Calling a Thing a Thing by Kelle Brown
Then a servant-girl, seeing him in the firelight, stared at him and said, “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” A little later someone else, on seeing him, said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not!” Then about an hour later still another kept insisting, “Surely this man also was with him; for he is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about!” At that moment, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. Luke 22: 56-62 NRSV
On day one of directing this week, I shared my pastoral reflections on being an African American senior pastor in a predominantly white church. I named some of the challenges and the invitations. Today, I focus my attention on naming oneself in order that a church community welcomes and understands the purpose and power of truth-telling. Therefore, it is not left attempting to build upon a foundation that is based on its own myth rather than who it hopes and desires to be. Being faithful is calling a thing a thing so that the truth can set us free.
First, a definition. I offer my definition of racism inspired by the People’s Institute of Survival and Beyond: Institutional Racism is prejudice, bias, and discrimination toward a racial or ethnic group plus power. Power is the important addition to the designation, for racism and white supremacy rely on the exclusion of power from the consideration of the term so that it might appear that all discrimination is equal. It is the hoarding of power, the manipulation of power, the passing on of power to even the youngest ones that creates and sustains the system of white supremacy and its manifestations. The vulnerable, disenfranchised, marginalized, and otherwise oppressed have no collective power to function in the same ways.
Many assume that participating in and benefitting from white supremacist culture relies on the ability to check off a list of things that racists have done historically: burning crosses; using the “N” word; physical lynching and the performance of overt terror on Black, Brown, Asian and Indigenous people and their communities. If there are no check marks on this puny and embarrassingly limited list, these ones assume that all is well. As we think about how to decolonize church and faith organizational spaces, my invitation is that there must be a vigorous expansion of what it means to be racist and how the acceptance of participation is a necessary beginning point on becoming a courageous place of faith, a decolonized church.
As a Black woman faith leader in a dominant culture church, I lead while observing much. I have been personally impacted by the inability of those with implicit power to name themselves as participants in systems of oppression. These ones can be both the purveyors of harm and the perpetual victim without any analysis from them or the community at large. In my current setting, I am holding with others a large mirror to spur the kind of reflection necessary to truly become the Beloved Community. I am inviting the accepting of who one is so that we can move to what shall be. Following the way of Jesus, I offer the parable of being a student at a particular school.
Suppose your high school’s mascot is the Bear. You like many others in your neighborhood are assigned to the school of the Bears, and therefore, it doesn’t stand out to you as a thing of your choosing. You don’t particularly care about the high school or any of its many features which seem to titillate and bind together your other classmates.
Upon reflection, you don’t necessarily feel connected to anything your high school represents, nor do you feel an integral or necessary part. You go every day, passing the time away with enough work to get by, and feel successful to leave without ruffling any feathers or drawing any meaningful attention. You don’t feel much like a Bear.
But guess what? In the yearbook, there’s your picture in the candid hallway shot by your assigned locker and in your class photos. Your administrators received your demographic information, your fees and grades, and submitted your name year after year as a student participant. Your teachers remember you and they marked you as present. In the class photo and at the pep rally, you are one of the numbers cheering on the team.
You are a Bear. In fact, you are the Beariest Bear that has ever beared in all Beardom.
Your level of participation, indifference, or aloofness doesn’t matter in the end. By attending the school, you benefited when the football team won the championship; when the debate team won at the state competition; when your school received funding because of the zip code it inhabits. It was to your advantage, even if indirectly, when a Bear teacher was celebrated for their skill or when Future Business Leaders of America was in the state competition.
You are a Bear, my friend. If you went to college, your school affiliation helped you get in. They required transcripts from that high school, and at the 20-year high school reunion, no one will accept your evolved distinction that, somehow, you were somehow a Tiger attending school with the Bears. Furthermore, this is a statement against the gentle cover of individualism employed whenever whiteness gets called out. Somehow, minoritized people that do something of excellence are a credit to their race, and someone who behaves less than stellar impacts the whole community. However, whiteness has built into its essence the out-clause of the lone “wolf” or individual where all the blame can shift without tarnishing all of whiteness. In order to move forward, the admittance of collectivity has to occur. It is not “you” in the singular sense, but as a good Southern person, I say it is “y’all”, as in “you all”.
Dominant culture friends, you went to the school of United States of America. You attended the classes and cheered at the pep rallies. You wear the colors, and passively assume that the tenets of imperialism and colonization that the dominant culture church is based upon would be covered by “tradition” and the mystique of religion. You assumed the all the best parts of the school would be enough to balance, and perhaps hide, the many other facets that terrorized, abused and caused death for millions. Black, Brown, Asian, Indigenous, and other minoritized people stand as witness that good intentions with their overlays of orthodoxy, symbols and language did not and cannot shift the impact of those harmed.
The witnesses hold the truth in their bones. Supremacy culture is your mascot and your school colors. Embracing this fact begins the journey to true salvation and wholeness.
Siblings of the dominant culture, your role isn’t to disassociate from the “school” you attended to absolve yourself from being named racist. Claiming that you are a racist is not about locking yourself into a concrete of permanence. Doing so simply allows for your personal sacred myth to give way to the reality so many face—sometimes because of maintaining the masquerade of whiteness.
Acknowledging your participation in systems of oppression makes room for the discernment necessary for healing to begin. This is about dismantling racism and decolonizing the organization so that it can take on the mantle of being the church. It is about learning how the systems works and your conscious and unconscious participation in them so that your posture can shift to one of wholeness. No one can heal if they never admit their woundedness. May we not be left with Peter, weeping bitterly because of our reluctance to tell the truth. May our connections be clear, obvious and courageous with the other.
The distinction of claiming your place in the order of things calls one to determine how the essence of the Bear discriminated, exploited, or marginalized others. Your place is to learn that decentering is not displacement, but a faithful act of making room for others. Your sacred choice should be to listen, and to believe that God has called you to such a posture of humility. Otherwise, you spend all your time cutting your pictures out the yearbook to disassociate yourself rather than accepting that there were people who never made it into the book because they were intentionally left out.
Claim your place in the world with the welcome hope that with God, there is no reason to believe you must stay there. Claim your truth and help the rolling stream of justice.
Rev. Dr. Kelle Brown is the Senior Pastor of Plymouth Church United Church of Christ in downtown Seattle, Washington. Kelle is a gifted creative artist and a thinker; a Womanist public theologian who is a curator of equity, justice, and adaptive change.
Dr. Brown earned her BA in Psychology from Atlanta’s Spelman College where she was a featured soloist of the renowned Glee Club. She later attended Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry, where she went on to receive a Master of Divinity. Kelle completed her Doctorate of Ministry from San Francisco Theological Seminary in 2018, focusing on eradicating homelessness through solidarity.
She facilitates conversations on dismantling oppression and offers ways to reflect on white supremacy, privilege, bias, prejudice and bigotry, particularly on racial, ethnic and LGBTQ justice. She had been a vocal presence for justice and equity in Seattle, participating in the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival; the 2019 Women’s March leadership team; and traveled to Tijuana, along with a contingent of Black and Brown women of color of faith. as a moral and faithful witness in the face of oppressive immigration legislation.
Kelle desires to resist moments by participating in movements that shift the narrative toward freedom. She believes in people and that redemption and reconciliation is possible, and imagined in her lifetime, the world will turn for the better, and imagines a world where all people are valued and extravagantly loved. She invites those she meets to follow the advice of Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”