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| January 21-23
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Racial justice is a matter of life and death. We can’t afford to stay silent and accept the (mostly) invisible systems that support inequality. Rather, we need to have an open dialogue—which starts with listening. Trinity Institute 2016, Trinity Wall Street’s annual theological conference, will be an opportunity to have conversations about the racial issues of our time, including structural racism, mass incarceration, and policy. You’ll also build your capacity to go back into your community and continue to engage and nurture these conversations. The articles and interviews in the following pages are meant to begin this conversation. We recommend you read and discuss them in community with open hearts and minds. Then, you are invited to continue to discuss, reflect, and listen at Trinity Institute 2016, as well as in your own communities and daily lives.
ot long after I became rector of Trinity Wall Street, I asked from the pulpit if it is possible for people who are not racist, in the sense of having consciously racist beliefs, to build a racist society. I think it is. As Christians, regular occurrences of racist violence and racial terrorism call us to look closely at the world we’ve built and consider how we might be harming our brothers and sisters. Listening to other people can help us do that. I believe friendships across racial lines are one way to combat racism. They’re certainly not the only way nor are they sufficient, but it’s a good first step towards breaking down racial barriers. One of the ways we get to know our friends is to listen to their stories, which is why we’ve asked a few leaders in the church to tell us about their own personal experiences. I hope that these stories will help us all see a little better how and why racism affects people of color, and indeed, all of us. I believe there is much reason for hope and reconciliation. But first we must repent, turn around, as our faith and our Scriptures call us to do, and face one another with hearts unafraid of change—recognizing Christ in each other’s eyes. So, please, open the ears of your heart as you read the following stories and allow Christ’s healing love to invade your hopes and dreams.
The Rev. Dr. William Lupfer Rector, Trinity Wall Street
Find out more at TI2016.org. Trinity Wall Street
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In the midst of this I learned about racism —one of the most non-sensible of human interactions I can think of (including other “isms” that say more about our failings than our superiority). It is in these lessons that the faith of my grandmother and parents and other older black folk in my life became invaluable. I was raised on “Jesus loves me, this I know” and “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and
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Have the Conversations.
Address the
Issues.
white, all are precious in his sight.” We sang these songs and others in my Sunday school classes with a kind of gusto only conjured by little kids. These words meant something to me—I was loved, and the darkness of my skin was not a factor in how much God loved me through God’s own son.
I can’t recall a time when race didn’t play a role in my life. Growing up black and southern, race was an all-the-time thing that my parents told me about so that I could maneuver in the world around me in relative safety. It was never an option for me to “forget” my blackness and to not notice the color hues around me. In many ways, these differences formed a rich tapestry that fascinated me and helped me love diversity because of all of the possibilities I found in it. I was taught to love my blackness and respect those of different hues—the white folks, brown folks, and other colored folks that began to make up the world I was being raised in.
Do the Work.
If the church does nothing else, it needs to take seriously the message of love that is a part of its faith DNA. This is not the kind of love that only shows up when it is easier to work with some people than others. This is a hefty love that sustains and calls us to do our first works over, so that we face ourselves and one another honestly, addressing the challenges that the richness of diversity pose for us. We must learn that difference is not a threat, that varying viewpoints must be listened to with respect, that we do not have to agree with one another to be faithful or Christian, that the wideness of God’s mercy is not limited to special groups or individuals, that reconciliation should never be our first move—especially if it comes before repentance and justice. The Church must help us all celebrate the fullness of God’s good creation and show us how we human folks are very much a part of it. The Church can be, should be, the place where we face the stereotypes and fears we have about one another and recognize we are all sinners in need of grace. The Church should not be our fears and phobias now sanctified but rather where we look at race for what it is—another manifestation of how creation reveals itself in our lives and, we hope, in our hearts, now growing larger and fuller. The Rev. Dr. Emilie M. Townes, a distinguished scholar and leader in theological education, is Dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School. She is also the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society.
