When Men Rule, Patriarchy IS the Norm

Note: This post is a part of the One In Christ: A Week of Mutuality organized by Rachel Held Evans. 

In Evangelical Christian - and almost solely in ECc's, as most other movements are fairly set in one cycle or another* - churches, there is a debate raging between those who believe that it is biblical and proper to have  both males and females sharing positions of power or only males holding positions of power**. Egalitarians believe that women and men should both share pastoralships and teaching positions over males and females. Complementarians hold that women have different roles and abilities than men and that it is the woman's responsibility is to complement male headship.

Complementarian Russel Moore (via Denny Burke via Rachel Held Evans):

To use the word ‘patriarchy’ in an evangelical context is uncomfortable since the word is deemed ‘negative’ even by most complementarians. But evangelicals should ask why patriarchy seems negative to those of us who serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God and Father of Jesus Christ... Egalitarians are winning the evangelical gender debate, not because their arguments are stronger, but because, in some sense, we are all egalitarians now. The complementarian response must be more than reaction. It must instead present an alternative vision—a vision that sums up the burden of male headship under the cosmic rubric of the gospel of Christ and the restoration of all things in him. It must produce churches that are not embarrassed to tell us that when we say the 'Our Father,' we are patriarchs of the oldest kind.

I don’t understand when people, especially Christians, defend male, hetero-, white supremacy. No, that’s not true. I do. I just don’t want to.

Oftentimes, I’m told that I let my political persuasions influence my theology. The truth is, sometimes I do. But we all do. We all take cultural, social, economic, political, and historical concerns as a way of interpreting our faith and philosophy. And we use that lens as a means of understanding our cultural, social, economic, political, and historical context. We use our conceptual frames as a means of understanding our realities and our realities frame our conceptual understandings.

This can be a vicious cycle, especially if every means of our reality is filtered through similar voices. This is especially true if the filter belongs to the dominant culture (which in the US belongs to any combination of White, heterosexual, male, middle and upper class, and Christian people).

This is why it’s important for Christians – and especially male, hetero-, and white American Christians - to understand that the bible isn’t written either for or by us. The voices we see and hear in it are not Western, nor are they affluent. They are, however, part of a society that is influenced by male patriarchy. That was the rule of the game in the Ancient Near East culture. That was the rule in Ancient Greek society, in Roman governance. And it’s the predominant rule now. Not just in Muslim cultures, not just in African or Latin cultures. In fact, in some circles, those cultures are more egalitarian or matriarchal than many white American cultures.

The fact is that patriarchy isn’t an alternative view of society. It’s the dominant view of society. It’s the view that Jesus cut down in his interactions with females and males, his approach to healings, his Sermon on the Mount. The way of patriarchy is the way of the world. Jesus has a kingdom (or Basileia, let’s say, as it isn’t run by kings, per se) that is not of this world. It’s a different way of interacting, of doing, of being, of relationships.

Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.  Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 

Before Jesus, we were under guardianship, we were under custody, locked up. Before Jesus, we were divided by race, class, sex. When we continue under the rules of the world, we are under patriarchy, under rule. Now, through the person and rule of the Christ, we are all free to be fully involved in every aspect of worship and being with and under God through the person of Jesus Christ, without division, without dominionists or lords. Under equality, we no longer have to trust that hopefully this male/ruler/leader won’t be a tyrant. Hopefully. We are free from having to rely on the goodness or badness or incompetence of a few men.

The ways in which this was radical and liberating in the Middle East, the Roman Empire, in Hellenistic cultures can hardly be overstated  - though I believe that the passages in I Tim and Titus that complementarians use to justify their positions were written because some people, in their new found liberty acted without thinking of their cultural context and how that might have destroyed the witness of the Gospel. It was, for some, too much too soon. There is a lesson there...

While we should not use our freedoms to act like fools, nevertheless we are free according to the biblical witness.

Consider the way Jesus approached women in public. Consider the radical approach he took with the Samaritan woman. Men did not talk to women out in the open, for women were beneath the dignity of a man's response. Yet a religious Jew was talking to an adulterous Samaritan woman. It was so radical that she was almost convinced that he was propositioning her. But his offer was to make her the first evangelist in Samaria. In asking her for some of her water at the beginning of their conversation, in fact, he was already beginning to empower her.

