Race

When I signed up to attend Calvin College's Festival of Faith & Writing, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was hoping for some inspiration, some words of encouragement, some insightful tips to perhaps get me through my ongoing battles with writer’s block.

Instead I left convicted and with rearranged priorities. And I’m thankful for it.

I am from Madagascar.

Like the movie? Usually the response of anyone aged 25 and under.

I’ve never met anyone from Madagascar. From those 25 and over.

The island of Madagascar broke off from the continent of Africa eons ago, allowing the flora and fauna present to evolve to such a degree that the biodiversity you find on that glorious island you will find nowhere else in the world.

Were you there when a Starbucks manager called the police on Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson less than two minutes after they arrived for a routine meeting with a business partner?

In my previous post about gentrification, I established a simple premise. Any development and revitalization of  a neighborhood that leads to the involuntary displacement of already existing people, history, and culture is inequitable, and antithetical to God’s desire for wholeness and flourishing for all of his creation.

This spoken word poem was originally performed at Where Do We Go From Here? for Martin Luther King Day 2018. 

Scott:

Where we are, dusk of a king, a shooting star.

Come back with me to the funeral of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, walk the aisles and look around. Pause.

One side of the room wept

It’s been quite the year! Thanks for reading and learning along with us, as we wrestled with faith with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other (Karl Barth).

Here are the top Do Justice articles (ranked by top pageviews) that got you thinking and acting in 2017: 

An earlier post described my journey of coming to recognize the privilege I have unwittingly enjoyed all my life. A second post invited people to read two books that might help them better recognize their privilege.

On Do Justice, we’re all about creating space.

Space to ask hard questions. Space to wrestle with the implications of the Church’s call to do justice in the places where we live, today. Space to struggle with what it means to be the Body of Christ, where the eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you” and where the foot cannot say to the head, “I don’t need you.”

I grew up in a Christian home, with parents who were deeply involved in our local church, and who encouraged my siblings and I to be active members from a young age. I cherish the lasting influence church involvement has had on my life, and view it as a direct result of the faithfulness of my parents. From Sunday church services to weekly family Bible studies, faith was woven into all our family traditions, and has remained a central anchor in all our experiences. Racial justice – or a lack thereof —has also been a central characteristic of my personal and family experience.

Just after a bombshell hit the immigrant community – the pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona – I had the chance to sit down with Rev. Ricardo Tavarez for a cup of coffee. We talked about immigration, hospitality, racism, ministry, and Arpaio. Check out our conversation to see why, a month later, this decision still has deep implications for the immigrant community and our country. Here are some highlights of our conversation.