Asking for a generation

What could the Church in North America do if it put its hands together across cultures, if it desegregated its pews and pulpits, if it reflected the changing community outside its doors?  Who would we become and what witness could we offer the world if we chose our baptismal identity in Christ over and against […]

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Race cannot save you

It’s not in the Bible, not a part of the creation narrative in Genesis, not stuck in between the serpent’s teeth or on the tip of its tongue.  This is not the devil’s work but ours.   We must take full credit.  It’s not even historical fiction but a modern day lie. Not B.C. but […]

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Ta- Nehisi Coates responds to Mitch McConnell on reparations

“It’s not a good idea.”  Asked where he stood on reparations in response to an upcoming hearing, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Majority Leader, said, “I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea.”  When asked by a reporter about […]

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The Exonerated Five, the Emanuel Nine, and why we can’t lose count

Ava Marie DuVernay’s documentary “When They See Us” tells the story of four African American boys and one Latino American boy falsely accused and mislabeled “The Central Park 5” after a female European American jogger, Trisha Meili, is viciously attacked and raped in April of 1989.  With contrived confessions but no DNA evidence to link the […]

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James Baldwin talks about race as “a frame of reference”

The most common question I get asked is, “How do you not see race?”  Mystified, irritated, doubtful, persons look at me and wonder how does it happen.  Or they think, “What world are you living in?  Not the real one.  Don’t you see what is happening?” I am treated like a madwoman.  They shake their […]

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