race matters

Barack Obama, South Africa, and Race

Reading this recent story about a professor at Calvin College, I am struck with how much we still don’t “get it” when it comes to race, culture, and faith in this country. Calvin insists that all of their professors be Reformed, but faculty member Denise Isom has struggled to find a reformed community where she feels comfortable racially and culturally, event though every other (white) faculty member has this luxury. So faced with this choice, she decided to voice – very convincingly – her reasons for attending a Baptist church and asked for an exception to the requirement. Calvin refused this request citing maintenance of their institutional faith identity. If Isom refuses to attend a Reformed church, she will be taken off her tenure track and given a one year contract after which she will be terminated.

This is outrageous – especially, when the university simultaneously claims to be pursuing diversity. Calvin already is 97% white, and I guarantee that the few students of color who are there depend heavily on faculty members like Isom. Isom’s letter could have been an opportunity for Calvin as an institution to stare deeply at itself – to question why people of color do not feel comfortable in reformed communities and perhaps in their institution. Instead of approaching her concerns with sensitivity and inquiry, they responded with a defensive expression of their own institutional identity, which appears to have no room for the particularities of people of color.

What makes me sad about this incident is that reading between the lines of Isom’s letter reveals a story I have heard all too often behind closed doors. I’m not sure when we – white people – are going to get it. It’s mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally exhausting to be a minority representative in a majority culture. Isom already has to play the culture game five days a week absorbing and translating white, reformed, culture while at the same time being viewed as a symbol who speaks on behalf of all African Americans. This sounds like a job she was more than willing to do, and at the same time, she needed respite. While white liberals often extol the multicultural church, I’ve seen up close the absolute need for students/faculty/staff of color to identify with their own communities; it’s a question of survival.

I wish that white people would take the time to hear stories – and pleas – like Isom’s, and stare deeply into our own practices and institutions. Sadly, too often we disregard these stories. And then we wonder why we can’t diversify our institutions. Why the token faculty member of color burns out and leaves. When stories like Isom’s surface – I can’t help but think: it’s so obvious! I applaud her for having the courage to articulate so publicity a reality that is often only shared in hallways and behind closed doors. Unfortunately, her prophetic voice has gone unheeded. It remains to be seen if public opinion will be enough to prompt a reexamination by Calvin. I doubt it. They have said in clear terms that what is at stake here is identity itself: the particular vs. the universal – and in this battle, the universal (white) has won.

Orientalism Revisited

Here are the results of my recent foray into Christmas cookie swapping. After four hours of baking, I emerged with several dozen gingersnaps I could actually use!

books, coffee, god, profit

If you are interested in theory and design, check out this project. A gothic church has been converted into a bookstore, but what I find most interesting is the range of comments and responses to the project.

Initially, I responded to the aesthetics, but after a moment, I realized there is much more to contemplate in this intersection of sacred and secular.

We pass this billboard every time we drive to Dallas.

blowing in the wind

It’s been a long time since I have posted. Partially, the long absence is because I have been busy. Since my last post, I’ve made two trips to Dallas and one trip to Seattle/Hawaii. I had plenty of ideas for posts along the way, but they never quite make it to written form in time to be relevant.

I’m finally starting to feel settled here. I’m starting to care about this place, and I find myself wondering what’s going to happen once I leave. I feel invested in my job. I have been invited to a cookie swap next weekend. The homemade glittery invitation sits on my desk.

It’s a bit disconcerting when the present gradually replaces the past, when I realize that my life is here and I have moved from one stage into another. What this stage is, I’m not sure, but no doubt, I will look back and perhaps it will make sense. I feel a bit ageless at the moment: not young, not old, not sure, but not conflicted either. It’s so different from the last two years.

I am obsessively following Barack Obama’s campaign. I don’t feel like I can place all my hope in one election, one man – but change feels possible. That the world could change through a shift in perspective blows my mind, but I know it’s possible. And what I like about Obama is that he has the courage to imagine a better world, without denying the reality of its complexity. I’m tired of people mistaking such vision for inexperience because they themselves cannot fathom a different world. They are so wedded to a world built on fear, security, and dominance, that it is unthinkable to tear it down.

But history has a way of playing tricks. bringing the mountains to the ground. So, I guess at the moment I’m banking on that more than anything else. And though I’m not sure when it appeared, hope has arrived. Hope that although everything our hands touch dies, love will still keep us alive. Yes, AIDS is still here. Bombs are still exploding. Wars still rage. But, today I feel hopeful.