Consider that in each of the Gospel stories of the first Easter, the first apostles and witnesses of the resurrection were women - at a time when women's testimonies were not trusted in court. Consider that Apollos was largely discipled by Priscilla, a woman (whom some argue wrote the book of Hebrews). Consider the number of female church leaders in Rome that Paul addresses at the end of his letter there, including Junia (pictured above at the right). Consider Mary Magdelene, one of Jesus' disciples and highly praised by him and the Gospel writers.

These are not in the least bit isolated incidents. Or at least, they are not meant to be. They were counter-cultural, just as surely as the gospel is, every bit as much as the Basileia is. Shame on us for believing that the God of all creation doesn't want to work through women. Shame on the church for shutting down the voice of the Body of Christ and continuing our systemic fails. Shame on the Body of Christ for neglecting the Body of Christ.

Shame on the priesthood of believers for not upholding a universal priesthood of believers. Shame on those of us who believe in democracy and representation to practice such a blatant apartheid.


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*For instance, Catholic churches are nearly unanimously run by male clergy while Mainstream Protestant and African American Baptist churches tend to be unquestioningly egalitarian.


**Of course, when we talk about limiting power to a select few, my question would be, are we actually being egalitarian? If the majority of the power in the church is in the hand of the pastor and/or the elder board, can that church truly be about equality? My argument would be that it, while sexual equality in those positions brings us closer to true equality, most institutionalized churches have a power dynamic that looks like the radical early churches. Even so, the name "egalitarian" in this context is a bit misleading. To be truly egalitarian, the dynamics of the church would play out more closely to the Meetings of the Friends - circles, circles everywhere.

We All Shine On - Privilege 100

Earlier I wrote a post on the basics of Privilege. Let's call it "Intro to Privilege." But the last couple days I found myself having to break it down into even smaller tidbits. And it kind of reminded me of what John Lennon was doing in the 70's, taking this really radical and revolutionary concepts and turning them into bumper stickers phrases in these immensely catchy songs. I'm no Lennon - or Ringo for that matter, but I hope you find something useful in this smorgasbord, this Prep class...

- Being white in America comes with privileges, but being white is not a privilege. Nor is it a burden.

- Whites tend to think the solution to race is forgiveness and put the onus on People of Color. The solution is equity and respect.

- Privilege allows us to be dismissive and silence other voices in the public forum while patting ourselves on the back for being brave enough to "tell the truth", which is only a truth according to our privileged perspective.

- People of color need to speak truth-to-power without being accused of being divisive or trouble-making. The trouble-making and the division is happening to them, and it's not of their accord, and it's not their fault.

- The constant lie is, "If only Blacks would stop talking about being black, racism would end... If only Mexicans would stop speaking in accents... If only Muslims would stop flaunting their Muslimness... If only women would stop yapping about their ladybits..."

- Privilege allows us to tell others that they shouldn't bring up their differences, as those differences only divide us. Only in Privilege Land can difference be a negative thing.

- The best that can be said about the claim that color-blindness is a goal is that it's like claiming that we must strive for ignorance.

- It's usually white people who claim color-blindness because it's easier for us than having to acknowledge the problems of racism in the US. Just as it's often men who declare that women complain too much about their burdens, and middle and upper class who consider the poor to be undeserving.

- White people, like myself, have the privilege of being taken seriously simply because we were born White and male. Yet our roles as neighbors and citizens necessitate that we take the words and perspectives of others who are not like us seriously.

- When you say "color-blind", what I hear is, "I accept you on MY terms, rather than for who you are."

- The better position would be to listen to what people of color say and not presume that it means they hate you or that you have to lose your culture.

- We cannot presume to love our neighbors if we're not willing to walk in their shoes for a bit.

- I come from a mixed-race family, I grew up in multi-cultural/multinational/multi-racial neighborhoods, schools, and churches, but I always assumed that I was right and that Euro-American culture is indisputably best. Not because I was raised to be racist or was an arse. But it's part of how this country and its racist genes work their way into our schools, education, social conventions, etc.

Overcoming Privilege

White Privilege is something difficult to talk about with my Euro-American allies. My posts on the topic are often ignored among self-described liberals and progressives, and often my friends feel they have to defend themselves. In fact, if there is any group that is as closed to discussing or acknowledging White Privilege than White Conservatives, it's White Liberals. I know a number of White Conservatives who are more open to the idea, more accepting of the idea that they benefit from White Privilege and therefore they question the way the system is set up and how to make it more fair.