An Interview with the Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. Can you tell me about a time you were aware of racism? The first time I became aware that there was such a thing as racism I was four years old. My parents moved my brother and I to a neighborhood in Washington, D.C. We were the first black family. I remember at that time playing with all of the kids in the neighborhood. It was a wonderful place. Everybody was friendly. Everybody knew each other. Within two years or so all of the white families had moved away. What was seared into my memory, my soul, was that something was wrong with people who had my color skin because the others gave us a clear message: We don’t want to be near you. We don’t want to live with you. You are inferior. That was my first experience with that kind of bigotry. What role did faith play? We went to a large black Baptist church in Washington, D.C. At church my parents had dignity. At church they could be leaders. At church I was loved and accepted, and people didn’t want to run from me but embraced me. That has been the role of the black church for one hundred years in this country. Yes, it has a spiritual role of the nourishment of souls, but it’s also nourishment of whole beings. Most of my life’s mission in the church is to keep calling us back to the core message: that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to bring good news to all those who have been oppressed, all those whom much of society wants to despise.
“In the United States of America there is an unholy trinity of poverty, racism, and violence.” Have the recent killings of unarmed men by police, protests in Baltimore, and the murders in Charleston changed your feelings on race? What our uprising in Baltimore in April and what the recent murders of those nine worshipers at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston have taught us is that in the United States of America there is an unholy trinity of poverty, racism, and violence. You saw it in Charleston. That shooter was someone who was poorly educated, had little prospects for life, and was basically homeless. Then he fell into a racist ideology—“My problem is those people. Without those people I would have dignity.” Then you add to that [the facts that] you can easily, with a history of some problems, go into a store and buy a firearm, and that he thought that violence was the answer to his grievances. That’s the unholy trinity: poverty, racism, and violence. You have to go after all three together. What should the Episcopal Church do? I love the Episcopal Church, and we’re in the Anglican Communion, which is a beautiful thing. But the Anglican Church followed the colonizers around the world, and so we are particularly called to eradicate racism and address poverty and violence because of that history. Out of that tradition the historic black churches in America were formed, because my African-American forebears could not find the dignity that they deserved as human
beings in Anglican and other Protestant and Roman Catholic churches at the time. So they formed their own churches. When I am with other African-American Christians, they ask me, “Eugene, why are you in that white church?” I say, “I actually am a member of a predominantly black church. I’m an Anglican.” Most Anglicans are various hues and colors from around the world. The typical Anglican is a 30-year-old African woman. I am happy to say that at the last five General Conventions, it’s been clear that the Episcopal Church is committed to the Gospel agenda of radical inclusivity, which was the message of Jesus. We have embraced the full inclusion of all the baptized, no matter what sexual orientation, race, gender. The message to the world is very clear: the Episcopal Church welcomes you. We’re showing the world we’re serious about this. Your diocese has been proactive in talking about race. The Diocese of Maryland for years has been at the forefront of addressing issues of racism. Because Maryland has done that work, [the people] were very prepared to elect the first African-American bishop. Whereas forty years before that, I would not have been welcomed as a worshiper in about half of the Episcopal churches in Maryland. But we did the work. We elected Michael Curry as presiding bishop [at General Convention]. That comes after fifty years of the Episcopal Church
doing the work of combatting racism. That would be my message to all Episcopalians and all the congregations: Do the work. Have the conversations, address the issues. If we do that hard work of having those conversations, we will keep following Christ. We think of “race” as human beings having five visual identifying markers: skin color, hair texture, eye shape, nose, and lips, as if those five characteristics were very important, but we know scientifically, biologically, genetically speaking, that they are inconsequential. Race is a human construct. When St. Paul said that in Christ there is not male or female, nor slave nor free, nor Jew nor Greek, he was onto something. Before the scientific age, he was speaking the voice of God. We are one. One family. One people. Is there any danger that this message will be used by people to avoid talking about race? I have been saying “we are one” for decades, and I have been saying that racism is a problem. They are both true. What you call your family, your clan, your group, your religion, your tribe— Jesus was breaking that down. “The one who does my will is my brother and sister.” Jesus was constantly breaking down these systems of classification that we constantly create as human beings. Saying that does not dilute the message that we have to combat racism. It undergirds it.
