Down Home Stories of Life, Learning, and the Road Less Traveled
Author: Ugena Whitlock
Welcome to The Front Porch Professor, a space where life’s reflections, stories, and lessons come together with a touch of Southern charm. I’m a professor, curriculum theorist, and lifelong storyteller. This blog is my front porch—a place to share essays and musings about the journey of life, learning, and the road less traveled.
As someone in the late stages of my academic career, I’m embracing the transition to what’s next, finding joy in the simple pleasures: driving my Miata down winding roads, collecting antique typewriters, playing the ukulele, and soaking up the beauty of the South.
Here, you’ll find thoughtful observations, a dash of humor, and reflections on the moments that shape us as learners, teachers, and human beings. Pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee, and let’s share this journey together.
Robert Daniel Hyde, April 11, 1960-March 14, 2023, Russellville High School Class of 1979
My children’s dad died yesterday. My ex-husband. I did not expect to feel these feelings.
I had not seen Robert–the more distant, formal name I called him after I left–since one Sunday 10 years ago when he pulled into my parents’ driveway and asked me to come outside. He wanted to make amends, apologizing for not being a good husband for all those years. I thanked him and told him it was a long time ago. I didn’t hear from him very often–didn’t think of him very often. He chose a different path, and part of me envies him for giving up trappings that didn’t mean anything to him so that he could move home. He and his mother took care of each other until she died. He loved his kids, and if they wanted to come see him, they could. But he was clear that his life was his own–take it or leave it. When they would see him, they did not describe their visits to me. So, I don’t know much about Robert’s life outside of that. I do not know yet how he died–whether he was alone at home or in a hospital. I know he was sick for a long time.
We were together for almost 20 years, married for the last 16 years of them. I have spent many years and a lot of therapy struggling with the feeling of being robbed of those years of my life by him–my youth, my college years, the promise of finding out all I could be. We were toxic as a couple; whatever the chemistry, the result was that he became more and more controlling, while I became more and more codependent. I was miserable, and no doubt he was, too. We got to that point that is the death knell of relationships. We didn’t fight because we were exhausted and didn’t care any more enough to fight. So we were done, and I remember the day in 2014 when I had been without him longer than we had been together. Today, I have been processing the complex feelings of sadness and–yes–loss I am feeling. I am sad for my children, of course, but was unprepared for how I felt for myself.
I doubt he will have a funeral, or a viewing, as we still have in the South. I don’t think he would want one. Truthfully, I don’t know who would go. My kids, his siblings, my parents, maybe someone from their church, and some Russellville people who remembered him from school. I don’t see his obituary in the local paper. And, since I got the news, I have had “Close to You” playing in a loop in my head.
“Close to You,” by the Carpenters brings back one of my earliest and fondest memories of Bob. It would have been around 1978, and we were both in the high school choir, the RHS Singers. I picture him with the other guys doing the dance routine, wearing those striped rayon shirts and white boater hats. I never hear the song without that memory, and it is nice. I think I loved him first and most because he was a good boy–not a good old boy, but a good boy, as we say in the South. One who loved his mama and grandmama and wasn’t always up to meanness. He wanted to be Band Captain, and he loved the RHS Marching 100. That’s the way I want to remember Bob–young, handsome, with a boyish face and easy smile. It’s funny the things I remember, like the shape of his feet and the way he looked when he played the trumpet.
Bob was a husband and father, son and brother, grandson, descendent of the first governor of Tennessee–and a Bama fan. I am glad that he lived, and for me, the world is emptier tonight. We shared children and nearly 50 years of history together. As time goes on, there are fewer and fewer people you can say that about. I feel like the part of me that shared those years is gone, too. And that is why I am writing this. I wanted to remember, wanted, needed, to give myself the time and place to summon memories–snapshots of Bob, happy and endearing. Not only that, it is also important to me that he is remembered. I want him to be mourned. He will be by his family, but that is not what I mean. This night, it is important to me that in this vast universe, a man is remembered–that he lived–and marched and sang and played and laughed–that he was. Rest in peace, Bob.
I have been waiting for a drug like Mounjaro for decades.
All my life I have struggled with my weight. I remember in elementary school they made us weigh at each report card time. In 3rd grade I broke 100 lbs. By my wedding at age 18, I weighed 170 lbs. And yes, the dress I had purchased a year earlier no longer fit. By my 40th birthday, I had reached what would be my highest weight ever: 253 lbs. It was at that point I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and the accompanying Insulin Resistance (IR). Metformin helped me get down to where my body insists I should be: 200 lbs. For 20 years, my body and I have done a yo-yo dance. I have gotten as low as 168–for about 2 weeks and have weighed as much as 215, where I am today. Somewhere along the way, I began reading about weight loss pharma. I recall when they isolated the hormone that made you feel satiated. I recall the predictions that one day there would be a pill. I remember studies that connected Diabetes 2 and obesity. Oh, and I remember the first time my doctor noted “obese” on my chart and apologized for it.
Although D2 drugs that lead to weight loss like Ozempic and Wegovy have been around for awhile, it was not until the Mounjaro (tirzepatide) studies were announced with astonished and promising fanfare that I seriously began to hope. Was my 5 decade fantasy finally becoming a reality, like tvs in watches and time travel (I can hope, can’t I?)?
Mounjaro still has some setbacks: prohibitive cost, side effects, unproven record, threat of thyroid cancer, etc. But when I saw weight loss of up to 22.5% in study participants, I began to follow the research intently. It was approved by the FDA in May 2022 and showed up as an approved D2 drug in my insurance drug by Fall 2022. I decided to ask my doctor to prescribe it for me. I had my arguments laid out, see above with D2 threats sprinkled in. To my surprise, she had no qualms about trying me on it. My insurance company requires Prior Authorization, which I thought would take several days, but by that evening, tirzepatide showed up in my medications in MyChart. I was jaw droppingly amazed.
So here are some steps I have taken to begin my journey:
I bought scales to start weighing myself daily again. For me, it has to be every day.
I am committed to begin eating more healthily to start balancing out before I begin my Mounjaro, which will be when it gets in stock and after the holiday.
I am making sure my doctor calls the insurance company for a Prior Approval. With PA, the cost is $25. Without, $1,000. It’s worth my time to get the dang thing approved.
I took a “Day Zero” photo of myself. I have never done this, partly because I just never took the time to and partly because of really not wanting to see fat me documented in a photo. Mounjaro requires a re-wiring of the way you think, so I see this as a first step.
Day Zero Picture. Do you know how hard it is for me to post this picture? Even as I write, I can’t help staring at it. All I see are the fat parts. Well, it’s on.
To be honest, after reading blogs and sub-Reddit posts, I am a bit terrified of the side effects of Mounjaro. I won’t list them here, but the Reddit folks don’t hold back describing them. I can’t imagine working if I have some of them (I’m looking at you, Sulphur Burp). Still, I am willing to risk it. There are those who will judge and criticize me for not being happy and comfortable in my body, for wanting to put myself through a drug regimen to re-shape myself, for being driven by a smaller number and clothing size. Good for them. They obviously are not driven by the burning desire to shop for regular sized clothes at Talbots. I’m serious. When I go shopping there for my work clothes, I head straight to the back of the store for the plus sizes, which is about 1/4 of the store. The other 3/4 has a wide variety of cute, colorful, stylish clothes that go up to a size 16. I currently wear a size 16W, but those never come in candy apple red velveteen. So yes, what will get me through the nausea and other unnamed bodily functions are sexy pants and matching sweater.
I have included two helpful resources I found on Reddit. First is Best Food Choices for Ozempic, Wegovy & Mounjaro Weight Loss: Dr Lipman Endocrinologist
Here is Mounjaro/Ozempic/Wegovy/Trulicity Tips
*Take injection after a protein fortified meal
*Start fiber, magnesium powder or digestive enzymes listed below, at the start of the prescription so you don’t end up with severe constipation
*Take a multivitamin
*Eat protein every 3 hours (goal 80g – 100g a day) to maintain muscle mass during weight loss
*Drink 1-2 servings of sugar free electrolytes a day if eating low carb
*Drink 60+ oz of water daily
*Determine your daily caloric intake based on BMR & TEE determined by a dietitian/nutritionist. DO NOT go below 1000 calories – too few calories will stall your metabolism and the scale.