In a few ways, I can see why White Liberals have a hard time accepting the idea of White Privilege. One, because they are White, they don't necessarily come into the conflict themselves. In some ways, even whites who are at the bottom of the pole benefit from the system in all sorts of daily interactions that rarely, if ever, come to the fore. But also, fighting Racism as a concept is a lot easier. There are Racists, and there is everybody else.

Racism is other people and it's stuff they do and it's stuff they say and it's stuff they think. Easy villains.

White Privilege is all white people in a land with white rule. It's me. And it may be you. It's not so clear cut: I'm not a villain or evil just because I was born white or have or even utilize White Privilege.

In this case, it's less about stirring up the masses and getting out the vote and holding rallies and more about recognizing how we contribute to and benefit from White Privilege and how we can make the system more equitable.

Recognizing privilege, however, doesn't just end with a racial component. For myself, I recognize that I also benefit from Male Privilege, from Straight Privilege, from English-speaking Privilege, from Educated Privilege, from Middle Class Privilege (though that one shifts. Most of my life, I've been working class or underemployed), from US Citizen Privilege, from Northern and Mid-Western Privilege, from Able-bodied Privileged, even Tall Privileged.

These are all ways in which I benefit. These characteristics keep me from having to contemplate discrimination based on my accent (Mid-West and Northern) which leads people to think I'm smarter or at least as smart as I actually am - a discrimination that often affects Southerners and rural people, and one which I've occasionally shared and find hard to dispel.

A few pictures. Most of my life, I've lived in and near neighborhoods where I was a clear minority due to my race and ethnicity (though my grandmother is Puerto Rican and darker-skinned, it's pretty clear that I'm not. Make that very clear). And in mostly poor neighborhoods with high crime rates. How often do I get pulled over? Fairly rarely. And for being in the wrong neighborhood. They may check me for drugs or whatever, but not deeply. Only once was I harassed by a cop, though. But even then he let me off with a warning.

My friends, on the other hand? It's a constant worry. They are targeted for DWB all. The. Time.

But it's not a concern for me. Speeding. Jaywalking. Cruising through stops (not that I do that, but I have). I rarely worry about them because I don't need to.



My height is seen as a strength - which is odd since I don't know how to fight. But it's kept me from trouble when I could have been in much more trouble (just gotta fake a look for a few seconds).

I may not always get the job, but being white opens doors and opportunities for me that I wouldn't have if I were a Black or Latino male. It also helps that I can share several cultural touchstones with others who have access to jobs, opportunities, etc.

Being white in Chicago means that, even if I smoke pot, I'm 1/18th less likely to be arrested than someone who is black for carrying weed. Across all social/racial/economic borders, the proportion of those who use illicit drugs are the same, but African Americans are stopped, seized, arrested, tried, and imprisoned up to eighteen times as often as their white counterparts.

Several years ago, I got off the bus from work at around midnight. A young African American woman also gets off. I don't want her to think I'm following her - because I was attracted to her and didn't want her to think I'm some sort of rapist or whatever - so I slow down significantly. In a matter of seconds, she turns back to me and says, "I'm so glad you're walking with me. It gets pretty scary out here." She doesn't worry about petty thieves so much as guys harassing her - something that my male privilege doesn't allow me to worry about. And rats, too. I guess she was also worried about the rats in some of the gardens...

But she trusted me not because I was someone she knew or went to school with or she saw me interact with others. But because of the color of my skin. (At times I have a friendly face, but it's hard to tell at that hour). She felt that I would be able to protect her based on my maleness, height, slightly athletic build. And the fact that, being a white male, if something did happen, authorities would be quicker to listen to my story.

By nature of my privileges, I am the protected class, and she was expecting that some of that protection would fall to her as well.

The trick is recognizing our privileges - which may be as simple as our voice and the ability we have to tell our stories without shame or embarrassment and then join in the voices of others. It is through those who do not share our privileges that we will learn the most about ourselves and what is unique to us, but also we will learn how we can aid, how we can share what we have (our own voices) to amplify their voices and together sing a majestic harmony of humanity. It is then that we may become our best selves.

A Gender Apartheid in the Body of Christ

I don't want no daddy with two strong arms
I had one already, he done too much harm
- "The Word Is Love"

This lyric from barely-noticed Christian roots-rock singer-songwriter Rick Elias was written roughly twenty years ago, and I have hardly heard it since. But it's what's been scratching my mind every time I hear this call for a "Masculine Christianity" from church heavyweights like Mark Driscoll and recently from John Piper. I'm guessing by this they mean that the conservative Evangelical Church, specifically, isn't masculine enough.

