KTF Weekly Newsletter: Sidney Poitier, Brainwashing, Ableism at the CDC
Hi everyone,
We hope those of you in the US had a good, long weekend remembering the prophetic ministry of Dr. King, even as many seek to ban most of his ideas from American schools. The irony is heavy, but we hope we can continue to be a source of clarity for you all as we navigate the muddy waters of having faith in a world that does not yet exist. So, let’s get into this week’s highlights as we seek to leave colonized faith for the kingdom of God.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
The Daily podcast from the New York Times featured a powerful exploration of the late Sidney Poitier's life last week. What struck me was that he spent the first 15 years of his life in the Bahamas. In that island nation he was raised, loved, and led by Black people, so as he put it, he did not spend his most formative years “cringing in the presence of white people.” When he immigrated to Florida, he found Jim Crow and segregation, and resolved to resist them in every way possible. His primary medium for protest became performance. It can be easy to reduce icons to our most comfortable versions of them, but followers of Jesus must press into the complexity genuinely. There is much to learn from Poitier about how to resist white supremacy through vocation, generosity, and radical commitment to authenticity.
One of the most traumatic things that can happen to a child is separation from their parents; and the Danish government separated 20 Inuit children who lived in what we now call Greenland from their families 70 years ago. At the time Greenland was a colony of the Danes and the language of civilizing an indigenous population was the shroud for forced assimilation. The children were supposed to spend their time in Denmark becoming good Danish examples for the indigenous people of their homeland. And we are able to follow their ordeal, from their perspective, in this recent CNN article. We often tell the similar stories of children in residential schools in the Americas in the 3rd person. But here we get the words of the children themselves, now grown up. The piece is gripping, well-organized, and clear.
“Nikole Hannah-Jones on the Power of Collective Memory” is an interview rebroadcast this month on an episode of NPR’s Code Switch Podcast. If we want to leave colonized faith, then we must understand that there has been a never-ending battle for who determines how we tell our collective history. And there are few more contested spaces than the history of the United States. This is especially true when talking about its founders, their slaves, and land taken to become what we now know as America. This interview is about the 1619 project but so much more as our recent history gets twisted by media outlets, podcast hosts, and misinformation artists right now. As followers of Jesus who are not to bear false witness, Hannah-Jones is a model for how we can speak truth to power, understand the cost of that truth-telling, and commit to the necessity of telling it anyway.
Sy’s recommendations:
A college friend of mine, Sarah Ngu, wrote a great article this week about the time their dad told them that their belief in theology which affirms queer couples was the result of brainwashing by progressive educational institutions and churches. They reflect on the reasons that idea caused so much pain and separation, and how creative empathetic imagination allowed them to begin building a bridge back to a respectful relationship. The piece is an exemplary exercise in working through emotional difficulty with wisdom and grace. Plus, because Sarah can’t help but research every topic they come across, you get the history of the word “brainwashing,” which turns out to be rooted in both Mandarin turns of phrase and America’s inability to accept that people in China would join the Communist Party for rational reasons.
Recently, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) commented that she was grateful for studies showing that deaths from Covid-19 among the vaccinated occurred largely in disabled people. This article from a disabled journalist at The Independent covers her apology to disability rights leaders. It’s also a good summary of many issues that the disabled community have had with the federal government’s Covid-19 response strategy, and the many ways that strategy reflects ableist thinking. You will also find a few quotes in the article from some of my favorite follows on my Twitter list on disability and mental health.
One of our guests on Shake the Dust, Danté Stewart, wrote a moving article for Religion News Service last week. He writes about grief, fear, and the weight of family and history that we carry around with us. But more specifically, he discusses the recent terrifying episode in his family when his young son had a seizure and stopped breathing. It’s a new year’s reflection on how promises of new beginnings and passing darkness are a grounding truth in which we must plant ourselves to deal with the sadness and danger of life. And as he always seems to do, he reminds us of the importance of appreciating and valuing everyday acts of love over abstractions that disconnect us from each other.
Thanks so much for reading, and see you next week!
The KTF team