Racial Equality
Understanding Racial Injustice: History
Hunter-Gault, Charlayne. To the Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement. New York: New York Times Company, 2012. Esteemed PBS anchorwoman Charlayne Hunter-Gault, one of the first students to integrate the University of Georgia, provides a reporter’s eyewitness experience of the Civil Rights Movement.
King, Martin Luther, The Other America, April 4, 1967. “[T]here are literally two Americas. One…beautiful...overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity…the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies; and culture and education for their minds; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits…young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity.
But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America…[where] millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums…perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
In a sense, the greatest tragedy of this other America is what it does to little children…forced to grow up with clouds of inferiority forming every day in their little mental skies…Many people of various backgrounds live in this other America. Some are Mexican Americans, some are Puerto Ricans, some are Indians, some happen to be from other groups. Millions of them are Appalachian whites. But probably the largest group in this other America in proportion to its size in the Population is the American Negro.”
North, Anna. “How Racist Policing Took Over American Cities, Explained by a Historian,” Vox, June 6, 2020. Post slavery, says this Harvard professor, in the South, “all expressions of black freedom, political rights, economic rights, and social rights were then subject to criminal sanction…People who wanted to negotiate fair labor contracts could be defined as criminals…Black people were incarcerated in the South, and because they were incarcerated, this whole theory that black people were criminal was built on top of that…Once we have the consolidation of [the idea] that black people have a crime problem, the arguments for diminishing their equal citizenship rights are national.”
Understanding Racial Injustice: Sociology
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Combatting Racism- Parish Resources. Learn what systemic racism is, and how it affects housing, education, employment, economic inequality, migration, and the criminal justice system, in background briefs from the U.S. bishops.
Editors, “A Response to Racism,” Commonweal Podcast, June 5, 2020. “On this episode we speak with Fr. Bryan Massingale, author of Racial Justice and the Catholic Church and professor of theology at Fordham University in New York. Racism persists in America and the church, Massingale contends, because racist policies and structures benefit white people—and white people assent to it through a kind of perverse ‘liturgy.’
Massingale also tells us what Americans shocked at Floyd’s death, particularly white bystanders, need now: the virtue of courage, motivated by righteous anger. We must move beyond the mere conviction that racism is wrong, and actually begin dismantling it.”
“El Paso: One Year Later,” Commonweal Podcast, July 31, 2020. “The El Paso matanza, or massacre, is considered to be the deadliest anti-Latino attack in U.S. history, and one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. On this two-part episode, we talk with several people from El Paso about that day, about what has transpired in the year that has passed, about how life has and hasn’t changed along the border—politically, culturally, and spiritually.”
In part one, we’re joined by Monsignor Arturo Bañuelas, a priest in the diocese of El Paso, and Professor Neomi De Anda, the current president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States. In part two, we’re joined by Dylan Corbett and Marisa Limón Garza of the Hope Border Institute in El Paso, and by Bishop Mark Seitz of the El Paso Diocese.
Understanding Racial Injustice: Theology
Heschel, Abraham Joshua, Religion and Race, January 14, 1963. Excerpt from Rabbi Heschel’s address:
“In several ways man is set apart from all beings created in six days. The Bible does not say, God created the plant or the animal; it says, God created different kinds of plants, different kinds of animals (Genesis 1: 11 12, 21-25). In striking contrast, it does not say, God created different kinds of man, men of different colors and races; it proclaims, God created one single man. From one single man all men are descended. To think of man in terms of white, black, or yellow is more than an error. It is an eye disease, a cancer of the soul.”
Reeves, Jay. “Religious Faith was a Lifelong Constant for Rep. John Lewis.” Portland Press Herald. July 18, 2020. “Lewis spent boyhood days as a make-believe minister, preaching to a congregation of clucking birds at his rural home in Alabama…In later years he worried aloud that some people failed to understand civil rights activism as an extension of faith for many participants in the movement, rooted in stories about Jesus and the words of Gandhi, who was born Hindu and embraced many teachings.
‘In my estimation, the civil rights movement was a religious phenomenon. When we’d go out to sit in or go out to march, I felt, and I really believe, there was a force in front of us and a force behind us, ’cause sometimes you didn’t know what to do. You didn’t know what to say, you didn’t know how you were going to make it through the day or through the night. But somehow and some way, you believed – you had faith – that it all was going to be all right,’ Lewis told PBS in 2004.”
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love, A Pastoral Letter Against Racism. November 2018. “What Is Racism? [E]ither consciously or unconsciously—a person holds that his or her own race or ethnicity is superior…Racist acts are sinful because they violate justice…because a person ignores the fundamental truth that, because all humans share a common origin, they are all brothers and sisters, all equally made in the image of God…Cain forgets this truth in his hatred of his brother…Every racist act—every such comment, every joke, every disparaging look as a reaction to the color of skin, ethnicity, or place of origin—is a failure to acknowledge another person as a brother or sister, created in the image of God.”
