Whiteness comes to rest in space.
-- Willie James Jennings
-- Willie James Jennings
Thinking about whiteness and white identity makes us think about the ground, specifically the ground where we live. Thinking about whiteness makes think about neighborhoods, schools, and real estate. The reason that’s true is because from the beginning whiteness and the establishment of white identity and its power in this country was connected to land and labor, specifically private property and the labor on private property. It’s also true because at the intersection of private property and labor and nationalism is where whiteness grew and gains its strength. That means we have to think about borders, fences, boundaries, which leads us back to the ground. Whiteness always leads back to the ground.
I was struck by this connection when I watched this video about the creation of the suburbs. The suburbs weren’t created accidentally. The reality that schools are more segregated now than in the 1960s is also not an accident. It’s a reality of the creation of the suburbs. The reality that suburbias all around this country are predominantly white is not an accident. The reality that wealth among white families dwarfs that of Black families is not an accident. All of this is interconnected, and the video from College Humor lays it out in an approachable, humorous way.
I mention that the video is humorous because it shows that the people at College Humor know what Willie Jennings knows: “Whiteness feels.” I have experienced the feelings of whiteness. I felt the feeling of whiteness during Lisa’s sermon on June 7 when she shared some of her own experiences. I’ve been reflecting on some of my own experiences of race and my own racism. It’s painful. Whiteness feels.
You might be wondering at this point what the connection between place and feeling are at this point. The connection is that whiteness makes us think about where we live and how where we live contributes to segregated life, and that thinking is agonizing and painful and often anxiety-inducing. Here’s a concrete example. When I read recently,
“Overcoming whiteness begins by reconfiguring life geographically so that all the flows work differently; the flows of money, education, support, and attention move across people who have been separated by the processes that have formed us racially, economically, and nationally. We start with the communities that have been left behind in the movement toward maturity [read whiteness], those no longer imagined through the goals of ownership, citizenship, or productive labor, and we join them, we move to them, or we stay in them, or we form them, or we advocate for them, or we protect them. The we here are we Christians and all those willing to live toward a different formation of places. We fight against the segregation that shapes our worlds, and we work to weave lives together.”
I felt the anxiety, guilt, agony, and pain of living where I live and that where I live contributes to the segregation in my own life and the life of my community. I felt the anxiety of the radical call to discipleship, which is that the work of justice and undoing my own formation in whiteness might mean that I have to move myself and my family. There is a lot of feeling going on there.
I’m sure there have been lots of feelings in all of us. We have to attend to those feelings as we are on the beginning of this journey together as a congregation, a community of people. Those feelings will intensify as we think about the land we call church, the ground we call North Raleigh, the neighborhoods we call home. We join in those places, but the formation of those places has meant that our joining is incomplete. Yet this is where we have to begin. What was the land of 11905 Strickland Road before North Raleigh was there? Who was on that land long before North Raleigh was ever thought of? What was the community and neighborhoods we call North Raleigh before our houses were built and our communities formed? How have these places formed our joining as a congregation? These are intimate questions. They make us think about our homes, the money in our pockets, the friendships we have formed, the ministry we do. But, it is in thinking and feeling these questions and places that we will be going on the road toward a new way of life.
I was struck by this connection when I watched this video about the creation of the suburbs. The suburbs weren’t created accidentally. The reality that schools are more segregated now than in the 1960s is also not an accident. It’s a reality of the creation of the suburbs. The reality that suburbias all around this country are predominantly white is not an accident. The reality that wealth among white families dwarfs that of Black families is not an accident. All of this is interconnected, and the video from College Humor lays it out in an approachable, humorous way.
I mention that the video is humorous because it shows that the people at College Humor know what Willie Jennings knows: “Whiteness feels.” I have experienced the feelings of whiteness. I felt the feeling of whiteness during Lisa’s sermon on June 7 when she shared some of her own experiences. I’ve been reflecting on some of my own experiences of race and my own racism. It’s painful. Whiteness feels.
You might be wondering at this point what the connection between place and feeling are at this point. The connection is that whiteness makes us think about where we live and how where we live contributes to segregated life, and that thinking is agonizing and painful and often anxiety-inducing. Here’s a concrete example. When I read recently,
“Overcoming whiteness begins by reconfiguring life geographically so that all the flows work differently; the flows of money, education, support, and attention move across people who have been separated by the processes that have formed us racially, economically, and nationally. We start with the communities that have been left behind in the movement toward maturity [read whiteness], those no longer imagined through the goals of ownership, citizenship, or productive labor, and we join them, we move to them, or we stay in them, or we form them, or we advocate for them, or we protect them. The we here are we Christians and all those willing to live toward a different formation of places. We fight against the segregation that shapes our worlds, and we work to weave lives together.”
I felt the anxiety, guilt, agony, and pain of living where I live and that where I live contributes to the segregation in my own life and the life of my community. I felt the anxiety of the radical call to discipleship, which is that the work of justice and undoing my own formation in whiteness might mean that I have to move myself and my family. There is a lot of feeling going on there.
I’m sure there have been lots of feelings in all of us. We have to attend to those feelings as we are on the beginning of this journey together as a congregation, a community of people. Those feelings will intensify as we think about the land we call church, the ground we call North Raleigh, the neighborhoods we call home. We join in those places, but the formation of those places has meant that our joining is incomplete. Yet this is where we have to begin. What was the land of 11905 Strickland Road before North Raleigh was there? Who was on that land long before North Raleigh was ever thought of? What was the community and neighborhoods we call North Raleigh before our houses were built and our communities formed? How have these places formed our joining as a congregation? These are intimate questions. They make us think about our homes, the money in our pockets, the friendships we have formed, the ministry we do. But, it is in thinking and feeling these questions and places that we will be going on the road toward a new way of life.
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