Despite the fact that it's run almost exclusively by males. This despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of church congregants are female. And are systematically guarded from positions of leadership within the church.

That, of course, is part of the problem for the Masculine Christianists. They see the church as half-empty and want to market it to more men, specifically, more manly-men who like to do mannish stuff. Like MMA, or throw stuff. Or smash. Or yell. Or hit...

But that's not enough, apparently. Reported from Rachel Held Evans, John Piper recently stated, based on his specific culturally and gender-centric reading of the Bible that:

God has given Christianity a masculine feel.

Prayer. Cambodia4kids.org

I'm not sure what that means, "masculine feel." I know that I'm a man, and that there is something good about that, as I - as a male - was made in God's image. But women are also made in God's image. So is my precious daughter. And they're feminine, right? So does Christianity have a feminine feel as well?

I do know that this idea of the masculine feel ties directly into masculine leadership. And that my every experience with Masculine Leadership (as a trait identified specifically as "Masculine") comes up on the pagan side of Jesus' call to his disciples.

Then they began to argue among themselves about who would be the greatest among them. Jesus told them, “In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called ‘friends of the people.’ But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who serves.

Luke 22:24-7 (New Living Translation)

This is where many Christian leaders get their "servant leadership" language from. But it's really just language that barely covers pretty much the same type of leadership. We've seen this type of "servant leadership" before. It's another form of what Piper was referring to when he continued his definition of Masculine Leadership:

[G]odly male leadership in the spirit of Christ with an ethos of tender-hearted strength, contrite courage, risk-taking decisiveness, and readiness to sacrifice for the sake of leading and protecting and providing for the community.

Even at its most tender-hearted, this exclusively masculine form of leadership is innately ignorant and sometimes downright abusive. Because, being exclusive it is dismissive of other points of view. Piper himself advises wives to stay with their husbands for the night after he strikes her and to wait until the church opens later that week to deal with the problem.

Not, as I'm sure we're well aware post-JoPa scandal, report all abuse to authorities right away. Not, leave him and then see if there can be reconciliation later. Not, we're gonna open up a phone bank for such emergencies and make sure that all women and children (and even men) have a safe place to turn to in the case of such a regular-occurring emergency.




This is the sound of Masculine Christianity?

From the lips of a White male, trust me when I say this: We are not very good at listening.

We are good at getting a swell head filled with power because that's what we're trained to do from an early age. We are the ones the teacher picks on - especially if we (like I did) go to multicultural schools. Due to institutional and multi-generational sexism and racism, we are the ones assumed to be smart and fearless and bold and decisive. And when the moment comes to shine, we relish the opportunity, lessons be damned. Experience from the wise and from females and from minorities and from the oppressed and from our neighbors be damned. White Papa knows what's best.

I mean, that's what God is, right? A strong, White male God who knows best because he. just. does.

He's a male, knowimean?

I'm sure that Jesus wanted his Kingdom to be focused on a "masculine feel" when he and Paul used words like,

• Poor in spirit
• Mourn
• Comfort
• Meek
• Merciful
• Shown mercy
• Pure in heart
• Peacemakers
• Encourage
• Gentle
• Patient
• Kind
• Without envy
• Does not boast
• Not proud
• Not self-seeking
• Not easily angered
• Always hopes

to describe it.

You want to see a Masculine Christianity? That's easy! It's all around us. It's the current state of the American Church - a gender apartheid in the body of Christ.

You wanna see the Kingdom? Follow Jesus in tearing down these walls. All of them. Power-grabbing. Property-grabbing. Insecurity. Fear. Letting a handful of men (and even women) spiritually lead hundreds and thousands. Tear them down and allow Christ's love for all to guide us to each other's best interests, to become better persons.

Not to be more masculine or more feminine. Better humans.

De-segregation: Ending Apartheid, Lost Cause, or Dubious?

The cover story in last week's Chicago Reader is, I think, not to be missed. It deals with the continuing racial segregation that leaves much of the South and Far West Sides nearly universally African American and impoverished. Segregating neighborhoods means segregated schools. And as anybody who has visited, worked in, or been a student as all-black schools knows, the issue of educational apartheid leaves those schools and students with fewer resources. Additionally, there's the issue that Black and White citizens are at odds, largely because Whites - who generally tend to hold the economic and political capital to get things done - do not understand African American concerns. De-segregationists argue that most Euro-Americans do not understand or care about Black community concerns because there are few lasting relationships between Blacks and Whites in hyper-segregated cities like Chicago.