The goal while losing weight is to learn how to make different choices and create new habits that will create sustainable, long term results that start with mindset work. Here are a few books on Audible that will help you assess your brain and your habits!
DISCLAIMER: THIS DOCUMENT DOES NOT PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE
The information, including but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material contained on this document are for informational purposes only. No information on this document is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new health care regimen, and never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this document.
Note: The following essay was submitted in draft form for a collection to which I was invited to contribute called “Letters to the Field” (of curriculum studies). The call was in 2021, and the theme of the book was to be reflections on the dumpster fire that was the year 2020. Each piece was to be handwritten in the author’s preferred style and format. The book may be in production. If so, here’s what my entry will be. If not, here’s what it would have been. Enjoy.
Hello, Field.
I hope you are well. As I write, we are mid-way through 2021, which seems incredible. Time has been “out of joint” since March 2020. I sat in my office and watch seasons pass; each time I stepped outside, I was stepping into a different season. It was nearly a year and a half before I traveled to see my family, and I still have not seen my grandchildren. How did I fare? Well, I’m introverted, so for a long while, the virtual/remote situation was ideal. Like most everyone, I enjoyed pajama Zooms and working at my own pace. After 15 months, I found myself searching for webinars to join during the day, just to feel plugged in professionally. This was most unusual for me. And you? I noticed several calls for works about Covid and race in the U.S. I see that your various conferences made valiant virtual attempts as did others. I suppose, then, it was not an ideal situation for most of us.
Truthfully, I was a spectator to the last two years. Being at home made it easy to self-isolate. And I did not write a word about either pandemic–Covid 19 or Black Lives. I’ve thought about why not. During 2020 I was finishing a Master of Divinity degree from seminary. From March 2020 to March 2021, I followed nothing but Covid until I got my vaccines. I tracked the death toll. In late spring and summer, I watched cities burn as we paid a collective price for the sin of racism. It was also an election year–after 4 years of having Donald J. Trump as the U.S. president. I watched as a dispicable, weak, narcissistic emperor with no clothes attempted a coup–aided and abetted by dispicable, weak, narcissistic congressional and state legislative sycophants.On January 6, I watched, jaw dropped, the coup attempt unfold, when the U.S. Capitol was stormed on live tv as Congress was about to certify the election results anyway. I was weary and suffering from media overload. I tuned in and cried on an Inauguration Day, which was blessedly uneventful.
I cried two other times in 2020. Both took place the first weekend I visited my parents in over a year. We were sitting around having coffee when my daddy–dismissing Mother’s cautioning against it–brought up politics. It’s important to him that we find common ground in his conservative worldview. “The US isn’t a democracy any more. We’re somewhere in the middle of Socialism and Communism.” Now, I’m not going to unpack any of that or sort out the concepts. I replied as long as we have free elections, we have something of a Republic still. Then my mom drove home the point. She said the election was rigged. That was it. I had a meltdown, which I won’t describe, other than to say I began to cry. The conversation, thankfully, ended. Daddy moved on.
The following day, Sunday, I was moved to tears again; however, the context and feeling were entirely different. My parent’s church, the one I grew up in, was still distancing for Covid. A handful went inside the building, yet there was still a “drive-in” option in the parking lot. The Elders had purchased a transmitter, and people were directed to tune their radios to 92.5, where they could hear the service. The rest of my family worshipped inside, but I, now feeling like a full-fledged outsider, changed my dial. Daddy gave the welcome and announcement, and I smiled as his voice came from my car’s speakers. Then the congregation turned in their hymnals to the opening song. Then the old, familiar hymns began, songs for which I did not need a song book. I knew all the verses of all the songs. Then the contentment and peace that comes from losing oneself in music came over me. I didn’t care how I might have looked to those driving in or driving by.
I am sure you’ve received plenty of letters i that are emphatic about our field never having been as relevant and necessary (!) as it is now. We are poised, they will say, to address the contexts of the Age of Pandemics. I know this because at every crisis point since Curriculum Theory has existed, we have made those proclamations. And we are not wrong. Yet, here we are again. So, Field, what are your intentions? I’m reading over my stories above, and have a “more things change more they stay the same” moment. In the years that I’ve worked as an administrator and stepped back from curriculum theory writing, convictions of white Southerners (whites everywhere?) have deepened. As time has passed, the difference is that now they are sanctioned by politicians who court them as their voting base. The implications of radical conservative politics ranges promoting the Big Lie of voter fraud to the All Lives Matter refrain to righteous, nationalistic indignation at being directed to wear a mask to prevent the spread of a highly contaigous and deadly disease. This week, parents are protesting our local school district because a white school board member sent them a video link that features a video with the “real truth” about masks: they don’t work (and neither does the vaccine). The danger, then, of curriculum studies of Southern place is more discernable for me. But so is the necessity of doing it.
Don’t I have anything positive to contribute in terms of being central to the present moment? Same old, same old, I guess. I will continue going to the conferences and publishing in the journals. After all, we have to put our work somewhere. At those conferences, we will continue to look for ways to put our theorizing into activism. I suspect we will write very sternly worded letters and post them on our websites. We will do what we can to advance the field so that there is a place to post the letters. Mostly, we will tell ourselves that ours is the New Fresh Next Voice that will change the world and make it more equitable and inclusive. Why so negative, you ask. I suppose it’s because we’ve been telling ourselves this for all these years. Truth is, I stepped back for 6 years in part because I could not see that I was making any difference with you, dear Field. The biggest difference has been in me. I am changed from the writing and from the politics and social untethering. I am changed by COVID-19. Administration has changed me and so has studying for the ministry. I’m older, more seasoned, and yes, resigned to the way the world keeps turning.
Writing curriculum theory is not so unlike studying for ministry in that both look for ways to connect with the human spirit in a world that cares very little for the spirit. So in the end, the real question for me is not whether there is a place for my curriculum theory at your table but rather for your table in my curriculum theory. Really, it’s not me it’s you.
And that, in the end, is what my divine nudger whispers to me.
In 1973, Cliff Robertson starred in an ABC Movie of the Week production of Edward Everett Hale’s story, “The Man Without a Country.” In it, an American officer is being court martialed for consorting with Aaron Burr. He wanted to make a point about the disunity of the new country and so blurted out, “Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!” The judge took him at his word, and in a rather pissy move, sentenced Philip Nolan to spend the rest of his life sailing the seas on American warships without ever setting foot on or hearing any news about the U.S. again. It’s one of my favorite stories (and made for tv movies!). I have thought about it a lot over the last few weeks. I think–even though I get the point Nolan was making (kind of like Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s in 2007, see https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/DemocraticDebate/story?id=4443788&page=1), my wistful call would be, “Bless the United States! I sure would like to live in ‘United’ States again.”
I took a break from blogging regularly over the last four years to go to seminary. In fact, the election of 2016 was a big reason I decided to go to seminary. I had a low, sick feeling more and more people would be hurting, and I wanted to be able to offer spiritual care. If you want to say I had a call, that was it. And that was before Covid-19, kids in cages, Russia and Ukraine, Charlottesville, Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, corporate deregulations, revocation of environmental protections, withdrawals from the Iran Deal and Paris Climate Agreement, Jeff Sessions, William Barr, Brett Kavanaugh, insurrection, embracing of dictators, Kenosha, Cruz & Hawley, QAnon, Seattle, Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, The Big Lie, The Year 2020–and more that I could name, like these, off the top of my head. And oh yeah, did I mention Covid-19?
