or black) applicants from lower-class families who are first generation college applicants. (That’s the reason for affirmative action, by the way.)
(I am reminded of the book The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein, which explains how the leaders of Ivy League universities insisted that the residential neighborhoods surrounding their campuses must all be segregated to exclude black residents.)
I could continue with more examples, but I think you get the point.
The principle of Intersectionality, as a tool in Critical Race Theory, simply describes the obvious. The theory does not create anything new. It only points out reality and tries to describe discriminatory processes more accurately. In this respect, Intersectionality helps to shed light on the complexity of Systemic Racism.
At the descriptive, analytical level I suggest that Christians ought to be thankful for the insights of Critical Race Theory and its application of Intersectionality to our social norms and relationships.
Every Christian organization and denomination ought to be applying these analytical tools to itself and learning from its own history, as we all work at understanding and correcting race/class/gender relations within the Body of Christ.
However, as with my previous posts on this subject, I also think that Intersectionality can be misused (Joe Carter provides a good analysis of such misuse in his article, “What Christians Should Know About Intersectionality. I think he gets it right when he writes, “The problem with intersectionality arises when it ceases to be an insight and becomes an ideology.”)
Intersectionality focuses on “power relationships” — who has power, who lacks power, who is the oppressor, and who is oppressed.
Evangelicals dislike this discussion of power relationships, and it becomes a major reason for their wholesale rejection of Critical Race Theory. Why? Because Karl Marx was the first social, cultural critic to describe human
Karl Marx
relationships in terms of power dynamics.
Conservatives criticize the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement for the same reason. Thus, both Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory are dismissed with a facile flick of the wrist as dangerous harbingers of “Cultural Marxism,” the latest, bogus boogie-man propped up by pseudo-intellectual, culture critics.
However, Marx was absolutely correct in his analysis. The problem today is not the fact that Intersectionality draws insights from Marx, but that certain advocates of Intersectionality see all human relationships as nothing but power contests between the exploiter and the exploited.
I encountered this often during my years as a university professor, especially when a feminist colleague explained some policy or curricular disagreement between two people (or groups) who happened to be (represented by) a man and a woman.
Invariably, the disagreement was reduced to a power contest where the man was trying to impose his authority over the female. Often, the actual content of the debate would be set aside.
I would hear the advocate of Intersectionality insist that the rational arguments involved merely provided cover for the imposition of white, male power over the woman “opponent.”
Of course, power and control may have been key issues in those debates. After all, such power contests are a perennial feature of human behavior. But making that judgment first requires familiarity with the details of the debate. It cannot simply be assumed and imposed as THE explanation for all such disagreements.
When a critical, analytical tool is ossified in this way, reified into an ideological template that is universally imposed upon all human interactions, we have entered into dangerous territory. This transition from analysis to ideology is often reductionistic, and that’s a problem.
When this happens we have entered an anti-intellectual realm where evidence must always yield to the current theory; it becomes a totalitarian territory where understanding is governed by the conformist power of an immutable idea.
So, here is the challenge: thoughtful Christians must always walk a line between teachableness and cooption.
Unfortunately, too many Christian leaders (who ought to know better) fail to understand this difference.
On the one hand, Critical Race Theory together with Intersectionality provide important insights into the reality of human relationships. Wise Christians will take these insights seriously and respond accordingly, while always remembering that all people are created as the Image of God. Jesus Christ loves all people equally; he gave his life for all equally.
Critical Race Theory can help us all understanding the continuing challenges we face in dismantling discriminatory practices that run against the grain of Christ’s gospel message.
On the other hand, the Image of God is much, much, MUCH more than the sum total of each individual’s intersecting, distinguishing characteristics. The Image of God is essential, definitive for humanity.
As we acknowledge the negative, unjust situations often created for a person in response to her intersecting, distinguishing traits, we can never reduce that person to the theoretical social outcomes of those traits in today’s society.
Yes, life is filled with power games. But life is also much more than the combined outcome of intersecting power dynamics imposed upon me by others.
Yes, there is a great deal I cannot change or influence. But as The Original confronting my reflected Image, God holds me accountable for how I served others; how I worked to empower the disempowered; how I sacrificed my privilege so that the underprivileged might get ahead; how I lifted up those who had fallen; how I embraced the excluded; how I denied myself to serve others as Jesus has served us all.