On this date 42 years ago—February 10, 1969—federal district judge Richard B. Austin issued a ruling aimed squarely at a persistent Chicago problem. "Existing patterns of racial segregation must be reversed if there is to be a chance of averting the desperately intensifying division of whites and Negroes in Chicago," Austin wrote.

The case, Dorothy Gautreaux v. the Chicago Housing Authority, concerned the location of public housing—projects were being built only in the city's black ghettos because whites didn't want blacks in their neighborhoods. But the broader issue, as Judge Austin noted, was residential racial segregation, a matter of much concern throughout America back then.

The nation was "moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal," the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders had declared a year before Judge Austin's ruling. Chaired by Illinois governor Otto Kerner, the commission called for sustained efforts to end segregation.

Chicago's ghettos in the 1960s were notorious for their shootings, robberies, rapes, fires, joblessness, single-parent families, dreadful schools and high dropout rates, rampant alcoholism and heroin addiction, abandoned buildings and vacant lots.

Lucky we fixed all that...

most African-Americans are clustered in two areas, as they were in the 1960s: a massive one on the south side, and a smaller one on the far west side. The south-side section, between Western Avenue and the lake, stretches more than a hundred blocks north to south, from 35th Street to the city limits at 138th. This African-American subdivision of Chicago includes 18 contiguous community areas, each with black populations above 90 percent, most of them well above that. The west-side black section includes another three contiguous 90 percent-plus community areas. Fifty-five percent of Chicago's 964,000 African-Americans live in these 21 community areas, in which the aggregate population is 96 percent black. Two-thirds of the city's blacks live in community areas that are at least 80 percent black.

On the flip side are the 33 community areas, most of them on the north and southwest sides, with less than 10 percent African-Americans. In 26 of these community areas less than 5 percent of the residents are black.

Latinos are segregated in some neighborhoods, too, but not nearly as dramatically; they're a buffer group, living in community areas with whites or with blacks, and sometimes with both.

The maps for 1970 and 1980 show that the south-side "black belt" was still swelling in the 70s, to the south and west; the last wave of migrants was arriving from Mississippi and other southern states. From 1980 on, what's remarkable about the maps is their consistency from decade to decade...

This pronounced, persistent separation of the races would be worrisome, or at least curious, even if separate were equal—which of course it isn't. The hypersegregated black neighborhoods continue to lead the city in the same wretched problems as in the 60s. In some ways, things are worse. There's not just a lack of legitimate jobs in these areas today, but also a surplus of people without skills—and more of them have criminal records now as well, from the war on drugs. Predatory lending has multiplied the number of abandoned buildings in these neighborhoods...

Other ethnic enclaves have existed in Chicago, of course, but they were never nearly as concentrated, and their residents tended to assimilate and disperse fairly quickly. For Chicago's blacks, dispersal wasn't an option; given the violence that greeted them when they moved into white neighborhoods, the safest mode of expansion from the black belt was into adjacent neighborhoods. Blacks were met there with bricks and bottles and occasionally bombs, but there was some safety in numbers. Various legal or quasi-legal methods were used to hem blacks in as well, such as restrictive covenants that forbade white property owners in border neighborhoods to rent or sell to blacks.

In the middle decades of the 20th century, southern blacks streamed into Chicago and other northern cities, seeking jobs. Chicago had three kinds of neighborhoods then: white, changing, and black. Or, as white Chicagoans knew them, good, going, and gone. Whites continued to resist the incursions, sometimes violently, but before long they usually fled, moving west within the city or following the newly built highways into the suburbs. Many of the city's biggest employers moved to the suburbs as well. In the ghettos left behind, unemployment and poverty grew.

In the late 1960s, efforts to improve the circumstances of urban blacks began to change from desegregation to "community development"—programs aimed at making ghettos more habitable. White conservatives favored anything that might keep blacks where they were. White liberals liked the money that community development programs provided. Black politicians grew fond of segregation, too, since it provided a stable electoral base.