It is not hard to see, as all major news outlets and commentators are reporting, how every day of the last four years led directly to here. Radical insurrectionists planned for months to descend upon Washington, D.C. to be directed by the President of the United States to storm the U.S. Capital while Congress was in session. The President and members of Congress–bolstered by Republican led state legislatures–actually expected and attempted to overturn legally certified (by Republican legislatures) election results. Both Democrat Congresspersons and Republicans who voted to approve the Electoral College results–including the Vice President of the United States–are afraid they will be hurt or killed. By their congressional colleagues and their supporters. Some members have been attacked in airports; others are switching up their daily routines to throw would be attackers off. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted on Instagram she was afraid her colleagues would help the insurrectionists kill her. Let that sink in. https://www.nbcnews.com/video/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-tells-instagram-i-thought-i-was-going-to-die-during-capitol-riot-99380293747
(Not a Civil War era picture)
I am still trying to form coherent thoughts about our United States at the end of a four-year dumpster fire. I am trying to see, as I have begun to do since seminary, where God is in all of it. Here is a ramdom list of (what I think are) relevant thoughts on the country on the eve of Joe Biden’s inauguration. Really random.
For about one day I was able to feel a lightness of spirit as Georgia, the state I live in now, replaced two Republican senators with two Democrats, one, the first Black Georgia Senator ever. That was on January 5.
Black people and white people do not live in the same country. Where White people are angry, fearful, frustrated, and shocked at the events over the last four years, Black people are shaking their heads saying, “We tried to tell y’all.” This is how it feels. As activist Kimberly Jones said, “Be glad Black people aren’t seeking revenge” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=YPfeg6E52nA). To reiterate: Black people AREN’T seeking revenge.
Related: White people, People of Color are going to outnumber us in a couple of decades–in our lifetime. Start living now like that is a fact.
Related: If you are worried about a “way of life,” or “American values,” or “The American Way” going away, you are resisting the above fact.
A Confederate flag was paraded through the United States Capital on January 6, 2020. Even Robert E. Lee was not able to do this.
Related: A gallows with an expert looking noose was set up on Capital grounds on the same day.
Gallows & Noose, U.S. Capital
It is looking more and more like the insurrectionists were led on recon tours by Congresspersons and Congressional Staff.
The President is not The Godfather. He cannot call up and strong arm Secretaries of State or State Legislators to find votes that simply were not there. Everybody knew, including him, that they were not there. He and the radicals just wished they were.
Concealed Carry is not a good idea. I don’t see how anybody could say it was ever a good idea. People voted for it anyway. Same with Campus Carry. Nineteen year olds with weapons. Again, who thinks that is a good idea?
Related: Nobody is coming for your (hunting, social, skeet, toy, cigarette lighter, BB) guns.
The President is using Christians. Christians please realize this.
Hillary Clinton’s statement about “The Deplorables,” taken out of context, helped lose her the election. Donald Trump looked at his supporters and called them low class. Please be insulted by that, too.
I knew the day Tommy Tuberville announced he was running for U.S. Senate he would be elected by the good people of Alabama. Even Alabama Fans (Roll Tide!) voted for the former Auburn football coach.
Coach Senator Tuberville stated the three Constitutionally established branches of government are the House, the Senate, and the Executive. They aren’t. (Legislative, Executive, Judicial). If there are tests to become teachers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, airplane pilots, and drivers, we might think about having one for members of Congress. It wouldn’t have to be that hard.
Between Tuberville, Congressman Mo Brooks, and Jeff Sessions, Alabama has done enough for the country for awhile.
There did not have to be 400,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the U.S.
Related: There are places in this country where if your last chance to live is in an ambulance. If you can’t be revived there, you die. ERs are full.
Science and God are not at odds with one another. Science and religion are.
“My individual rights and my Freedom of Religion” should not be used as excuses or weapons for not doing what you want. See above about Christians being used.
Radical Far-Right Extremism is the biggest threat to this country right now. They were hiding and secretive about their destruction until Donald Trump validated their voice and they came out into the open.
Far-Right Extremism is White Supremacy is Far-Right Extremism.
Read the above again.
Fear of liberals and Democrats and Republicans and progressives is irrational. Fear of extremists is not. Decent people can become radicalized to not see this.
Related: I have written before that MAGA people are angry. Maybe not all of them are, but some are, and they are also strategic.
They were there too.
Those Senators and Congressmen must really love their jobs (power, privilege, status) if they are willing to make excuses for Donald Trump and not get rid of him when they had the chance. I don’t know how it is a question as to whether to vote to ban him from running for office again.
Related: If they don’t vote to ban Donald Trump for running for office again, NONE OF THEM will have a chance at a 2024 presidential run.
Related: Donald Trump is far from finished in his influence over conservative Americans.
It only took 4 years for near-total devastation of capitalist-based democracy to almost colapse on January 6. Some Republicans condescendingly said asked after the November election, “What can it hurt to humor the President for these last few weeks?” See January 6. Now you know.
Indellible image of insurrectionists storming the Capital on January 6, 2021
That’s enough for now. I’ll be back with more. Looking over my list, I realize my hunch in 2016 was right. People are hurting–and are hurting each other. I believe that love is the answer. That we scoff at that thought as empty, powerless, and trite, is part of the problem. It says a lot about how so very necessary love is. More on this later.
I ran across this paper I wrote for a Religious Liberty class at McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University. I didn’t think it was half bad, so I’m posting it in my blog. It’s a little thick, so I’m adding some cat pictures.
Historical Context of the Controversy The religion clause of the U.S. Constitution states, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. It is included with freedom of the press, free speech, and the right to assemble and petition the government. It is the part of the first amendment upon which concepts of religious freedom—which I use interchangeably here with religious liberty—are based. According to Davis, religious liberty in the U.S. is based upon the overarching ideal of separation of church and state (p. 81). He cites a religion historian who called religious liberty, “America’s great gift to civilization and the world” (p. 81). Interpretations of the religion clause have evolved since ratification in 1791 primarily through rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) on cases involving two concepts: establishment and free exercise. As Flowers explains, cases vary according to topics, such as taxation, school prayer, human resources, and insurance—but all of these share a tension of whether the government violates establishment when it supports religious organizations or free exercise when it does not. Understandably, decisions passed down by the Court are influenced by its makeup; it has in fact changed its position over time. Nearly eighty years ago, Justice Hugo Black famously declared, “In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by laws was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and State’” (in Davis, p. 84). Over the last decade, however, the idea of religious liberty itself has undergone an odd reversal. No longer is its chief principal the freedom to exercise one’s religious beliefs and practices protected by the wall of separation from the government. Rather, religious liberty is now evoked by conservative Christians in order for them to freely exercise their right to discriminate against individuals or groups whose ideologies do not align with their religious beliefs. These Christians are, then, seeking establishment via rulings to substantiate discrimination, which they consider free exercise. Tracing the course of the transformation of religious liberty is beyond the scope of this paper. From my own historical memory and research, I trace it to the overt courting of the religious right in the South by Nixonian republicans in 1968, culminating with Ronald Reagan’s alliance with the Moral Majority that led to his victory in the 1980 election—in which he unseated an incumbent President who is unequivocally a devout Christian. This was the beginning of the narrative shift of religious liberty that supports the blatant politicized overreach we see today. For this paper, I did a Google search for “religious liberty.” I focused on articles and blog posts whose topics related directly to the cultural cooptation of the idea of religious liberty as I describe it above. Left of center publication, The Week, writer Joel Mathis sums up the premise of my paper: The term “religious liberties” sounds anodyne enough: The First Amendment guarantees that Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise of faith. And conservatives frame the recent debates with a libertarian gloss: Government shouldn’t make religious folks violate their faith-informed consciences to provide contraception to employees or make wedding cakes for gay couples. On the surface the message is: “Leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone.” What could be more American? But that message isn’t honest.