(This post is a continuation of my series on Critical Race Theory. The previous post appears here.)
Recently, I have been working my way through the book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (W. W. Norton, 2017), by Richard Rothstein.
Rothstein provides an exhaustive (and exhausting) account of racist housing policies in American history, up to the present time.
If you have ever wondered how and why dilapidated, inner-city ghettos got started in the major metropolitan areas of this country, then Rothstein has the answers you are looking for.
He describes both the historical developments and the many legal arrangements that have enshrined racial discrimination, by way of legalized
Richard Rothstein
segregation and violent enforcement, into the fabric of American society.
He also documents the continuation of such policies into the late 20th and early 21st centuries, long after the laws had been struck from the books.
These things have happened at every level of government, federal, state, and local. It appears in housing regulations, real estate boards, zoning laws, banking practices, tax valuations (which affects local school budgets), unequal wages, you name it. The list goes on.
As he writes in the book’s Preface:
We have created a caste system in this country, with African Americans kept exploited and geographically separate by racially explicit government policies. Although most of these policies are now off the books, they have never been remedied and their effects endure. (xvii)
In unearthing this story as extensively as he does, Mr. Rothstein has produced a definitive history of only one component of Systemic Racism in America.
Earlier I explained that Critical Race Theory offers three specific principles to the modern discussion of race relations: White Privilege, Systemic Racism, and Intersectionality. I briefly discussed White Privilegehere.
Systemic Racism and White Privilege are mutually reinforcing.
White Privilege supplies both the ideology (whether overt or hidden, conscious or unconscious) and the motivation (both individual and communal) for maintaining white superiority and dominance over people of color.
That domination is sustained through Systemic Racism, which appears in the social, cultural, and legal structures created, typically by white folks, in order to maintain White Privilege.
Systemic Racism is a fact of life in this country. It is impossible to deny, even though many still try.
Christians who deny the reality of Systemic Racism typically base their criticisms on the personal, individual quality of human sinfulness.
To put things very simply – since people are sinners, people are individually responsible for their personal sins. People are not “systems” or structures, so systems, as such, cannot be held accountable for the racist sins of individual people.
Thus, ideas like Systemic Racism are damaging because they shift the responsibility for evil away from guilty individuals, who need to confess and repent, onto impersonal structures/systems.
These Critical Theories may also impute guilt to all members of “the system” regardless of their personal attitudes or behavior. And that is unjust.
These critics go on to say that rather than condemning impersonal structures, Christian people within those structures should be living Godly lives in order to make a personal difference for others. (At least, this is what I gather from the Christian critics I have read.)
That is how systems change, by changing the individuals involved first.
Finally, for these critics, Critical Race Theory is wrong because it is not biblical. It is guilty of “allowing secular thinking to overtake a biblical worldview.” (I will save my criticisms of “biblical worldviews” for another day.)
Unfortunately, the vagueness of the Southern Baptist statement quoted above is typical of this conversation. Here are my thoughts:
One: A few weeks ago, my pastor and I were talking about the human tendency to trap ourselves into binary thinking – stop/go, left/right, up/down, good/bad, secular/biblical . . . you get the picture.
In human relations, binary thinking is the favorite blunt instrument used for carving out tribal boundaries. “My way is good; your way is bad” – that’s just about all the Baptist “secular/biblical” binary has to offer to us, unfortunately.
Two: Every disagreement cannot be reduced to an either/or, binary answer.
There is often a third alternative, or the solution may require a both/and answer. So, I insist that the sin and guilt for American racism appears in both individuals and social systems. Both must be held accountable and both must be altered, as necessary.
It is the convergence of these two sources of America’s social ills that makes racism so powerful and long-lasting.
Three: This criticism is stereotypically Western in its analytical devotion to individualism, first and foremost. I am reminded of the absurd remark made by the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. When asked about the nature of society, she famously replied, “There is no such thing as society. Only individuals.”
Thatcher’s comment represents binary reductionism in the extreme.
Four: We cannot forget that human beings are created as the Image of God. That Image remains in all human beings. It was not eliminated by the Fall in Genesis 3.