One of the insidious traits of segregation is how easy it makes it for the haves to ignore the plight of the have-nots. For most whites, concentrated poverty and its many ills are an abstraction—something they read about but rarely see, since it exists in parts of town they don't live in or work in or visit. On the north lakefront, where the neighborhoods are more diverse than most in Chicago, residents may also be fooled into thinking it's the norm throughout the city.

photo © 2009 班森 | more info (via: Wylio)

Much of this, I agree with (I've found true community development programs to be about empowering the communities, rather than relying on the government or other entities perpetually). But then a friend brought up some interesting points to ponder. And I'd like to hear some other voices on this topic, but here's what he had to say:

jason- can institutionalized racism not exist in an integrated city? as much as i enjoy the diversity of cultures and races that exist in this city, i at times question the legitimacy of racial/ethnic integration. i think about the racism and lack of professional connections for black students as i attended my predominately white christian college, while my friends who attended black colleges had all the opportunities my white classmates experienced.

the reason why chicago area has one of the largest black middle and upper class population in the country is because of segregation some would argue. segregation put blacks in position to grow strong businesses and network socially, economically and professionally. sometimes when people say integrate, i hear "deconstruct the black community". destroy our businesses, colleges, churches and social clout. by integrating blacks may be subject to more direct racist influence of white chicagoans. you can't force integration so what is the point? a lot of neighborhoods and suburbs are segregated not b/c of laws, but b/c whites continue to flee once a neighborhood reaches 15% black. why would blacks want to deconstruct the very institutions and social outlets that have allowed them endure jim crow and support their civil rights movement?

many of these ghettos are poor and disadvantaged b/c the people are poor and disadvantaged. historical institutionalized racism put them in that position but integration doesn't have to be the solution. why does a black ghetto have to be dispersed or integrated for people to have appropriate resources for school and stable homes? that's like saying blacks are not competent enough to have a stable community of their own. i know plenty of stable communities w/ populations of blacks above 50%-80% through out the united states.

at the same time this is coming from someone who frequents neighborhoods and night spots that are less than 40% black. i've gone to school w/ white kids my entire life though i lived in black enclaves as a child. i currently live in a community that is only about 20% black at best. i may enjoy diversity but i have noticed i tend to be out of the loop when it comes to networking chicago as an educated black man. that is a huge problem when living is a racist city like chicago.

Of course, I don't think my friend is suggesting, like Justice Thomas does, that segregation is an innocent choice made possible by a bunch of innocent little choices. Many people have argued that the African American community suffers because upper-middle class Black families fled all-Black neighborhoods when given the opportunity, and with them went the resources and the sense of community. But I’m not knowledgeable enough on that subject (and I don’t think I can fix that deficiency with any amount of quick research) to say for sure - which is why I’d like to hear your thoughts on this trend, and the counter-trend.

I do have a few thoughts on this conundrum, however.

Some people who seem to argue for desegregation are really arguing for gentrification – whites moving back to burgeoning areas currently populated by minority families. What this tends to do – unless safe-guarded, which rarely happens – is to drive up the prices for housing in the area so high that the former residents can no longer afford to rent or pay property taxes there any longer. This displaces them from their community and further breaks down the support that impoverished families and individuals need in order to survive and/or thrive. So gentrification has the opposite effect of the intentions of desegregation: black families are exploited for financial gain (usually given directly and in-proportionately to developers), and are driven out of the neighborhoods even as many have tried to stabilize the area. This often puts those same displaced families into other segregated, high-intensity low-income neighborhoods, but without the stability that they have been working on for decades at their last decade.

Another bad reason to de-segregate is a patronizing idea – as my friend pointed out above. Whites, and particularly White Christians, can view their work within minority communities as if they were missionaries going to a strange and savage place. And the gospel that they present is one of middle class Euro-American norms. “If I can live in this area, and the neighbors see me getting into my car every morning to go to work, perhaps they can learn from my industriousness…” The underlying notion, of course, is that black families are inherently lazy and unproductive. The reality, however - thanks to the shortage of jobs in the black community – is that much of the economy runs underground – ranging from hair-dressers to boutiques to drug dealers to retailers to day care centers. Hustlers, in fact, are among the highest regarded males among the youth I’ve worked with. But because of the lack of stable, living-wage jobs offered to African-Americans, the underground economy needs to stay intact, which means that the community that affords that economy needs to more-or-less stay intact.

My contention with segregation, however, is that the African-American community is largely out-of-sight – ignored by the blind and deaf White community which has had centuries of practice in institutionally and psychologically dehumanizing those of a darker skin tone. Most of us don’t know that we are doing it (and we’ll counter and scream that we’re not racist, blah, blah, blah), but we are. It’s practically a part of our DNA – which is why it’s not as noticeable.