Unless you’re a Christian — and let’s be honest, unless you’re a conservative Christian — conservative advocacy of religious liberties is a big con, a consolidation of rights and privileges not meant to be shared with Muslims, atheists, or other religious minorities. You don’t have to reach far for examples. (https://theweek.com/articles/784953/conservatives-religious-liberty-con) And I did not. What follows is a sampling of what I found. Competing Arguments The day I was writing this, May 22, 2020, an op-ed piece popped up on CNN’s website: This Isn’t About Religious Freedom (Graves-Fitzsimmons). It outlines issues surrounding Covid-19 religious liberty litigation, written as a response to President Trump’s push for governors to allow churches to re-open. The president’s invocation of liberty, prompted the author to note, “From a wider perspective, the Covid-19 crisis also reveals a new dimension to how some conservatives have distorted our treasured American value of religious freedom” (https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/opinions/religious-freedom-lawsuits-on-social-distancing-graves-fitzsimmons/index.html). He goes on to cite examples of the exploitation of religious liberty to further conservative agendas, he lists groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom that spent 54 million to argue the Masterpiece Cakeshop anti-LGBTQ case at SCOTUS. Graves-Fitzsimmons connects Covid-19 religious freedom lawsuits to current and pending cases involving whether “religious or moral beliefs of an employer should be an acceptable excuse to deny people birth control and whether taxpayer funds may be used for faith-based foster care agencies that discriminate against LGBTQ people” (ibid). He points out what is a recurring theme in my research—discriminatory conservative agendas are out of sync with public opinion surrounding these issues. The twisting of religious freedom, according to the author, is about winning the culture war and thereby bolstering the conservative voting base, Trump’s lifeblood. He concludes with a call to expose the bigotry behind the thin veil of religious freedom that covers it and “reclaim a religious freedom that does no harm” (ibid). My research led me to The Berkely Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, an organization that examines, “the intersection of religion with global policy challenges of diplomacy, democracy, development and dialogue” (https://charterforcompassion.org/berkley-center-for-religion-peace-and-world-affairs?gclid=CjwKCAjwtqj2BRBYEiwAqfzur7FiTtxXPCn-_a4r4LjVhNdG9NLoy1QudwMV5MKW8mNOBRXOBabq3xoCW6gQAvD_BwE).
I found three essays in response to the Politics of School Prayer post in the Center’s Forum that address what one calls the “false narrative” of religious freedom. This pre-Covid post uses as a prompt President Trump’s announcement on 2020 “Religious Freedom Day” of new guidelines regarding school prayer during non-instructional time and the rights of students whose “freedom to pray has been violated” (https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/politics-of-school-prayer). Additionally, he announced plans to remove “regulatory burdens” on faith-based social service providers that are supported by the Department of Health and Human Services—that is, by taxpayer dollars. The post suggests that while Trumpian Republicans have conducting an offensive front in the culture wars, Democrats have spent (frittered?) their energies trying to “connect with evangelical voters,” a heretofore fruitless effort. The first response, The Debates Over Religious Freedom in the United States: What Debates?, by James W. Fraser, refutes the president’s claim of burdensome regulations of religious freedom by pointing out the new guidelines were nearly identical with previous guidelines issued by the G.W Bush and Clinton administrations. Fraser argues that the president’s fanfare over existing guidelines has deeper motives—first, to “warp the truth to stay in power,” that is, to fire up his conservative White Christian base, many of whom believe themselves to be discriminated against by progressives. If Trump can maintain the fiction of an “assault on faith” and the greater fiction that he alone can fix it, he will keep the support of his base. An even darker motive, according to Fraser, of touting his guidelines was to serve as a “cover for other policies which represent a dangerous infringement of rights” (https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/the-debates-over-religious-freedom-in-the-united-states-what-debates). He concludes with this stark statement, “…the obvious conclusion is that retaining voting blocs is more important to the administration than any concern for the rights of American citizens, religious or otherwise. We are better than that” (ibid). One hopes, but are we?
The second response, A False Narrative of Religious Freedom Threatens Americans’ Rights, by Rob Boston, begins by pointing out ways Trump’s school prayer guidelines in fact differ from Bush’s and Clinton’s, most significantly, that student- and teacher-initiated prayer at school functions may be legal. He then quickly turns to the problem of terminology in the evolving narrative of religious freedom, namely, that as it is used today demands religious privilege, which is very distinct from liberty. Boston offers a helpful definition of what religious freedom has historically meant in the U.S.: “the right to worship (or not) as you see fit, as long as you don’t harm others. It means the right to join together with fellow believers to build houses of worship, spread religious messages, and create a sense of community bound together by shared beliefs” (https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/a-false-narrative-of-religious-freedom-threatens-americans-rights). Conversely, today’s conceptualization of religious freedom is a coersive and compulsive denial of the rights of others [and] is alien” to our core values (ibid). He points out that Americans are used to wrangling over issues, but this is a different age—one where polarization makes old ways of debating obsolete. When it comes to the minority voices of conservative White Christians, he concludes, “It is dangerous to accept even a little bit of oppression based on religion. The answer is always to resist it, by all legal means” (ibid). The final article I examined from the Berkley Center Forum was A Free Exercise Argument Against Trump’s ‘Religious Freedom’ Rules by Peter Henne. His approach is somewhat different from other responses, as he approaches the issue with the onus of rectifying the cooptation of religious liberty on progressives. “The problem is that progressives have accepted the conservative framing of religious freedom” (https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/a-free-exercise-argument-against-trump-s-religious-freedom-rules). He charges us to retake a narrative whose subsequent policies discriminate against all but a small group of Christians. When progressives begin asserting that our own religious freedoms are infringed upon, the historical conceptualization will re-emerge. Practically, Boston proposes this: “Rather than religious freedom vs. non-discrimination, it would be a debate over the nature of religious freedom. And Trump-wary conservative Christians are more likely to be responsive to progressives explaining their approach to religious freedom than they are to calls to curtail religious freedom” (ibid). When my tax dollars go to an organization that refuses, for example, to allow a gay couple to adopt a child because they are gay—and since my faith tradition, the UCC, welcomes everyone, “Whoever you are, and wherever you are on life’s journey,” my religious liberty has been breached.
My Position I argue that conservative White Christian America seeks to be sanctioned by the State through strategic SCOTUS rulings on the First Amendment. Let me be clear: not all conservatives nor all White Christians seek to twist the First Amendment. My complaint is with those of the population who overtly and intentionally seek to deploy the concept of religious liberty to discriminate. If we correlate them with Trump’s hardcore base, which I am taking the liberty of doing, it ends up being around 40% of Americans (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/). I am old enough to remember when Religious Liberty did not have the topsy turvy meaning it has now. Growing up a white child in the South in the 60s and 70s, God and Country had distinct meanings for me; we were a “Christian Nation.” By the 2016 election, I began to have the disappointing realization that the country I live in is not the one I thought I grew up in. As Black and Brown Americans could have told me, my imagined America was never real; it was only a narrative that kept social and political hierarchies in place. I agree with the argument that upholding both the establishment and free exercise components strengthens religious practice in this country. I hold the position that the current rally cry of “Religious Liberty” signals a license to discriminate and thereby to enforce through subterfuge a morality code that bolsters white supremacy nationalism. This is not Christian. Again, not all conservative White Christians are white nationalists. Just as politicians like Leader McConnell who actively work to pack the judiciary with conservative judges are not all actively forwarding a religious agenda. And yet, these groups are strange bedfellows.
As Bill Clinton reminded us in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid.” But how might corporate-forward politicians get plain folks to vote against their own economic interests? By appealing to their/our values. In 1980, when the Republicans actively courted religious leaders like Falwell and Robertson to get Christians on board, they promised Christians would have a friend in the White House, a seat at the table—that they would have a voice in governing. So Christians voted Republican. There was no real seat at the table, so the strategy changed to grassroots campaigns and gaining control of the judiciary. Aside from one setback on same-gender marriage from Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, they have been overwhelming successful in influencing politics, which, of course, include the Courts. In his dissent of Obergefell, Justice Alito forecasted—or perhaps signaled—the ruling would have an “inevitable conflict with religious liberty” argument. I am not a political scientist, but my gut tells me that the LGBT victory with Obergefell helped the narrative shift; there would be new, more creative, ways to discriminate. If same-gender marriage was established by an unelected federal judiciary, so too then would cases be decided where refusal of services, for example, be equated with free exercise of religion. Impact on Local Ministries A 2019 brief from the Center for American Progress entitled Religious Liberty Should Do No Harm argues that policymakers have a responsibility to enact legislation that will, “ensure the right of religious liberty for all Americans without infringing on the rights and religious freedoms of others” (London and Saddiqi, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/reports/2019/04/11/468041/religious-liberty-no-harm/). They offer suggestions for building a framework of inclusive, non-discriminatory religious liberty.
