Tag: Race
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Ending Racism: How to Change the World in One Generation
The other morning I was feeling the weight of trying to articulate possibilities in the face of polarities. I prayed for some guidance on how to reimagine some of the conversations we’re having on race. Next thing you know, I get this email from my new friend Justin Michael Williams inviting me to preview an…
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What Are You Talking About Witness?
How committed are you to a just an equitable world? This piece is a repost of a reflection that I shared in the Together Colorado Faith Voices newsletter. When I was growing up, I used to watch a show called “Diff’rent Strokes”. It was the story about two young Black boys who were adopted by…
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Society Unmasked
This sounds like a beginning of an inappropriate joke but it isn’t. It was just an interesting experience. Three Black guys who don’t know each other walk into a grocery store. Two give each other a knowing glance and the customary head nod. They are wearing N95 masks. One is not. As they get their…
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Somewhere I Belong
You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great… — Maya Angelou “You don’t belong here.” For the first 5 or so minutes that this woman was talking to me, I was hoping that my short responses to her…
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Surrounded! – How Do You Respond Under Threat?
In a world where we are constantly reminded of the dangers that surround us, who among us has not imagined what we would do if we found ourselves in a dangerous or perhaps life-threatening situation? It seems like everyday we hear some story of innocent victims of unspeakable crimes. And whether it is a shooting…
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Escaping the Prison Industrial Mindset
Tonight I realized that I feel safer in cars that look like I can afford them. That is a sad awareness that I need to work on more deeply. How I realized this was that I had to rent a car. I had a coupon that enabled me to get a compact for the same…
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Is Common English An Inherently Biased/Oppressive/Racist Language?
Can a language be biased/oppressive/racist? I know that right off the bat some people will take issue with the question this title suggests. They’ll say, “No. A language can’t be inherently racist or anything else other than a method of communication. It is neutral. Words don’t hurt people. People hurt people.” And to some degree,…
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America in Denial – Perils of a Strength Overdone
Sometimes it seems as if America is bent on surviving itself to death. Like an ostrich with a lion on its tail, who can’t see a way out other than to close its eyes and hope the threat goes away, our country is living its collective life with its head in the sand fearful that…
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Daddy, What’s the “N Word”?
There a lot of conversations that I don’t feel absolutely prepared for as a parent. Some of them are universal and some are exclusive to certain communities such as, “Are we poor?”, “Why do they hate us?”, “Will we be deported?”, etc. Recently, my daughter has asked me twice, what the “N word” is. The…
The Roofless Church 