De-segregation, however, would mean that we are forced to take the institutional problems of the Black class seriously as those problems would be staring White families down in their children’s schools, and on their blocks. It would mean that the police would need to respond quicker to a 911 call on violence. It would mean that school systems would think twice before they labeled a school as failing and sent the children across town - and through hostile territories - for their basic education. It would mean that certain areas of town aren't dilapidated or ignored, and that public transportation would be readily available in all sections of the city. It would mean that if pieces of the school were falling down on the students, somebody would be paying hell.

Not because the African American community isn't capable of organizing, writing letters, making meetings. But because they are largely ignored.

Which brings me to an area I hadn't really thought about in terms of integration until I compared it to how women are treated in a male-dominated society (ie, everywhere). Most males live with, grew up with, and are surrounded by women. Most of us went to schools that comprised a majority of women. We all came from a woman. They were in our families, in our homes. Many of us are involved in life-long intimate relationships with women.

But that doesn't stop women from making 75 cents to every dollar a similar male makes. That doesn't end domestic violence against women. That doesn't mean that charges of rape are taken seriously, or that Congress wouldn't try a stunt like narrowly-defining rape. That doesn't mean that half of our jokes aren't about how moody women always are because they don't gleefully submit to our every whim. Or that men don't write them off as being flighty or flirty - something many of them have to do because they wouldn't be heard otherwise. It doesn't mean that women don't have to work twice as hard as their male counterparts just to be respected by them.

So... I really don't have any real, quick solutions. Maybe the biggest problem in Chicago - and elsewhere - isn't segregation. Or even necessarily racism or sexism. Maybe it's that those in power don't like to relinquish that power - even if it's just the power to listen and empathize.

Thoughts?

The Reality of Denial

Slacktivist's post on global warming denialism has come at a time when I find myself at wit's end trying to talk to fellow White Christians about the facts of institutional and systemic racism (and our own implicit White privilege). What these two topics share is that the very truth of their existence are being called into question - yet they are both certifiable, identifiable, and verifiable scientifically-proven facts. Systemic racism is a fact, every bit as much as sexism is a fact, every bit as much as global warming is a fact, every bit as much as income inequality is a fact, or homophobia. Or Muslimaphobia. Or genocide. Or... pick your evil poison.

Denying these facts doesn't make it less so - it just proves that the denier doesn't know or want to know how to deal with something that may alter his or her existence in profound ways.

One could debate about the how extensive the damage is in these areas, vis-a-vis the claims by some of the advocates for change. And we certainly could argue about the ways to change the system*. But facts, those stubborn things, can't just be accepted or not. They are. How we interpret and classify the facts is open to interpretation, but not the facts themselves.

Likewise, it's a fallacy to believe that only liberals believe that racism (et. al.) is a continual problem. That's an unfortunately binary way of looking at the world. Racism is a real, fundamental problem. And the fact of its relentless existence speaks about the persistence of our continual tribalisms and how we (males, Whites, middle class, Americans, and/or straights) justify our superior standing under the line of thinking, "When we succeed, we do so because we're better." Rather, the truth is closer to, "We succeed in large part because society privileges us, and if we challenge those assumptions we were lucky enough to be born into, we may never succeed again."

Solidarity image courtesy of some student at So Cal U...

That is, of course, a fallacy. There are a few with much, much power. The rest of us lack power -- as long as we remain divided by sex, race, class, sexuality, religion, etc. The rest of us are unaware of how we can be powerful - by uniting - and how powerful we can be by uniting.

* These should be the only things seperating conservatives, moderates, and liberals. But alas, there are many conservatives - and many of them Christians - who favor the system as it is and deny reality just to continue that system.

Boys don't cry

I know that there's other, more important stuff in the news today. Like Derek Webb releasing his sh*t-filled record online today only to have complications with the ordering process. And Facebook is acting mighty peculiar - maybe because they're so busy turning our status updates over to the robots and general stalking populace.

But I got caught up in just how naive this couple is. Parents of a 2 1/2 year old child are being purposefully ambiguous about the sex of their child. They dress "Pop" up in both boys' and girls' clothing (jeans and dresses, which, incidentally, my 2 year old girl wears) and have sported the child in traditional hairstyles of both genders.