One option relevant to local ministries is to consult faith communities in local policymaking. This might be through the formation of interfaith councils, working groups, and task forces that represent a diversity of faith traditions, “in order to ensure that the many voices of the faith community are considered in policymaking” (ibid). This idea gets to the crux of the matter, writ large. Local politics are unduly influenced by conservative White Christians; local municipalities are unable to oppose Republican governors to mandate business closures during a pandemic, let alone establish interfaith policy consulting councils. If we were at a place in this country where rural Alabama had interfaith advisory groups, it might be a good sign that religious liberty was alive and well. But we are not. My religious affiliation is with the United Church of Christ (UCC), an Open and Affirming (ONA) denomination toward some of the populations against whom religious liberty is being used as a weapon. The most obvious impact religious liberty laws have on my local ministry involves providing sacred spaces of radical welcome who are being discriminated against. My congregation would not only make a cake for a same-gender couple, we would perform the wedding and host the reception! As important, we would show up in solidarity at the state capital. As Flowers and some of the writers above note, the establishment clause ensures the religious liberty of all who wish to freely exercise religious beliefs, not just of a small subset who would seek to manipulate the First Amendment to suit themselves. For example, this is not a fight for religious liberty of Muslims. It is important that local ministries be vocal in opposition to misuse and misinterpretation of religious liberty. We must, then, employ our own religious liberty to re-establish the concept of freedom inherent in it. I will end with a story. My congregation is literally on a hill; drivers by cannot see us from the street. As one drives up the hill to the building, we have displayed really powerful signs about being the church and proclaiming that we are an ONA church. Once or twice we tried to put the signs at the foot of the hill; that way, people could see what we stand for. Both times, the signs disappeared. We do not hang a rainbow flag outside our building or display the UCC “Rainbow Comma” logo on our marquee. We do not display Black Lives Matter signs. London and Siddiqi end their brief with this cautionary word, “If policymakers do not ensure that religious liberty protects the free exercise of religion for all Americans, it will continue to be weaponized as a tool for discrimination and political gain and weaken nondiscrimination protections” (americanprogress.org). A “city set on a hill” (Mt. 5:14) can be hidden if it wants to be. We can be visible by being the church, or we can watch as inclusive religious liberty slips beyond our grasp. The work happens at the foot of the hill.
As part of my UCC Sacred Conversations to End Racism (SC2ER) class, I collected these resources from online sources. Although I blatantly lifted them, I have cited the source links. It’s a lot~~so keep scrolling for the hot links!
Van Sertima, Ivan, They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, (New York, NY: Random House, 1976).
Ortiz, Paul. An African American and Latinx History of the United States. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018).
Higginbotham, Leon A., Jr., Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process, (New York, NY: Oxford Press, 1996).
Morrison, Toni, The Origins of Others, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017).
Boesak, Allan Aubrey, Curtiss DeYoung, Radical Reconciliation: Beyond Political Pietism and Christian Quietism, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Book, 2012).
DiAngelo, Robin, What Does It Mean To Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy, (Peter Lang Publishing, 2012). ________ White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018).
Resmaa, Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, (Central Recovery Press: Las Vegas, NV, 2017).
Mills, Charles, The Racial Contract, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
Baptist, Edward E., The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2014).
Introducing Womanist Theology – Stephanie Y. Mitchem
An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation – Nyasha Junior
Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenges to Womanist God-Talk – Delores S. Williams
Enfleshing Freedom, body, race, and being, — M. Shawn Copeland
Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation & Transformation – Emile M. Townes
Women Race and Class – Angela Davis Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement
The James Cone Collection
For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church: Black Theology and the Life of the Church (Bishop Henry McNeal Turner Studies in North American Black Book
Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian
A Black Theology of Liberation – Fourtieth Anniversary Edition
Black Theology and Black Power
God of the Oppressed
Latinx and Mujerista Resources
Mujerista Theology – A Theology for the Twenty-First Century, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz
A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology: Religion and Justice, Maria Pilar Aquino
Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins, A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament, Fernando F. Sergovia
Racism and God-Talk: A Latino/A Perspective – Ruben Rosario Rodriguez
The Ties That Bind: African American and Hispanic American/Latino/a Theologies in Dialogue – Anthony B. Pinn and Benjamin Valentin
Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America – Juan Gonzalez
Asian and Asian American Resources
Heart of the Cross: A Postcolonial Christology, Anne Joh
Making Paper Cranes: Toward an Asian American Feminist Theology, Mihee Kim-Kort
Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times, Soong Chan Rah
Off the Menu: Asian and Asian North American Women’s Religion and Theology, Rita Brock
Postcolonial Bible (Bible and Postcolonial), R.S. Sugirtharajah
Voices from the Margins, R.S Sugirtharajah
The Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism, Rosalind S. Chou and Joe Feagin
For more Racial Justice Resources and information contact Rev. Dr. Velda Love Lovev@ucc.org
Anti-Racist Reading List from Ibram X. Kendi
By: R Rattusnorvegicus Chicago Public Library Community-created list
“This anti-racist syllabus is for people realizing they were never taught how to be anti-racist. How to treat all the racial groups as equals. How to look at the racial inequity all around and look for the racist policies producing it, and the racist ideas veiling it. This list is for people beginning their anti-racist journey ..” Ibram X. Kendi (author of “How to Be an Antiracist”)
Fatal Invention How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century by Roberts, Dorothy
Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Kendi, Ibram X.
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by DiAngelo, Robin J.
Locking up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by Forman, James
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Angelou, Maya
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by X, Malcolm
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Mock, Janet
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Cooper, Brittney C.
Heavy: An American Memoir by Laymon, Kiese
The Fire Next Time by Baldwin, James
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Lorde, Audre
Between the World and Me by Coates, Ta-Nehisi
The Fire This Time by Kenan, Randall
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, From Womb to Grave, in the Building of A Nation by Berry, Daina Ramey
Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Foner, Eric
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II by Blackmon, Douglas A.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Alexander, Michelle
The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Muhammad, Khalil Gibran
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Rothstein, Richard
The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit by Sugrue, Thomas J.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Wilkerson, Isabel
A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Theoharis, Jeanne
Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy by Dudziak, Mary L.
Too Heavy A Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894-1994 by White, Deborah G.
When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America by Giddings, Paula
From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America by Hinton, Elizabeth Kai
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Davis, Angela Y.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Stevenson, Bryan
Roots by Haley, Alex
North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 by Litwack, Leon F.
They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and A New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement by Lowery, Wesley
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta
Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Berman, Ari
One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy by Anderson, Carol
Antiracism: An Introduction by Zamalin, Alex
How To Be An Antiracist by Kendi, Ibram X.
The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism & Engage in Collective Healing by Singh, Anneliese A.
The Wellbeing Handbook for Overcoming Everyday Racism: How to Be Resilient in the Face of Discrimination and Microagressions by Cousins, Susan
The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness by Magee, Rhonda V.
The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America’s Law Enforcement by Horace, Matthew
Chokehold: Policing Black Men by Butler, Paul
Citizen: An American Lyric by Rankine, Claudia
Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Glaude, Eddie S.
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Cooper, Brittney C.
Fire Shut up in My Bones: A Memoir by Blow, Charles M.
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in A World Made for Whiteness by Brown, Austin Channing
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become A Good Ancestor by Saad, Layla F
My Midnight Years: Surviving Jon Burge’s Police Torture Ring and Death Row by Kitchen, Ronald
No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America by Moore, Darnell L.
