KTF Weekly Newsletter: Palestinian Christians, Nice White Parents, Exterminate all the Brutes
May 27, 2021
Hi everybody,
Thanks so much to all of you who read Sy’s first piece on the blog this week, and be sure to check out the related Shake the Dust preview below. Now, let’s get to this week’s resources…
Suzie’s recommendations:
This past Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin. This lynching sparked a racial reckoning that reverberated across the world leading to a rare, and historic conviction. But in the aftermath of the mass protests and guilty verdict, many have asked the question: how would this story have been different if 17-year-old Darnella Frazier hadn’t captured the horrific images of Floyd’s final breaths on camera? The answer is Ronald Greene. In May 2019, almost exactly a year before George Floyd died, law enforcement pursued Greene in a high-speed chase for an unspecified traffic violation. Once apprehended, state troopers brutalized Greene and he subsequently died in police custody. Even more chilling than this cold-blooded homicide is the cover-up that ensued. Louisiana State Police informed both Greene’s family and the receiving hospital that he died in a car crash, and even the irregular autopsy report failed to specify the manner of death. It was the recent release of body cam footage, two years later, that has served to expose gross inconsistencies with the original police report. However, this Vox article by Zeeshan Aleem about the Greene case illuminates why body cams can only ever be a small part of the solution and further highlights systemic issues that must be addressed.
While the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas continues to hold, the grim status quo for Palestinian people residing in the Occupied Territories remains one of persecution and apartheid. Didomi is a new podcast hosted by Wissam al-Saliby, a contributor to our anthology. Wissam serves as the UN Advocacy Officer of the World Evangelical Alliance and this week’s episode brings together a panel of Palestinian evangelical Christians to grapple with questions revolving around the church’s response to the violence and oppression. While this conversation will no doubt challenge and disrupt folks on both sides of this controversial topic, it is worth listening to the profound and honest thoughts of brothers and sisters living in and working through the tension of Christ-centered responses to political, societal, and systemic injustice.
Sy’s recommendations:
The Brennan Center for Justice has published a very useful explainer separating fact from fiction on the For the People Act, the legislation now in front of Congress which seeks to protect voting rights against state-level suppression and help limit the influence of billionaires on elections. The article also contains more links than I can count to help you get well on your way learning about this important bill, which could also prompt a showdown over the use of the filibuster in the Senate. With so many Christian political actors opposing this bill by claiming that the Democrats stole the 2020 election and want to make it impossible for themselves to lose in future, this piece is a useful reference tool.
What would you say was the largest protest during the civil rights movement in the US? It has to be the March on Washington, right? I’ll bet your guess isn’t the 1964 school boycott protesting segregation in New York City, but that is in fact the answer. Last year, journalist Channa Joffe-Walt put out a five-part podcast documentary called Nice White Parents, which uses the history of one school in Brooklyn to tell a story that is in part about the way that New York City has for decades evaded any sort of accountability for its obviously segregated school system. Central to this story are the good, liberal, white parents who believe strongly in equality right up until they face the prospect of other people’s children getting the same education — in the same schools — as theirs. Joffe-Walt is a great storyteller, and this is absolutely worth your time.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
The United States is a colonial power. Americans must grapple with what that means if we are to lament the past, address the present, and build towards a more just and verdant future. And the short documentary series Exterminate all the Brutes by Haitian director Raoul Peck will help us do that. As the series description states, “[b]ased on works by three authors and scholars — Sven Lindqvist’s Exterminate All the Brutes, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past — Exterminate All the Brutes revisits and reframes the profound meaning of the Native American genocide and American slavery and their fundamental implications for our present.” For followers of Jesus who long to disentangle our faith from the gods of empire, we must be willing to gaze honestly at the violence and brutality upstream of our comfort and prosperity; and then we must name it for what it is and what it is not.
Christianity Today collected a series of essays on race last year, which included my article, “The Perils of White American Folk Religion,” and has now published the entire collection of essays as an e-book free of charge. This important collection of articles helped challenge and inform Christians during a season of reckoning, lament, and heightened interest around issues of racial justice.
Shake the Dust preview
Tomorrow’s show is a fascinating and challenging conversation with Dr. Lamar Hardwick, pastor and author of the recent book Disability and the Church. We talk about that book, his experience as an autistic pastor, disability in the Black church, how our fear of disabilities is connected to the fall of creation, the implications of Jesus’ eternal wounds for disabled people, Dr. Hardwick’s theology of diversity, and a lot more. You do not want to miss this one.
Thanks a lot for reading, and we’ll see you next week!
The KTF team