tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post7782063642952823918..comments2024-03-12T00:51:27.766-04:00Comments on Ground Motive: We Christians, or Our Racist Christian Worldadmin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-8659067525631734532020-08-31T12:19:08.284-04:002020-08-31T12:19:08.284-04:00Thanks for your comment, Bob. I agree, it would ce...Thanks for your comment, Bob. I agree, it would certainly benefit us to interrogate our own habits and assumptions by examining how whiteness itself is constructed, becoming a retroactive filter for how we are taught to understand history--a point James Baldwin was also very skilled at explaining! And if we could dislocate that myth of whiteness, I think you're right that we would also find points of resistance, or that such a dislocation itself would be a point of resistance. We would also find, I think, a more complex and useful history of the development of race and racism, seeing how the seeds for whiteness and antiblackness can be identified also in the racializing narratives of European Christians (I always think of the 15th century Spanish "limpieza de sangre" in Spain).Dean Dettloffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-76155958557921634162020-08-24T17:32:32.778-04:002020-08-24T17:32:32.778-04:00A way in which a preference for "white" ...A way in which a preference for "white" thought is maintained is in the "white-washing" of Western culture, including of course, Western Christian culture. But if one thinks about Northern Africa and Egypt, so crucial to the formation of the Christian theological tradition one can begin to see that that tradition emerges from 'racially' heterogenous sources. Moreover, if one sees the role of Persian, Moorish and Middle Eastern Jewish thinkers in the renaissance of European thought in the thirteenth century, the effect of Sinhalese Theravata Buddhism on western understanding of the conditions of possibility for moral rectitude, one sees further evidence of the cultural and racial heterogeneity of that thing we call Western Civilization or Judaeo-Christian culture. Now this "white-washing" plays right into the narrative you present us with Dean, but it also points toward a possibility of resistance--the recognition of and documentation of the cultural and racial heterogeneity of Western Christian culture as a matter of wonder and gratitude. We are required to do similar work with respect to the formative meaning of women's thought and work in our patriarchal culture as well. Of course, to engage in such work is no guarantee that it cannot be used to re-enforce the systemic evil you describe so well but maybe it needn't re-enforce. As such it might contribute to resistance in a small and beginning way. It is not directed at anti-black racism directly but at the whitewashing of culture that is an effect of anti-black racism. Anyway that is what popped into my head when I thought of the call to action your deliver to the community I serve. bob sweetmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02020964276816359915noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-71537467204679314842020-08-17T12:52:08.484-04:002020-08-17T12:52:08.484-04:00Thanks for this thoughtful self-reflection on ICS&...Thanks for this thoughtful self-reflection on ICS's education. I agree that it is time to build on ICS's vision of philosophical thought/action, to include explicit and deliberate anti-racism lenses. In my experience, ICS strength is to have a porous canon, white as it is. It can only be strengthened by including scholars such as Maria del Guadalupe Davidson, Katherine T Gines (Belle), Kristie Dotson, Anita Allen, Naomi Zack, and Emily S. Lee, just to name a few. Attending to the blind spot in our social imaginary will only push forward ICS's engaging philosophy. (Clarence Joldersma, '82 M Phil)KlaasWillemhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05566786042559837395noreply@blogger.com