This means that human beings, including those who do not believe in God, can still possess valuable insights into solving life’s difficult problems.
I insist that the insights of Critical Race Theory are evidence of the continuing benefits of that DivineImage which characterizes all human beings. I can learn from any number of “irreligious” thinkers in this world. Thus, the Baptist binary distinction between secular/biblical thinking is actually counter–productive to this discussion. (It’s also anti-intellectual, but that too must wait for another post.)
Five: When sinful people get together to do sinful things, especially sinful tribal things intended to protect one tribe’s interests against another’s, oppressive social norms and systematic evils are the result.
Societies are built by people. Sinful people build broken, flawed societies that exhibit their brokenness through rigged systems that produce creepy-crawly things like Systemic Racism (among other social ills).
It’s not hard to figure out.
Frankly, I am shocked at the blinding power of Southern Baptist ideology (and they are not alone in this) causing their denominational leaders to ignore such simple observations.
They offer a good example of how “secular thinking” can sometimes be more in line with truth and reality than the supposedly “biblical thinking” of avowed Christians.
Finally, I am convinced that the Christian church must share in the responsibility of undoing the horrendous damage done by centuries of Systemic Racism.
It is not enough — in fact, it is down right unacceptable — for white Christians to insist that personally rejecting racism and not discriminating individually is a sufficient Christian response.
As Mr. Rothstein concludes in his book, Undoing the effects of de jure [legalized] segregation will be incomparably difficult. To make a start, we will first have to contemplate what we have collectively done and, on behalf of our government, accept responsibility (217).
The Old Testament prophets believed in collective responsibility. They condemned wicked rulers for the systemic evils they inflicted upon their people.
When Christians refuse to take the systemic dimensions of human evil seriously, they close their eyes to important biblical truths and excuse themselves from the important task of social/cultural transformation.
They also blatantly suggest that they are more interested in protecting their current creature comforts than they are in performing the hard introspective, anti-establishment work required of those who “seek to maintain justice and do what is right” (Isaiah 56:1).
No, benefiting from the rigged structures constructed and maintained for the survival of SystemicRacism does not necessarily make every white person a racist. On that score, I disagree with the more extreme proponents of Critical Race Theory.
But it does demand that we recognize the issues at stake; acknowledge the unmerited advantages we have and do receive as Caucasians; and commit ourselves to undoing the lasting damage confronting us today.
I recently posted a blog entry describing the Southern Baptist Convention’s decision to issue a wholesale condemnation of Critical Race Theory without ever consulting a single African-American Southern Baptist (yes, they do exist).
How could that happen? It is astonishing.
I have a number of thoughts on this question which I will explore in a future post in this series on Critical Race Theory (for previous posts on this subject, see here, here, here, and here), along with my continuing observations
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib
about the problems of systemic racism in America (for a recent example see here).
I am a huge fan of all the members of the group of junior congressional women the media have dubbed “The Squad.” This includes Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and now Jamaal Bowman, and Cori Bush.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Each of them continue to demand that those involved in the Capital attack on January 6th must be held accountable. Anyone who understands the nature of justice must agree with them. There ought to be broad bipartisan support for their calls of accountability.
Instead, many members of the Republican party are telling these representatives, and especially the women, to “move on,” that they are making a mountain out of a molehill.
More than that, several Republicans have publicly denounced these women
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar
as liars, making easily refutable statements about them never being endangered at all.
I realize that a major factor in this argument is political partisanship, which teaches you to never give your opponent a break. Add a dash of simply bullying and we have a good explanation of the human behavior now on display.
However, I am convinced that there is another powerful factor involved — white, male privilege.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley
White, male privilege thrives in situations allowing women’s feelings and experiences to be minimized or dismissed. Admittedly, the deeply damaged and incompetent congresswoman from Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is not a man. But there are always exceptions to every rule. I won’t pretend to know how to explain her.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has recently told her story about being a rape survivor.
She, together with Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rahida Tlaib, and you
Congresswoman Cori Bush
can bet your bottom dollar that Cori Bush is now experiencing this as well, have received numerous death threats since arriving in Congress.