On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by Mckesson, DeRay
Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement : My Storory of Transformation and Hope by Woodfox, Albert
So You Want to Talk About Race by Oluo, Ijeoma
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Dyson, Michael Eric
Things That Make White People Uncomfortable by Bennett, Michael
This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (white) America by Jerkins, Morgan
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays by Young, Damon
When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Khan-Cullors, Patrisse
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race by Tatum, Beverly Daniel
Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience by Rowe, Sheila Wise
This Book Is Anti-racist by Jewell, Tiffany
I Am Not your Negro: A Major Motion Picture Directed by Raoul Peck by Baldwin, James
Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Glaude, Eddie S.
An Antiracist Reading List NY Times, compiled by Ibram X. Kendi
BIOLOGY
FATAL INVENTION: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century By Dorothy Roberts
No book destabilized my fraught notions of racial distinction and hierarchy — the belief that each race had different genes, diseases and natural abilities — more than this vigorous critique of the “biopolitics of race.” Roberts, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, shows unequivocally that all people are indeed created equal, despite political and economic special interests that keep trying to persuade us otherwise. New Press, 2011
ETHNICITY
WEST INDIAN IMMIGRANTS: A Black Success Story? By Suzanne Model
Some of the same forces have led Americans to believe that the recent success of black immigrants from the Caribbean proves either that racism does not exist or that the gap between African-Americans and other groups in income and wealth is their own fault. But Model’s meticulous study, emphasizing the self-selecting nature of the West Indians who emigrate to the United States, argues otherwise, showing me, a native of racially diverse New York City, how such notions — the foundation of ethnic racism — are unsupported by the facts. Russell Sage Foundation, 2008
BODY
THE CONDEMNATION OF BLACKNESS: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America By Khalil Gibran Muhammad
“Black” and “criminal” are as wedded in America as “star” and “spangled.” Muhammad’s book traces these ideas to the late 19th century, when racist policies led to the disproportionate arrest and incarceration of blacks, igniting urban whites’ fears and bequeathing tenaciously racist stereotypes. Harvard University, 2010
CULTURE
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD By Zora Neale Hurston
Of course, the black body exists within a wider black culture — one Hurston portrayed with grace and insight in this seminal novel. She defies racist Americans who would standardize the cultures of white people or sanitize, eroticize, erase or assimilate those of blacks. 1937
BEHAVIOR
THE NEGRO ARTIST AND THE RACIAL MOUNTAIN By Langston Hughes
“We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame,” Hughes wrote nearly 100 years ago. “We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.” We are all imperfectly human, and these imperfections are also markers of human equality. The Nation, June 23, 1926
COLOR
THE BLUEST EYE By Toni Morrison
THE BLACKER THE BERRY By Wallace Thurman
Beautiful and hard-working black people come in all shades. If dark people have less it is not because they are less, a moral eloquently conveyed in these two classic novels, stirring explorations of colorism. 1970 | 1929
WHITENESS
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X By Malcolm X and Alex Haley
DYING OF WHITENESS: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland By Jonathan M. Metzl
Malcolm X began by adoring whiteness, grew to hate white people and, ultimately, despised the false concept of white superiority — a killer of people of color. And not only them: low- and middle-income white people too, as Metzl’s timely book shows, with its look at Trump-era policies that have unraveled the Affordable Care Act and contributed to rising gun suicide rates and lowered life expectancies. 1965 | Basic Books, 2019
BLACKNESS
LOCKING UP OUR OWN: Crime and Punishment in Black America By James Forman Jr.
Just as Metzl explains how seemingly pro-white policies are killing whites, Forman explains how blacks themselves abetted the mass incarceration of other blacks, beginning in the 1970s. Amid rising crime rates, black mayors, judges, prosecutors and police chiefs embraced tough-on-crime policies that they promoted as pro-black with tragic consequences for black America. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2017 (Read the review.)
CLASS
BLACK MARXISM: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition By Cedric J. Robinson
Black America has been economically devastated by what Robinson calls racial capitalism. He chastises white Marxists (and black capitalists) for failing to acknowledge capitalism’s racial character, and for embracing as sufficient an interpretation of history founded on a European vision of class struggle. Zed Press, 1983
SPACES
WAITING ’TIL THE MIDNIGHT HOUR: A Narrative History of Black Power in America By Peniel E. Joseph
As racial capitalism deprives black communities of resources, assimilationists ignore or gentrify these same spaces in the name of “development” and “integration.” To be antiracist is not only to promote equity among racial groups, but also among their spaces, something the black power movement of the 1960s and 1970s understood well, as Joseph’s chronicle makes clear. Holt, 2006
GENDER
HOW WE GET FREE: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective Edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
WELL-READ BLACK GIRL: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves Edited by Glory Edim
I began my career studying, and too often admiring, activists who demanded black (male) power over black communities, including over black women, whom they placed on pedestals and under their feet. Black feminist literature, including these anthologies, helps us recognize black women “as human, levelly human,” as the Combahee River Collective demanded to be seen in 1977.
SEXUALITY
REDEFINING REALNESS: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock
I grew up in a Christian household thinking there was something abnormal and immoral about queer blacks. My racialized transphobia made Mock’s memoir an agonizing read — just as my racialized homophobia made Lorde’s essays and speeches a challenge. But pain often precedes healing.
Atria, 2014 | Crossing Press, 1984
By not running from the books that pain us, we can allow them to transform us. I ran from antiracist books most of my life. But now I can’t stop running after them — scrutinizing myself and my society, and in the process changing both. Ibram X. Kendi
Miss Juneteenth, a new movie about a former beauty queen and single mom preparing her rebellious teenage daughter for the “Miss Juneteenth” pageant in Texas
“The Death of George Floyd, In Context,” by Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker
“Of Course There Are Protests. The State Is Failing Black People,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor for the New York Times
“This Is How Loved Ones Want Us To Remember George Floyd,” by Alisha Ebrahimji for CNN.
The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning The 1619 Project is as important as ever. Take some time to read (or re-read) the entire thing, particularly this essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones
“You shouldn’t need a Harvard degree to survive birdwatching while black,” by Samuel Getachew, a 17-year-old and the 2019 Oakland youth poet laureate, for the Washington Post
“It’s exhausting. How many hashtags will it take for all of America to see Black people as more than their skin color?” by Rita Omokha for Elle
Hear To Slay, “the black feminist podcast of your dreams,” with Roxane Gay and Tressie McMillan Cottom
Pod Save The People, organizer and activist DeRay Mckesson explores news, culture, social justice, and politics with analysis from fellow activists Brittany Packnett, Sam Sinyangwe, and writer Dr. Clint Smith III
The Appeal, a podcast on criminal justice reform hosted by Adam Johnson
Justice In America, a podcast by Josie Duffy Rice and Clint Smith on criminal justice reform
It’s time for white people to check our thinking. Right now.
What are we thinking? I don’t mean, as in, What are we THINKING?? No, I mean, as in, what are we as white people actually thinking right now as the U.S. moves into week two of protests and month three of social distancing? What are we thinking about race, the president, Covid-19, about anything?
As a teacher, I often found that my white college students, who were studying to become teachers in public schools, were uncomfortable talking about race. They did not want to say the “wrong” thing and get called out or challenged. That’s the trade off, though, for talking openly and honestly about race. We get to talk, but we will get things wrong, and we might–will no doubt–have that pointed out. Dont worry, this is a judgement free zone–the point is to think about what we are thinking.
Here is an important point: we must think about what we are thinking so that we can know who we are, and what we support or oppose. To start with, I have a lot of faith in people. I give us credit for generally wanting to do the right thing, to get along with each other, to help each other, and to be able to see injustice and be offended by it.
So I’m going to throw some random thoughts that some of us may or may not be having these days, as we watch FOX or CNN or MSNBC, or even Lifetime. I’m wondering if we’re thinking some of the same things.
Covid-19 is easing up, so we can go out to eat. Or to church. Or to a ballgame.
Football should start on time in the fall. Especially college football.