Courtesy of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland
The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, third from right, with other bishops, including the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, at a march against gun violence during the 78th General Convention. Trinity Wall Street
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The Sacrament of Discomfort By Mike Kinman
“That’s your privilege, Mike. You need to stop. You need to listen.” There is nothing like a sister and friend who loves you enough to call you on the carpet. I am blessed with that in the Rev. Traci Blackmon, the pastor of Christ the King UCC in Florissant, Missouri, just a stone’s throw away from where Michael Brown’s body lay on the ground for four and a half hours in Ferguson. In the wake of Michael Brown’s killing, I was filled with discomfort. There was unrest in the streets and uneasiness in my heart. I felt out of control and that a moment of opportunity was in front of me that I needed to seize. So I began to gather people I trusted— people from my Leadership St. Louis class, friends and pastors like Traci. I decided what we needed to do was have a good old-fashioned teach-in and bring all these leaders in St. Louis together, teach them about race and power and privilege, and get to work healing this gaping wound in north St. Louis. I had it all figured out. And that’s when Traci got in my face. “That’s your privilege, Mike. You need to stop. You need to listen.” What Traci was trying to teach me—a lesson I still struggle to learn—is that part of my privilege of being white, male, straight, and educated in America is that I am used to being able to control everything. I am used to seeing a problem and fixing it. When something makes me uncomfortable, when something throws my life out of balance, I am used to having the power and privilege to set it straight. That’s what I was trying to do with this teach-in. I was trying to do something—
yes, to help—but mostly so that I could feel in control, so I could feel powerful again. “That’s your privilege, Mike. You need to stop. You need to listen.” Traci—and so many other dear friends over the past year—have taught me that I am being called to lay aside my privileged ways of being. I am being called to lay aside my expectation of control. I am being called to leave my place of comfort and embrace what I have come to see as the sacrament of discomfort. Following Jesus absolutely requires us to see discomfort not as something to be avoided and feared but embraced, to see discomfort as an invitation to meet Christ in raw places, to see discomfort itself as sacramental—as a sign of God’s living, breathing, challenging, and transforming grace in our lives. For nearly a year, I have been listening to people of color crying out on the streets. They’ve been crying for far longer, but it’s only for the past year that I began to hear. These voices make me uncomfortable because they are loud and raw. They are angry and pained. They challenge our own complicity in a system that causes great pain and injustice. As a white person, I often feel these voices are directed at me personally—and some of them are. These voices make me uncomfortable because the reality they are describing is so different from mine that often I have trouble believing it could be real. So I am tempted to dismiss or rationalize it away.
I am uncomfortable because the voices are getting louder, and they are reaching me wherever I go—and they are inviting me to listen to them and to stand with them. Traci and others have taught me that because of my privilege, for most of my life I have been able to avoid extreme discomfort, to view things like racism as “issues” that I either choose to engage or not. But now, these voices are telling me it’s not optional anymore, that I need to listen, and listen, and listen some more. That I need to let the discomfort change me. That I need to let go of my privilege and give up my power of control. That is where Christ is calling me today: to resist the temptation to flee from the discomfort, to lash out at the discomfort, or even to reach for the quick and easy fix for the discomfort. If discomfort is a sacrament, and I believe it is, then I need to feel it deeply, knowing that it leads me to the very heart of Christ. I need to stop. I need to listen. I need to find Jesus in the sacrament of discomfort. The Very Rev. Mike Kinman is the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis and the Founding Board President of Magdalene St. Louis, a two-year residential program for women recovering from the effects of prostitution, abuse, and life on the streets.
“These voices make me uncomfortable because the reality they are describing is so different from mine that often i have trouble believing it could be real.“ 4
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I looked to God for Help By Luisa Bonillas I am a first-generation college graduate and the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants. The week of my first-year orientation at Wellesley College was deeply challenging. I arrived from southern Arizona on the day that I was 18 years and 18 days old. I was excited and nervous. We had been asked to bring something that represented our culture. These items would be shared during a session that we were required to attend. A few weeks before leaving for college, I went to Mexico with some friends, to the city of Nogales in the state of Sonora, and I purchased a beautiful Mexican blanket. It was pastel, and I decided that that blanket would be my “something� to represent my culture. Back at Wellesley, we sat in a circle of 15 first-year students along with a facilitator. The facilitator asked us each to present our cultural piece. We were a diverse group of women, and everyone had something beautiful to share. After the sharing concluded, we began to discuss race and what we were each bringing to the Wellesley table. The woman on my left spoke about her experience in the northwestern United States and what she disliked about the people she was encountering on a more frequent basis in her community. These people were Mexican farmworkers who were working closer and closer to her home. She hated seeing these people because she felt that they were dirty, and she was afraid that they would steal things in her community. She no longer felt safe, and she wished that they would go away.
