Christian Terrorism, The Slave Ship Clotilda, Earthquake Relief
KTF Weekly Newsletter
Hi everybody,
This is one of our occasional free newsletters. Please check out the opportunity to give to people affected by this week’s earthquake below.
Two exciting things this week before we get to it. First, in case you missed it, our new book, Faith Unleavened, by Tamice Spencer-Helms is available for preorder as an e-book! Both the e-book and paperback will come out on February 21. Tamice and the KTF team have put a ton of work into this incredible volume, and you don’t want to miss it!
Second, Sy’s back from his parental leave! We’re thrilled to have him back, and he is happy to be here, even though he started thoroughly missing hanging out with his daughter all week about three hours into his first day back.
So without further ado, let’s get to this week’s highlights as we seek to leave colonized faith for the kingdom of God.
Sy’s recommendations:
A while back, there was a period of about a month where I read five or six different AAPI writers recommending the book Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong. All held it up as an especially helpful articulation and exploration of their experiences as AAPI people in the US. So I listened to it while on my paternity break, and oh man… The book is a series of essays combining the author’s personal stories about her family, her friends, her experiences in the world of art and poetry, her own historical study, and a lot more. You will read her break down of everything from Asian American immigration history, to the Black-versus-Korean narrative around the Rodney King riots, to white men fetishizing Asian women, to her relationship with her immigrant parents, to the “minor feelings” that bubble up in someone who experiences racism constantly but is always told they actually don’t. It’s an extended and brilliantly clear look into stories and histories all too often ignored.
The Netflix documentary Descendant delves into the community of Africatown, Alabama and the history surrounding a slave ship called the Clotilda. The Clotilda was the last known ship carrying enslaved African people to enter the US before the abolition of slavery, and it came decades after the importation of enslaved people became a crime punishable by death. Therefore, the community of formerly enslaved people that formed Africatown couldn’t publicly discuss their stories because the rich man who funded the slave ship’s journey still lived near them, imposing an implicit threat if anyone spoke about his crimes. But the recent discovery of the burned and sunken Clotilda validated the stories of the town’s origins, which residents passed down quietly to each other for over 150 years. The residents of this town are some of the few Black Americans who can pinpoint their ancestral home, and Descendant gives them space to talk about exactly what that means.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is an increasingly prominent figure in our national news cycles because of his policies that discriminate against marginalized communities. Recently, he told the College Board to alter its pilot Advanced Placement course in African American Studies or it wouldn’t be taught in Florida schools. The College Board seemingly complied, leading to a public outcry. This episode of Vox’s Today, Explained features an interview with one of the teachers who taught a version of the curriculum that included lessons on people like bell hooks and current events surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement. It explains how Florida educators, in fact, still have access to all the materials DeSantis wanted stripped out, those materials are just “optional” now. To say that what DeSantis does each day through rhetoric and legislation is problematic would be an understatement. But fortunately, in this case, his “victory” was more a PR stunt than anything. History as it is, not how White conservatives want it taught, will still be accessible to students. And for followers of Jesus who seek truth and reconciliation, that should bring relief.
Garden City, Kansas is a majority minority city in the middle of the country. It is also where a group of white Christian nationalists plotted to blow up an apartment building inhabited by a majority Muslim population. Truth and Lies: The Informant is a podcast series that chronicles this story through the lens of a former white supremacist who decided it was his duty to protect those most vulnerable in his community from the community he came from, and became an undercover investigator. Leaving colonized faith requires an interrogation of narratives that often go unchecked. In the podcast, the people who thwart the terrorist plot talk about being motivated by their faith. But the terrorists do too. We must extricate Whiteness, policing, racial hatred, and violence from our idea of faithfulness to Jesus. And this podcast shows us exactly why.
Suzie’s recommendations:
In the early morning hours of this past Monday, tremors jostled and swayed the bedroom of my husband‘s 81-year-old grandma, jolting her awake. She and her daughter quickly fled their building in Beirut—a building still pock-marked by the mortars and bullets of the Lebanese Civil War. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that impacted Turkey, Syria, and neighboring countries was devastating. The death toll is currently over 20,000 people with search and rescue efforts still underway. As Jonathan shared last week, it is often difficult to put a face to such large-scale suffering. But I think of my family and friends barely holding on in a country ravaged by corruption and economic collapse. I think of the pastors I met who are serving in war-torn Syria despite all that has been lost there. I will have many questions when I meet the Almighty. Chief among them is why those who are already suffering often bear the brunt of further tragedy. For now, I will weep and pray. I encourage you all to consider contributing to the relief fund of a local, faith-based NGO that I had the privilege of working for in Lebanon. MERATH has launched an emergency response to help meet the needs of communities in Syria reeling from yet another unthinkable tragedy. Click here to donate.
We are tremendously grateful to Lisa Sharon Harper for her support of Faith Unleavened. If you haven’t read her endorsement of Tamice’s book yet, you can check it out on our book website. But also, take the time to read these important words penned by Ms. Harper alongside ethicist David P. Gushee on the murder of Tyre Nichols. Drawing on Mark 6:14-29, the article lays bare the racist roots of our modern-day policing system and its innate logic of anti-Blackness. Let this courageous reflection stir your soul and fan the flames of righteous anger. We cannot call people to justice until we have first learned to call out what is unjust. May prophetic words like these show us the way.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
The KTF team