Why? Well, they believe that gender is a social construct, according to The Local (Sweden's News in English, according to the virtual masthead). Further:

“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”

The child's parents said so long as they keep Pop’s gender a secret, he or she will be able to avoid preconceived notions of how people should be treated if male or female.

I will not argue that gender is not a social construct, just that it isn't fully. Nobody forces a boy to like a Tonka truck or to be more aggressive in his pursuits -- sometimes ostracizing girls - like my infinitely curious child- in the process of protecting their GI Joes, as I noticed at a Reading for Tots on Monday morn. Or ostracizing nearly everybody else in declaring their Alpha-ness as I noticed in my childhood - being quite the Zed kid. Neither my wife nor I are crazy about phones, so it strikes me as a bit odd on first view to see how much Joss loves to take just about anything (including plates, cups, stuffed monkeys and the loose cell phone) to pretend talking on it. As curious as she is about objects, she's much more interested in people and in social circumstances. It wasn't our expectations -- or others' -- that forced that on her.


What is it? I'm not sure. It doesn't sound like anybody's exactly sure. Some very heterosexual girls prefer playing with cars and straight boys would prefer to wear dresses if they get the chance (as many married men have been caught doing while the wife's away).

Psychologists differ on the overall effect of this experiment, but I'm left wondering why the same people who believe that gender is primarily 'learned' do not believe also that sexual identity is learned, but rather primarily biological.

Just sayin'...

Oh, yeah, and then there's the whole Xianjiang-China civil strife thing.

And some influential pop star died.

Weekend Links I Like to Link to - Two Things You Should Never Mention at a Dinner Table Edition

via MarkO:
Teaching Boys and Girls Separately
Yeah. Separate but not equal? Actually, cheap shot aside, it sounds like a good idea, though I think it needs some modification. For instance, the gender roles need to go. And same sex classes may be good for periods of time, but generally speaking, for social reasons, boys and girls need to mix.
'Cause that how the real world works.

The evangelical Christian pollsters at Barna released a study finding that "November Election is Obama's to Lose". What I found interesting (well, one of the things I found interesting) is that I would probably still fit into their category of born-again evangelical but I would be in the small minority (less than 10%) that is going to not vote Republican this year.
What I have noticed is that even though the evangelical movement is making tremendous strides in consciously moving and being active in social justice causes (thanks in no small part to Bono. Could you have imagined that ten years ago?), many who would otherwise lean towards Obama are hesitant because they see abortion as a make-or-break issue. The mantra still being pushed is that if a politician will not protect the lives of the most-underrepresented and vulnerable, then how can he or she claim to represent our rights or to be socially just?

And, to tie the two together:
I thought that both the racism and the sexism evident in the recent (and hopefully completed) Democratic primaries were just off the charts. Although I will not argue about who had it worse, I think it ludicrous and insulting the charge by supporters of Clinton's campaign that Obama was demeaning and sexist towards their candidate. So far, my impression of that charge are that he ran and won when it was clearly her turn to win it all. But Obama did not do the Clinton '08 campaign in; the Clinton '08 campaign did the Clinton '08 campaign in.
Having said all that, the mainstream media (and especially the all-talk cable news outlets - Fox chief among them) should be very much ashamed of themselves. The truth is, they had to find subtler ways of attacking Barrack for his race (the scary preacher, anyone?) while they could largely go unpunished for making these lewd and disturbing comments about Hillary's sex. Notice:



It's no secret that I am not a fan of the way that Hillary ran this campaign (although, to her credit, IMHO she would make a better president than any Republican contender and her tactics were not as slanderous or injurious as, say, the Willie Horton ads of the '80s) and am certainly not a fan of the bitterness that the supporters of either Democratic presidential hopeful have towards the other (did somebody say Geraldine Ford?), but, please, wrong is wrong. And this is definitely wrong.


h/t to Eugene Cho for this one.

Marble ceiling

I don't know much about the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Yet, in terms of how sexually segregated the United States is (certainly in terms of power positions), I wish her all the best.

But to say that she's the most powerful woman in the legislature may be a just a bit underwhelming, considering Newt Gingrich's claim some 14 years ago. He claimed that the Speaker of the House - who sets the agenda for the largest legislative body (after all, for all the revisionist talk, neither the Supreme Court nor the President can actually make laws) in the most powerful nation in the world - is arguably the most powerful person in politics.

And then he proved it - for better and for worse. 

Here's to hoping Pelosi can cause some damage.  But in a positive, reinforcing way.