After her statement, I was numb. I immediately began to question why I was at Wellesley. My oldest sister, a Wellesley alumna, had not enjoyed her time there, and she had asked me to attend Scripps College instead. Saying no to my sister and going to Wellesley on my own had been my first real adult decision. And now there I was sitting in a classroom listening to someone call my people dirty and (potential) thieves. Had I made a mistake?
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I walked around in a daze. Was I meant to be at Wellesley? My silence toward the outside world allowed me to reach within myself and to seek God. Among the answers I received was an affirmation that I needed to be at Wellesley even though, at the moment, I felt uneasy. The facilitator of my small group reached out to me during this first week. She had decided not to comment during the group session and had few words to say to me during our meeting. My tears flowed when I met with her privately, but I never felt a true resolution. I continued to look to God to get me through. Two of my professors that first semester were so positive on Latin America that I was grateful to have them in my life at Wellesley. They both loved Mexico and the southwestern United States. I know that God put them in my path that year because I needed a gentle reminder all those miles away from my home. The tears still flow, but mostly because I am grateful. I am grateful because God made Wellesley possible, and God helped me thrive there. More recently, when I met the officer for Latino/Hispanic Ministries in the Episcopal Church, Anthony Guillen, I was relieved to know that someone was working on welcoming Latinos to the church. I credit my great involvement in the church to Anthony and to the many people around him who have encouraged both me and my family to be active leaders in our church. I am honored to be surrounded by such positive and caring people. Luisa Bonillas received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University. She does contract work for the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona and serves as Commission on Ministry Secretary. She is married and has two teenage children, one of whom currently attends Wellesley.
Trinity Institute An Annual Theological Conference
January 21-23, 2016 Held in NYC or at your location!
Learn More and Register at
Ni cho las Kr istof New York Times columnist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Anna De av ere S mith Actress, playwright, and professor
E milie To w nes Dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School
A lso fe at u ring E duardo Bo nilla-Silva, Michael Cu r r y, Gar y do r r ie n, Kelly Br o w n Do u glas, Michele No rris , AND Victo r Ri o s
An Interview with Broderick Greer,
a transitional deacon and curate at
Uncomfortable Conversations When did you first become aware of the role race played in your life? I was about 17. I was a senior in high school, and I saw a story on the local news that there was a black couple in the town over from us who had the words “die nigger” written on their garage. Soon after that the wife was walking in the neighborhood, and an elderly white woman came and beat her with a two-by-four. She sustained very serious injuries. On the news they announced that there was going to be a walk in support of this couple through this neighborhood on Saturday. I decided to go over there just to watch, to see what was going on. Mind you, I was never an activist. Never really cared about social issues, stuff like that. I remember seeing someone hold a sign at the demonstration that said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” which, of course, is by Dr. King. That was not the assumption that I was living with in my life at 17, and it really got the wheels turning in my head—I really should care about this because this injustice is not isolated. This could happen to me as a black person. I could buy a house one day. Some people in the neighborhood could be angry about me moving into the neighborhood and write similar words on my garage. So I’ve called that my baptism into blackness— realizing that there’s nowhere that is safe for black people on this continent. My parents had told me that all throughout my childhood, but it took that experience for me to learn that. That experience was one of many that helped me realize the church needs to be in public spaces witnessing, suffering alongside oppressed groups. I wouldn’t have articulated it as such then, but it 6
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Grace–St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Memphis, Tennessee.