The cities are on fire. What we need is some law and order. It was necessary for the military to be called up to protect….(fill in the blank).
There do seem to be quite a few cops killing Black people, but….(fill in blank with your reason).
Covid-19 was spread from a Chinese laboratory. Or a Chinese bat. Either way, it was Chinese.
Sure black lives matter. All lives matter.
These protesters are all radicals.
Since Martin Luther King, Blacks have equal rights.
It’s embarrassing to wear a mask. People will look me strange, maybe even smirk.
If people don’t wear masks, we will build up herd immunity to Covid-19.
I feel guilty about race issues. Sometimes this turns to anger.
It feels like the U.S. is split right now on just about any and every issue.
Cops would not kill if they weren’t provoked by thugs and criminals.
President Trump….(fill in the blank with what you think about the president).
I’m worried this country won’t be the same as it was six months ago, but I hope it does.
Why aren’t Black people more grateful and appreciative that that I am not a racist?
I do not have white privilege because I’ve worked hard for anything I have.
I want to do something to support the protesters, but what?
Again, no judgement or moralizing here. I just think we ought to be clear about where we stand and how we feel about events going on around us. Maybe you are open to new ways of thinking. Maybe you are trying hard to empathize with others. Maybe not. For myself, I feel as though I come up short with being informed and being an ally to people….what do I think I should write here….people fighting for their rights?….fighting to breathe?…people whose cause I agree with? I am weighing out which group of people I want to offend least by speaking my own truth. Maybe you also think these things.
So, IF you are like me, wondering what you can do, wondering how you can be an ally, wondering how you can find out more information on Covid–trying to figure out anything at all, I have some links to share. And finally, if you find yourself feeling a certain way that I have the audacity to write this kind of thing at all, see if you can figure out what is prompting those feelings.
What People of Color Want from White Allies “Respect us”
“Listen to us” “Find out about us”
“Don’t make assumptions” “Don’t take over”
“Stand by my side” “Provide information”
“Don’t assume you know what’s best for me” “Resources”
“Money” “Take risks”
“Make mistakes” “Don’t take it personally”
“Honesty” “Understanding”
“Talk to other white people” “Teach your children about “Interrupt jokes and comments” racism” “Speak up”
“Don’t ask me to speak for my people” “Your body on the line”
“Persevere daily”
Here is another link, White Anti-Racism: Living the Legacy, from Teaching Tolerance.org https://www.tolerance.org/professional-development/white-antiracism-living-the-legacy Here’s an excerpt from that site on guilt: Guilt allows white people to maintain the status quo. Guilt creates paralysis. Guilt transfers the responsibility to people of color. Guilt continues the aspect of racism wherein white people put people of color in a situation of taking care of us.
Here’s a list of 17 Books On Racism Every White Person Needs To Read from a cite called WhiteAllyToolkit.com
And finally, Here’s a Covid-19 link from Cedars-Sinai, Reliable Sources for Covid-19 Info https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/reliable-sources-for-coronavirus-info/. You can also look at your local and state health departments, but in my opinion if you really want to get a good read on the situation, dig into how your local nursing homes are doing and scan your local newspapers.
This is my first blog post since everything has changed. Everything. So where to start? To begin with, today I am not going to talk about the politics of it all. I wanted to lay out the sequence of events so that I can remember them–where I was, what I was doing. Reflections will come later.
In February, we heard the word Wuhan for the first time. I recall Sarah mentioned it in passing, and I remember replying, “Oh, ok, uh-huh,” without stopping what I was doing. Throughout that month and into March, I may or may not have clicked on updates from China that came across my news feed, but since it was not a topic yet related to U.S. politics (my preferred topic), I likely kept scrolling. Then came March.
On March 1, there were 75 confirmed cases in the U.S. On March 9, the day Sarah was to drive to South Florida for a math conference, there were 704. On March 10, we cancelled a cruise we had booked with Sarah’s family and church pals. Then on March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. By March 12, the day she decided to come home early, the number was 1,697 (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ ). By the way, COVID-19 is the specific strain of coronavirus (a general group of viruses); to call it the Chinese coronavirus is not only inaccurate, it’s racist. Yep. You may not care for the Chinese government, but those folks over there got sick like us folks over here. See?
By mid-March–which sounds and feels like a decade ago as I write it–online news sources had special COVID-19 pages/links, where you could see all news updates related to the virus in one place. The 2020 Democratic primary was affected. Super Tuesday was pretty much overshadowed. Candidates and other politicians–including the president, who thrives on rallys–began cancelling. The last Democratic debate–like all late night shows–were held without live audiences. I must admit I approve of the format for debates–for Stephen Colbert, not so much. As early as Saturday, March 7th, Kennesaw State University had begun to develop a “continuity plan” in the event face-to-face classes were suspended. It was essentially a plan for all courses to go online.
Unexpected issues started cropping up, too. For example, what would students do if dorms and dining halls were closed? What about homeless students (and all universities have them)? What about students who did not have computers or notebooks, but only their smartphones? The news channels began to have question and answer programming where viewers sent in questions for experts to answer. We submitted our plan to the university president by March 10th, and then we waited. It truly felt like a calm before the storm, eerie silence and all. By the evening of Friday the 13th, announcements came that public schools and universities would go online the following week. Church services across the country scrambled to find ways to make virtual worship meaningful. This was also the day that everyone in America went to the grocery stores for toilet paper.
Monday, March 16, was the day the stock market had its worst day since 1987. It was also the day we started setting up our home offices. Sarah had worked all weekend preparing to teach three in-person classes completely online–and have office hours virtually. I brought home monitors and books from the office after having one virtual meeting on my laptop. Honestly, I need the 2 monitors so I can do other things during the meeting, like look for social distancing staples online. You know you do it too, which is why it is on one of the 10,000 blog posts called, “Good Virtual Meeting Etiquette.” I have so far had five virtual meetings this week. It got so bad, one group had trouble finding a time–from home during social distancing!–to schedule our next meeting. A well-meaning colleague suggested meeting early–8:30 or 9:00 am–so that people would be free. I told him it was obscene to start that early. Because we are at home does not mean we are always “on,” which he was NOT suggesting. But it’s something to think about.
So, it is Friday, March 20, and we are caught up with the basics. I have learned how to change my Zoom background and so far have been at the Grassy Knoll, the White House, Graceland, and inside the Tardis. We have cooked more this week. Sarah has started an outdoor garden–so far with mainly carrot tops from our increased vegetable consumption. My office is a thing of beauty, and I am about to run out of diversionary tactics related to rearranging it. I have so far ventured out twice–both times to the office and thrift shop. I took wipes and sanitizer. I have taken a walk. We are ahead of the laundry. I have read Scripture and Sister Joan Chittister’s take on The Rule of Benedict every morning.
The other pandemic task I worked on this week was connecting. I realized that part of my own continuity plan should include staying in contact with people. As an introvert, it’s saying a lot that I should have that as my concern, but I am aware that I self-isolate enough anyway–imagine when it is mandatory! So, I hit the Facebook and made “Friends” with people from all parts of my life: colleagues, church folks, family, old classmates, scholar friends. I paid attention as people started setting up “Hangouts” and various groups and web meet ups. There have also been plenty of news and blogs encouraging people to take precautions to avoid loneliness, which will be very real as this thing goes along. Speaking of blogging, it’s another way I feel connected, and I’m planning on doing it more. There should be plenty to write about. One thought I had this week, during my containment prep, was how aptly named the blog is, Just Keep Swimming. If it was appropriate up to now, it sure is as we move forward. It is, for me, a hope-full idea: hang on, keep going, do the best you can. That’s the plan, anyway.