These women have good reason to feel traumatized after the events of January 6th. They are the physical embodiment of everything that violent mob of Trump supporters would love to eliminate from this country: emigrants, Muslims, people of color, and outspoken women who voice their disagreements loudly in public.
The heartless people now calling these female, public servants liars; accusing them of overreacting; or insisting that they just need “to get over it,” are behaving like abusers themselves. As AOC has said repeatedly, these are the things that abusers say to their victims.
It is no accident, then, that the majority of these voices come from white men. Men who have always enjoyed all the implicit and explicit advantages of being white men in American society.
Such men rarely have any reason to fear that they may be on the receiving end of a beating, or rape, or verbal assault from one of the other authoritarian men in their lives.
Such men are usually far too comfortable exercising power over others, especially when those “others” are powerless themselves.
Below is a video of the two, recent congressional speeches offered by AOC and Rahida Tlaib as they continue their calls for Congressional accountability.
If you can listen to these speeches impassively, without sympathy, without empathy, without concern, then I ask you to check your chest cavity, for you have no heart. I ask you to check your mind for your conscience has withered.
One of the primary qualities of a truly Christian life is the exercise of empathy.
It is the ability to see life from the other person’s perspective and to try to understand why they feel the way they do.
Jesus of Nazareth was extraordinary in the deep, deep levels of empathy that he possessed for the people he met. In fact, empathy is what led him to sacrifice himself on the cross at Calvary.
Let’s all pray for such divine-human empathy as we listen to these women describe their very legitimate fears on January 6th.
Trying to Think Biblically About Tribalism, Prejudice, and Discrimination
As with most theories, different people have different evaluations, positive, negative, and in between about the value of Critical Race Theory (CRT).
In my discussions of American racism, prejudice, discrimination, and the place of Critical Race Theory within the Christian church, I will not take the time to define or explain CRT itself. Many others have already done that work, so I will simply refer my readers to a few brief introductions.
I urge you to read these additional discussions in order to understand where we are going. (For informative and reasonably positive reviews, see here and here. For critical to middling reviews, see here and here. What I happen to think will unfold as we proceed.)
God creates Adam to bear His image, by Michelangelo (Genesis 1)
I begin with two important Christian theological positions: the biblical teachings about (1) how all human beings are created as the Image of God (all good theology begins with Genesis 1 & 2, not Genesis 3), and (2) all human beings are fallen creatures, corrupted by sin (the doctrines of original sin and total depravity).
So, all people are BOTH divine image bearers as well as corrupted image bearers who carry the twisted consequences of sin within us, which causes
The Serpent tempts Eve and then Adam into eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3)
us to commit specific sinful acts.
As a result of our sinfulness, all human beings have a natural (or, from God’s perspective, an Un-natural, post-Fall) inclination towards Tribalism.
Human selfishness, greed, fear, and possessiveness move all people, and the society’s that we create, in the direction of tribalism. We are suspicious, even fearful, of outsiders, The Other. We are protective of our own, most protective of those who are “our own” and of the things we know best.
Our Own are those who are most like us.
The Other, the stranger, aliens, an outsiders are those unlike us; or, at least, they are unfamiliar.
Fallen human nature tells us to be skeptical, fearful, and protective against unfamiliar Outsider. Since they are different from us, we are skeptical as to what we can expect of them. We may even be fearful because in facing the Outsider we face the Unknown.
Again, our sinfulness pushes this fearful distinction between Us vs. Them into the creation of imaginary qualitativedistinctions.
Our group is smarter, better, kinder, more civilized. We can place every racist, prejudiced caricature about those who are unlike us and our tribe into this category.
The outsider is regularly measured in qualitative terms as dangerous, irrational, ignorant, criminal, and uncivilized. The Other can even be seen as subhuman.
All of these features of human tribalism have been universally prevalent throughout human history.
It was not uncommon for Native American tribes to identify their own people as “the True Human beings,” or “the Real People.” Meaning, of
About 85% of Rwandans are Hutus but the Tutsi minority has long dominated the country. In 1959, the Hutus overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and tens of thousands of Tutsis fled to neighbouring countries, including Uganda. Genocide erupted in 1994.
course, that the members of other tribes, which were often enemies to be feared and killed, were not as human as they, the Real Human Beings, were.
