worldview and perspective on race (running)

Eternal and Glorious God, Your grace calls us toward growth and service in You. Yet today we acknowledge the many times we have forgotten Your mercy and rejected Your love. Forgive us when we sin agai...

The creation of a white standard in the world during the age of exploration, and the white structural privilege prevalent for so long in America, led to what is often called “white privilege”. This is...

Every time people take a breath it’s in terms of color.

Race is about the American story, and about each of our own stories. Overcoming racism is more than an issue or a cause — it is also a story, which can be part of each of our stories, too. The story a...

The etymology of the word race, as used with regard to people, can be traced only to the sixteenth century. Around 1500 the English word race carried the sense of a group with a common occupation; by ...

What the early Christians did not have to deal with to the same extent that we do today is how race has become an idol. On both sides of the racial divide, so much is twisted by the social constructs ...

The myth of race is, at its heart, about power relations, and in order to understand how it evolved, we must avoid vague theoretical and historical formulations and instead ask, Who benefited from the...

When you are the majority ethnicity, nothing you do is ethnic. It’s just the way it’s done. When you are a minority, everything you do has color.

The concept of humanity’s being divisible into different races has no scientific validity. This has always been the case, even before the advent of rapid global travel enabled the further mixing of pe...

Be not proud of race, face, place, or grace.

While I was sitting at a stoplight a few blocks from my [Emerson’s] home in Minneapolis, reflecting on the recent rash of drive-by shootings in the area, three African-American teens clad in the urban...

We admit that the same nature exists in every race, and the same virtue.

In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way.

Whenever I lead a training session on cultural identity—particularly when there’s a strong white presence—I begin with this question: “Describe the first encounter you remember having with race.” Most...

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

To the world around me, I am black. And to respond with “I don’t see color” dismisses my lived experience.

The Latin root of curiosity means “cure,” which makes me wonder if it isn’t a way to heal some of our oldest sicknesses. Like, perhaps, the “amnesia of affluence” that theologians point out in the Bib...

The majority culture (which for a little while longer is still white) has the luxury of being oblivious to race (which would change in an instant, if we moved to Nigeria). But for minority peoples, ra...

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the white citizen’s counciler or the ku klux klanner, but the white moderate...

Our race would not have gotten far, Had we not learned to bluff it out And look more certain than we are Of what our motion is about.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle...

Children, who made your skin white? Was it not God? Who made mine black? Was it not the same God? Am I to blame, therefore, because my skin is black? ...Root up, if possible, the great sin of prejudic...

In a 2009 stand-up special, Chris Rock made a funny, and perhaps true, statement: “All my black friends have a bunch of white friends. And all my white friends have one black friend.” It turns out, R...

My kids love the movie Remember the Titans . It’s the story of the integration of the TC WIlliams High School Football Team in Alexandria, Virginia, in the 1960s Civil Rights era. The white players a...

Split second decisions can reveal prejudices that we aren't aware of ourselves. This is particularly important in split-second decisions with life-or-death consequences, such as police officers ha...

O God, you created all people in your image. We thank you for the astonishing variety of races and cultures in this world. Enrich our lives by ever-widening circles of friendship, and show us your pre...

More than any other segment of the population, white evangelical Christians demonstrate a blindness to the struggle of their African American brothers and sisters….This is a dangerous reality for the ...

In his insightful work, Beyond Racial Gridlock, George Yancey provides a multi-faceted picture of both the brokenness of American race-relations, as well as a response couched in the gospel. In this e...

Hating skin color is contempt for God's divine creative imagination. Honoring it is appreciation for conscious, beautiful-love-inspired diversity.

O God, we thank thee thou that hast made man in thine own image. Help us to see ourselves as thou seest us, all standing in need of thy mercy yet dear unto thee. We confess to the many injustices and ...