I am gaining my weight back. Again. Like just about every person who has ever battled their weight, I have tried every diet plan imaginable. I’ve taken diet pills–over the counter and prescription–and for awhile I took Alli fat blocking pills, which was the grossest diet plan ever. Google that one. I’ve done Weight Watchers, now WW so you will feel like a winner, thank you, Oprah. It’s still Weight Watchers. I’ve exercised for a solid year; that, along with WW, which works if you work it, resulted in my losing the most weight I ever had in my adult life: 70 pounds. It felt so good! I got a complete new wardrobe and felt young again. I was so encouraged this time when I read that if I could keep it off for 3 years, I could keep it off for good. When it started creeping back after about year two–those crisp white shirts and modern-cut pants started feeling snug (a word of terror for fat people)–I looked that factoid up again. It had said five years, not three. I had weighted 168 for exactly 2 days, and as I creeped back up in the 170s, I told myself that my body wanted me to be in that range. Again, if you’ve ever been a weight warrior, you know the feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched myself outgrow my clothes. Again.
My size 10 Levis were the first item to go, then my pants for going out. I donated my cute pinstripe suit after church one Sunday when a guy jokingly–it’s always jokingly, you know, but there’s truth behind it and it hurts like a sucker punch–said “Hey girl, you trying to show off those biceps?” I looked down at curved stripes on too-tight sleeves. Last year, I bought size 16 Levis, telling myself I still had not reached my highest weight–253, so 16 was okay. I was still under 200 pounds. Then came another holiday season.
I don’t even bother making New Year’s resolutions any more. What is the point? It’s always the same: lose some weight. Weight warriors, familiar? Knowing most people gain a few pounds over the holidays, and also knowing I didn’t have any to gain, I was determined to practice portion control. I didn’t gain during the month-long eat fest, but I began to feel my body change beyond the feel of my clothes. I put out of my mind that the size 16 roomy L.L.Bean pants’ waistband was getting snug. (oh no!). I was out of breath in the shower. I developed a candida fungus under my belly fat. Yes, that is so far the most embarrassing thing that I’ve ever felt about my body. Fat can be fluffy if you tell yourself enough. But a seepy, smelly rash made me feel nothing but shame.
This weekend an interview with Molly Carmel popped up on my newsfeed, and led me to her new book, Breaking Up With Sugar: Divorce the Diets, Drop the Pounds, and Live Your Best Life. I had do decide whether to add another weight loss book to my Kindle. I have books on insulin resistance, carbs, and the keto diet, for example. I know the science, and I know the “secrets” of weight loss. If knowledge were enough, wouldn’t we all be thinner and healthy? That, precisely, is Carmel’s point. I ‘m going to call her Molly, since the tone of her book is friendly and encouraging. I’m reading Breaking Up now, and I’m glad I bought it.
Here’s Molly’s About the Author on Amazon: Molly Carmel has made it her life’s mission to help people find a sustainable solution to the battle of obesity and related eating disorders. After battling her own eating disorder for over 20 years and finding no solution in available treatment, she created The Beacon, where she helps clients recover from similar addictions. Carmel received her Bachelor’s in Social Work from Cornell University and her Master’s from Columbia University’s School of Social Work. She has extensive training in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, addiction, and nutrition.
The chapters support the breakup/divorce/find a healthy relationship theme of the book. I’m on Chapter 3, “The Truth About Your Sweetest Love,” where Molly gives a summary of how sugar is in reality “Suicide on the Installment Plan.” I wanted to include her list of sugar’s lethal capacity here: But Sugar also negatively affects every single part of your body. Some of these harmful effects are more well known than others. Eating sugar has been linked to: inflammation, migraine headaches, anxiety, brain fog, trouble sleeping, weakened eyesight, gum disease, heart disease, increased cholesterol, asthma, suppressed immunity, kidney damage, nonalcoholic fatty liver, overworked pancreas, arthritis, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome, and leptin resistance. There’s even terrifying research showing that Sugar increases the risk of developing certain cancers. And of course, let us not forget Sugar’s piece de resistance, glucose intolerance and diabetis…
And yet, knowing all of this and having encountered many of the effects on Molly’s list, I keep right on eating sugar and its evil twin flour anyway. I’m going to keep reading, but I’m open to the idea that I think and behave like an addict when it comes to sugar–and I suspect toward food in general. I looked ahead to see whether Molly had made me a shopping list and a suggested meal plan? She had? Ah ha, I thought, but are they easy or complicated? Maybe they were like keto, a list of foods and meals of stuff I really don’t like (how much butter can I eat?). Nah, Molly included good, whole foods. I felt healthier just reading the foods and plans, which are easy and sustainable. I went through her lists of proteins, fats, carbs and made a grocery list.
I’ve already started the self-doubt talk in my mind. I’ve done this before–so many times. What is different about this time? How long will I be able to eat this food, which I’ll get tired of, won’t I? It’ll take too long to lose this much weight, so what’s the point? But Friday is pizza night! You work so hard, don’t you deserve a reward? Molly, though, has already thought of this–she describes how she herself heard those same voices. Of everything I’ve read so far, this passage has hit me most profoundly was about how rats respond to excessive Sugar–which Molly capitalizes to remind us that we really are in a relationship. After describing sugar DTs, she writes, What’s more, when the rats withdrawing from Sugar were placed in water, they were less likely to swim or climb out, and more likely to passively float. They had lost their will to survive. I’m going to keep reading, Chapter 4 is “Defining Your Relationship: How Bad Is It Really?” There’s even a quiz. I know already; it’s pretty bad. I have a food addiction. I’ll start from there.
I believe it is justifiably hopeful given the theory, theology, and practical parts of the topics. If I were going to teach a Sunday School class, or even present a lesson in a college education class, I would begin by scouring literature and web sites. I would, in the style of Worthington and Lederach, turn to case studies and current events. Much like these blog posts, the organization of a brief curriculum would be somewhat as follows:
Introduction, Definition of Terms, Participant Questions
Deeper Understandings: Contexts, Benefits, Limits
The Scope of Forgiving and Reconciling: Interpersonal, Local, Global
Putting It All Together, Where Do We Go From Here, Revisit Initial Questions
I have included below Revisiting the 10 Practices of Just Peacemaking Theory by David P. Gushee (2019) from EthicsDaily.com. Developed by the late ethicist Glen Stassen. Although the practices reference peacemaking (which I use interchangeably with reconciliation, knowing there are differences) at the global setting, I believe they can be modified to allow us to act upon them locally.
Support nonviolent direct action.
Nonviolent direct action occurs when citizens confront injustice through peaceful public protests and other resistance strategies, including boycotts and strategic noncooperation. Practiced effectively by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Take independent initiatives to reduce threat.
Use cooperative conflict resolution. These skills train adversaries to see each other as human beings with dignity and legitimate needs rather than as sub-humans whose every negotiating demand is illegitimate just because of how evil they are.
Acknowledge responsibility for conflict and injustice; seek repentance and forgiveness.
Promote democracy, human rights and religious liberty.
Foster just and sustainable economic development. Hungry people easily become desperate and violent, and, when they rebel, their need is at least temporarily exacerbated.
Work with emerging cooperative forces in the international system.It stands to reason that the more nations are involved in these webs of interaction, the less likely they are to make war.
Strengthen the United Nations and international organizations.
Reduce offensive weapons and weapons trade.
Encourage grassroots peacemaking groups and voluntary associations. Everybody needs somebody looking over their shoulders to keep them in check. See the full article here
Peace, justice, dignity, equity, voice, and the resolution of conflict are the basis of reconciliation. What about forgiveness? Psychology Today states, “Forgiveness is the release of resentment or anger.” It does not mean reconciliation–no person or entity has to return to a harmful relationship. “Forgiveness is vitally important for the mental health of those who have been victimized. It propels people forward rather than keeping them emotionally engaged in an injustice or trauma.” It has physical, emotional, and psychological benefits, and has been shown to “elevate mood, enhance optimism, and guard against anger, stress, anxiety, and depression.” Forgiveness and Reconciliation are like a suit: you can wear the jacket and pants separately, but they also go together. Maintaining the distinction acknowledges the offended party (I am avoiding the word victim here). If this complicated process is worked prayerfully and diligently, there are situations where both are possible outcomes. Link to Psychology Today: Forgiveness
The following is the beginnings of a collection of resources that I will add to over time.
The Front Porch Professor 