was a wake-up moment for me that I could not live my faith in this pietistic, individualistic manner anymore. Did you become more active then or was it gradual? That experience kind of lay dormant in my life until last year when I was speaking at a Martin Luther King Jr. men’s prayer breakfast about black rage. (This was coming off the heels of the acquital of George Zimmerman.) I was preparing for that and I recalled this memory, and I realized this is really still an issue. It’s still difficult to be black in America. Then Ferguson happened in August, and so that was kind of the catalyst for my involvement in the movement. What can the Episcopal Church do about racism? I think that the Episcopal Church is poised to be a powerful voice because we have, as a church, come to a conclusion that racism is sin, and not every denomination uses such strong language about racism—if they discuss it at all. So it’s very important that the Episcopal Church take its own conclusion seriously and seek to be a voice of healing in whatever way that manifests itself, whether that be out marching in various liberation movements, or opening its doors, being a house of prayer for all people, a house of healing in the midst of great social turmoil and unrest. And the church needs to be willing to say that black lives matter. We’ve reached such a critical stage of the culture that white Christians need to say explicitly that they support black people living. Because there are lots of people who would never say those words—that they
don’t support black people living—but they go to great lengths to show that they understand that these police killings are justified and lawful and appropriate. We need white Christian people who will say, “Black lives matter and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to let people know that.” You visited Ferguson, Missouri. What was that experience like? It was provocative to stand on the spot where Michael Brown died. I went two weeks after the killing. Until then it was very theoretical. Then I get there and it’s real. This is actually someone’s son. This is someone’s brother and grandson and classmate who is gone. White supremacy is more than a theory. This is causing people to die. Then seeing the resilience of the people of Ferguson—this is a small black community. Disempowered. Disenfranchised. Dispossessed. It’s the story of millions of black people in this country. Yet they took power into their own hands. They said, “We’re not going home until we get some answers. We’re not going home until justice is done.” Have you been supported as you’ve become more outspoken? I have received overwhelming support from seminary colleagues, professors, parishioners, and clergy. The refrain has been, “When I first heard you talk about this it made me uncomfortable, and it’s not that I’m any more comfortable now, but I understand that this is what we need to be talking about.” I hope people don’t think that I’m comfortable talking about any of this stuff, because I’m not. Broderick Greer completed his master’s degree in divinity at Virginia Theological Seminary in May and will be ordained to the priesthood in December.
“the church needs to be willing to say that black lives matter.“
d e r c a rS u r O o f e r e f A Sa s r? e c o l a o p S fC o e l Peop By
Within hours of the announcement of the non-indictment of police officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, the leadership at the Morristown (N.J.) Unitarian Fellowship organized to host a prayer vigil. As an active member, a youth leader, and spouse to the congregational administrator, I became involved in organizing and setting up the order of service. We reached out to other local houses of worship to inquire whether they would collaborate with us during this time. The responses were lukewarm. And I understood. Shortly after arriving at the fellowship hall, a sudden realization hit me, and my understanding deepened. In all likelihood, I would be one of a handful of people of color attending our service, if not the only one. In the burst of activity to put the event together, I was too busy to reflect on the racialized space that our fellowship hall would be for me this particular evening. I have deep love for my faith tradition and love the folk of my spiritual home, but did I really want to share with them the fears that weigh down my spirit? Would most of them, as white congregants, fathom the fear of people of color that every time we say good-bye to a loved one, or simply nod to a stranger on the street, that it may be the last time? The last time they may see me alive, or I them? I imagine folks responding to my fears, “But we live in a safe place.” It is precisely because we live in one of those “safe neighborhoods,” meaning surrounded by whiteness and privilege, that I have become more fearful of my comings and goings.
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can we begin to make sense, not only of the senseless deaths of nine members of Emanuel AME Church, Mother Emanuel, at the hands of a white man, and the churches that as of today are burning throughout the South, but also the witness of people of color who make a choice for a love that holds all of us accountable to seek justice instead of hate?
It was wrenching for me to participate. I became hyperconscious of my body in that space: the coloration of my skin, the texture of my hair, the sound of my voice, the ways I move. Thus a moment of petition and healing was transformed into one of self-exposure, part of an already ongoing process of dealing with being a person of color in a majority white denomination. Those who choose to make a faith family among Unitarian Universalists pride themselves for their commitments to the hard work of social justice and prophetic witness. Our efforts are aimed towards fighting oppression as we hope and work for a world free of domination. We continually, and inevitably, fall short of our goal. Such are our imperfections. How we deal with race as a denomination often exposes our shortcomings. Faith, and the religions that nurture faith, are a source of solace for many people of color—nourishment for the soul in a world that seeks to dehumanize us in every way, at every conceivable turn. A place of worship may be a place where weary bodies rest from the continual and multi-headed threat of racialized violence, at least for a little while. But religion and places of worship are not always safe. How
As a person of color whose chosen faith leads me to make a spiritual home in a denomination populated mostly by white people, I struggle with how my being there may or may not be interpreted. I struggle deeply, too, with the conflicting emotions of both longing to be among my faith community during times of tragedies brought about by racism, and wanting to be far away from a space filled mostly with white bodies. These times are a reminder of the constant threat against my body. These times are challenging times to be faithful. My experience as a Unitarian Universalist of color is not unique. These are sentiments that we often share among ourselves when we find spaces and ways to be together. Our faith, however, sustains us. The impossibility of feeling safe as a person of color in the United States, even in sacred spaces, serves as a constant reminder that the work for a world where justice and peace are embraced is far from over. Elias Ortega-Aponte is Assistant Professor of Afro-Latina/o Religions and Cultural Studies at Drew Theological School. His research focuses on the intersections between race, gender, punishment, and economics.
