Mental health professionals and ministers working together can help change the social narratives that justify racism and oppression in the United States, an online panel of therapists and clergy said Aug. 28. But they also must possess that awareness and…
Life lessons from speaking with a foreign accent
What we know today to be the traditional “Asian accent” tells the story of Asian American assimilation in essence. The generation of Asian immigrants before us possessed the accent that white Americans saw as the most foreign in comparison to…
Reflections on the 19th Amendment and the pace of change
What commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment this year has shown me is that profound change can take an inordinate amount of time, but it doesn’t have to. The 19th Amendment was first introduced in 1878, but it…
How you view police killings, racism and monuments influenced by faith and party
Religious beliefs combined with racial identity continue to fuel dramatic differences in the way Americans view police killings of unarmed Black men, the prevalence of “reverse racism” and thinking of the Confederate flag and monuments to Confederate leaders as about…
Let’s stop covering up the enablers of racism in America
Back during the heated battle for control of the Southern Baptist Convention, Ed Young once chided the denominational press for seeking information about a fundamentalist leader who had done something untoward. I can’t remember who had committed the sin or…
Assessing the ‘responsibility pie’ of George Floyd’s murder
I’m a chaplain, but I work with mental health professionals and have for the last 10 years. Along the way, I picked up the simple therapeutic tool of the “responsibility pie,” which might offer a new way of looking at…
How the ‘Suburban Lifestyle Dream’ and suburban church created Suburban Jesus
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson visited Charlotte, N.C., in January 2020 to announce changes to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rules. AFFH was an Obama-era initiative that targeted ongoing racial segregation through exclusionary practices in the construction of affordable…
What about the science, faith and ethics of a coming coronavirus vaccine?
The race to find a safe and effective vaccine against the novel coronavirus is heating up, as society longs to get back to some sense of normalcy. But finding a vaccine is only one step on the journey that also…
What I fear as a white woman married to a Black man
Conversations on race and racial justice in the United States have become so polarized that too often these discussions result in people talking at one another, and an invisible distance is created between “the issue” and the humans affected. Today,…