Moved by the Holy Spirit
Copland, M. Shawn, “Breath & Fire: The Spirit Moves Us Toward Racial Justice,” Commonweal, July 8, 2020. “During these soul-wrenching days, we do well to remember that the Spirit cannot and will not be made captive, that the Spirit will not and cannot be tamed. Just as wind blows where and when it wills, so too does Spirit-ruah. The Spirit animates dissent and protest against any and all refusals to acknowledge and revere the presence of the divine in each and every human being, against any and all who stifle the breathing of others. The Spirit gifts those who grieve and hurt with comfort and consolation, those who strategize and plan with understanding and wisdom, those who march and stand and kneel with fortitude and courage.”
Martin, James, “The Holy Spirit is Moving Us to Act Against Racism,” America, June 1, 2020. “Mr. Floyd’s murder is something that should enrage everyone, but especially white Americans. And make no mistake: the kind of righteous anger that is being felt is the same kind of anger that Jesus felt when he saw the Temple being desecrated in Jerusalem and turned over the tables of the moneychangers in a rage (Jn 2:13-16). Jesus saw something holy being defamed, as we do when we see a police officer’s knee being pressed upon a defenseless man, and when it is continued to press down on him even when he says, ‘I can’t breathe.’”
A Way Forward
Francois, Susan Rose, “Lament and Love: Becoming Anti-Racist,” Global Sisters Report, June 5, 2020. “The religion of Jesus makes the love-ethic central…Once the neighbor is defined, then one's moral obligation is clear…Lament helps us to recognize neighbors we may have denied. Loving action in solidarity helps to bring us together and heal divisions. We the people can do this.”
Guidos, Rhina, “Black Lives Matter Movement Gives Catholics Opportunity to Join Fight Against Racism, Bishop Says” America, July 13, 2020. Should Catholics affiliate with Black Lives Matter? “[W]hat Fr. Wilkinson wants others to understand is that those engaging with the words ‘Black Lives Matter,’ including many Black Catholics like him…are seeking, especially in the Catholic Church, is to have racism addressed.”
"‘If you and I are truly pro-life, we are obligated to work for the protection and respect for human life from the first moment of conception to natural death and every stage in between, and thus it is obvious that racism is a pro-life issue,’ Bishop Taylor wrote.
‘Racism is a sin,’ he added, ‘and we have to admit that even as church, we have not been immune to racial bias and the blindness to structures of sin that affect how our own institutions are run.’”
Tippett, Krista. “John Lewis: Love in Action.” On Being. July 23, 2020. “An extraordinary conversation with the late congressman John Lewis, taped in Montgomery, Alabama, during a pilgrimage 50 years after the March on Washington. It offers a special look inside his wisdom, the civil rights leaders’ spiritual confrontation within themselves, and the intricate art of nonviolence as ‘love in action.’”
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Combatting Racism- Parish Resources. Grow in understanding and prayer about systemic racism to motivate action for racial equality.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Stations of the Cross: Overcoming Racism. An opportunity for prayerful reflection about the Via Dolorosa of Jesus and its relationship to those harmed by the sin of racism today.
Catholics in Action
"5 Ways You Can Cultivate Peace and Work for Racial Justice." To Go Forth, a blog from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Department of Justice, Peace & Human Development, inspired by Pope Francis. August 18, 2016. Learn how Catholics around the nation are propagating racial justice through mutual prayer, creating cultures of encounter, improving police-community relations, and more.
DC Peace Team’s mission is “working towards cultivating & sustaining a culture of nonviolent peacemaking and resistance.” The Peace Team periodically offers online restorative justice circle discussions on racism and other matters, as well as training for nonviolent communication, active bystander intervention, and other forms of peace making.
See how a peacemaking/ restorative justice circle operates in this video from the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation:
No Boundaries Coalition, Catholic Campaign for Human Development. "After the 2015 death of Freddie Gray, NBC brought together 150 faith leaders and community members to gather at St. Peter Claver and plan their response. They helped distribute 10,000 pounds of food and supplies and mobilized 1,000 volunteers to clean up the community after the riots...Working with Catholic Charities, St. Peter Claver implemented a Safe Streets Program to train 'violence interrupters'—trusted people within the community—to de-escalate tense situations that could turn violent."
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Practical Steps for Eradicating Racism: An Invitation. Recommendations include reflection, dialogue, and meaningful civic action. Excerpt: “6. Contact your pastor, parish council or diocesan office to discuss possible ways to dialogue with local law enforcement. Some community organizations funded by the bishops through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) are leading these efforts in their communities. See what is happening near you. 7. Learn about structural racism and its roots in in your community and get involved in the work to address it. It might look like housing discrimination that continues to contribute to segregated communities or disparate access to quality education.”
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: Racism Issues and Action Page