When I visited my daughter in Kenya, I was fascinated by the latent hostility that the members of different tribes held for one another. I was told by a number of the Kenyans I met such things as, all Kikuyu were dishonest; all Luo were lazy; and all Masai were violent.
It did not matter that all these people shared the same skin color. It was the tribe that made the difference, allowing for automatic generalizations, prejudice, and discrimination.
Throughout the course of history, in different times and places, human tribalism has appeared in a wide variety of different guises. Tribalism can wear a multitude of different masks, but it is always the same sinful problem.
Tribalism expresses itself through religion (Protestant vs. Catholic), race
Protestant martyrs burned at the stake in Roman Catholic England
(white vs. black, though to call this “racism” is a misnomer that I will return to later), nationalism (Spaniards
vs. Catalonians), and political partisanship (Republicans vs. Democrats). The list goes on and on.
Human beings are terribly creative in finding ways to draw boundaries around themselves, separating their own people (who are typically good) from “the other” people (who are typically bad).
With the coming of the Kingdom of God in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, our Father in heaven has been working towards the goal of eliminating the blight of tribalism that have has ripped and shredded humanity since the Fall in Genesis 3.
As soon as Adam pointed his finger at Eve and said to God, “It wasn’t my idea. SHE made me do it!” the problem of divisiveness has been working to sabotage God’s original desire for all-inclusive, human community.
Here is where I believe we must begin a Christian analysis of the problems at hand.
We will eventually talk about the sins of racism, discrimination, and prejudice. But in order to have an adequate Biblical foundation for grappling with the complexities of those issues, we need to understand that they are merely different dimensions, or expressions, of a single problem: human tribalism.
We must also remember that we all are guilty of tribalism in one way or
Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, “The Good Samaritan”
another, to one degree or another, because we are all fallen, sinful images of God.
We ALL share the same basic tendencies, which is why remembering the ethical instruction that Jesus left to us in the four New Testament Gospels is essential for us all.
Combating our own, as well as our society’s, expressions of tribalism is a non-negotiable responsibility of everyone who claims to follow Jesus Christ.
Remember, when Jesus told his listeners to love their neighbor as themselves, the Pharisees in the crowd asked him, “Ok, but who exactly is my neighbor?”
They were searching for some tribal distinctions that would allow them to love those who were like themselves, while ignoring Outsiders.
Of course, Jesus perceived the not-so-hidden motive behind their question. By answering them with the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus makes it clear that all tribalistic distinctions violate God’s intentions.
The Jew in the ditch and the Samaritan who stops to help were from two very different tribes of people that openly despised each other. Except that this particular Samaritan was an exception.
The “despised” Samaritan acted according to God’s intentions for all people — that loving neighborliness knows no bounds.
Members of the kingdom of God understand that there are no insiders or outsiders within the human family. All people qualify equally as worthy of our care and concern.,
Jesus tells us all to repent of our tribalism, no matter what it may look like; to renounce it as sin in our lives; to ask the Spirit for illumination that we may recognize the blindness created by own our tribalistic instincts.
And then to commit ourselves to change, to ACT in whatever specific ways are necessary for us become different people, living as citizens of God’s kingdom on earth.
I will have more to say about this practical application in the days ahead.
(Also, if you disagree or have different thoughts on this issue, send me a note and let me know that you think. Thanks for reading.)
the intersection of different individual characteristics. In western society, the most pertinent characteristics are gender (male/female; I am not discussing transgenderism in this post), race/ethnicity (white, black, Asian, Arab, etc.), and class (rich, middle-class, poor, educated, uneducated).
The principle of Intersectionality, as a tool in Critical Race Theory, simply describes the obvious. The theory does not create anything new. It only points out reality and tries to describe discriminatory processes more accurately. In this respect, Intersectionality helps to shed light on the complexity of Systemic Racism.
will take these insights seriously and respond accordingly, while always remembering that all people are created as the Image of God. Jesus Christ loves all people equally; he gave his life for all equally.
Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (W. W. Norton, 2017), by 
time to define or explain CRT itself. Many others have already done that work, so I will simply refer my readers to a few brief introductions.
unfamiliar Outsider. Since they are different from us, we are skeptical as to what we can expect of them. We may even be fearful because in facing the Outsider we face the Unknown.