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Losing (and Finding) My Naiveté By Amy Butler
I grew up in the state of Hawaii. A beautiful land with a rich native culture, the islands were discovered by a European explorer, settled by missionaries, populated by immigrants from all over Asia and the mainland, colonized and eventually seized by the United States government. While there is, of course, racism there, with such a mix of people and cultures and food there exists a special kind of rich community in which diversity is embraced and celebrated.
fit in anywhere! I’m not black enough for the black kids, and I’m not white enough for the white kids! And you can’t understand.” Turns out that even raising a child in a blended family won’t protect her from the pain of a broken society. I was so naive. This year I took on the leadership of Riverside Church in the city of New York, an institution whose name is synonymous with a fight for racial equality in America and around the world. There’s a sharp
As I began adult life on the mainland, however, it quickly became clear to me that my childhood gave me a racial naiveté that has both blessed my life and handicapped it. I can see from this vantage point, decades later, that I never had a full understanding of or appreciation for the severity of the deep wound of racism and white supremacy in America.
irony to entering the leadership of a predominantly black church as a perceived white woman. When that happens, the public work of advocating for racial equality becomes personal, and difficult. All our naive ideas about how we should all just get along get tested, sometimes to their limits.
About a decade later, we adopted our daughter with the help of a private attorney. Her birth mother was white and her birth father African American. I recall knowing with full conviction that love would blend our family seamlessly, but that wasn’t the case. Struggling through early adolescence, she told me once in frustration, “I don’t feel like I
The challenge of coming to terms with our individual ideas about race became part of the work of change we faced together in our church. The hope that we could make a lasting impact on the injustice of white supremacy in America, however, looked suddenly and overwhelmingly impossible on November 24, 2014, when a grand jury in Ferguson,
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In that moment, the day-to-day work of the pastorate was overshadowed by a question we’ve been asking for some time: can we change a culture so deeply ingrained and invested in racism and white supremacy? Maybe we all had been so very naive. With the backdrop of these terrible events, there it was again: the awareness that there are not enough words, not enough experiences one could amass that could explain away the deep wound of racism in our country. And the shocking realization that nobody knows how to heal these wounds. It occurs to me that perhaps what we need right now is a little more naiveté, the hope that we can, in fact, work to create a society in which justice and equality order our lives together, and the dogged determination that must change things.
Over the years I’ve collected experiences that punctuate that learning. The first time I visited rural Louisiana to meet my future husband’s family, I was walking across a grocery store parking lot and saw a white man, impatient while an older African-American woman crossed to her car, lean out of his window and call her names the likes of which I’d only heard in movies. No one in the parking lot even flinched. I recall feeling my stomach sink and wondering, suddenly, whether I would be accepted by my boyfriend’s family if they knew I was native Hawaiian with some Chinese mixed in. I was so naive.
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Missouri, decided there would be no trial for Officer Darren Wilson, who had shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Why? Because even after learning the hard lessons of my own life, looking directly into the face of systems that perpetuate racism in a trip to Ferguson, and hearing so many wax eloquent on the issues at hand, late one Wednesday night just a few weeks ago, a breaking-news alert flashed across the screen of my phone: nine black people killed in a Charleston church by a racist white gunman. Call it naiveté, or call it desperation. Call this hope for change anything you want. We don’t have a choice anymore. For the future of our children, for the future of our country, for the future of this world, we must change things. And we can. The Rev. Dr. Amy Butler is the Senior Minister at Riverside Church in New York City.
“Can we change a culture so deeply ingrained and invested in racism and white supremacy?”