If you knew your history, then you would know where I'm coming from. Then you wouldn't have to ask me who the hell do I think I am.
-Bob Marley
So...some bloody coward decided to do a hit piece of the Skinner House book "Centering" and call it a "review." I am in no way shocked by this hit piece (although I'm surprised that it took 2 years for the bloody coward to write it), because a whole lot of white people [especially white liberals] don't like it when Black people and other people of color hurt their fragile feelings when we tell them the truth of our experiences with them.
What's really interesting to me is that these same cowards who write hit piece ignore the evidence, like the evidence I wrote about-in September-from the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion* which-as the abstract details:
In response to these inquiries, representatives from mainline Protestant churches-who generally embrace liberal, egalitarian attitudes toward race relations-actually demonstrated the most discriminatory behavior. They responded most frequently to emails with white-sounding names, somewhat less frequently to black-or Hispanic-sounding names, and much less to Asian-sounding names. They also sent shorter, less welcoming responses to nonwhite names. In contrast, evangelical Protestant and Catholic churches showed little variation across treatment groups in their responses.
The research shows that white liberal churches are less welcoming to newcomers who aren't white. That being the case, why would the experiences of religious professionals of color in white liberal churches be any different? And why was the bloody coward so butt-hurt about it?
It took the train ride back from San Diego for it to come to me: hit dogs holler. The bloody coward reviewer has mistreated people of color in their congregation and doesn't like their behavior being displayed for all the world to see. Or, they're mad that people of color are not "grateful" enough about being "allowed" into "their" Unitarian Universalism.
Whatever the reason, the hit dogs hollering have given me the idea for a new syllabus; the "No Time For White Nonsense" syllabus. It'll be a minute before I'll have the first draft of it up as a page here, but all this ignant (yes, ignant, not ignorant) nonsense must get called out for what it is.
*-Wright, Bradley R. E., Michael Wallace, Annie Scola Wisnesky, Christopher M. Donnelly, Stacy Missari, and Christine Zozula. 2015. "Religion, Race, and Discrimination: A Field Experiment of How American Churches Welcome Newcomers." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 54 (2): 185-204. doi:10.1111/jssr.12193.
