White Young Clergy Reading Racism

Just after the shooting in Charleston, members of The Young Clergy Women Project banded together on Facebook to educate ourselves about the history and present reality of racism and racial dynamics in the US context in order to create meaningful change. Through our wifi connections, we’re trying to do our best — as mostly white women — to examine our own assumptions, learn new language and learn a thing or two. 

It was proposed within that group that we share in the practice of reading a book together to do this work. Because we’d all seen the various syllabi that have emerged on the internet to point to the amount of learning that we need to do. There are things that we really need to sit down and read and histories that we need to confront — and everybody loves a book club. So, let’s start a book club.

Because we all want to read James Cone’s new book and The New Jim Crow and Witnessing Whiteness and Just Mercy but that’s a whole lot of books. So we might need a little motivation.

Welcome to White Clergy Reading Racism.

It’s something that began with The Young Clergy Women Project but you certainly don’t need to be a member to apply. (You need to be a member for other cool perks and to be truly part of this amazing community but not this time. For this book group, there won’t be any need for membership. This is a really important conversation among clergy so there shall be no limits.) Join along if especially if you’re white and clergy, but don’t let those two qualifiers deter you. If you are interested in reading with us, JOIN US.

Here’s the deal.

• We will pick a book.
• We will read one chapter of that book every two weeks.
• We will share in a series of reflection questions. If you are a blogger, you are invited to post on your blog with your responses. If you don’t blog, join in the conversation by commenting on the blogs of those participating in White Clergy Reading Racism.
• We’ll finish the book. We’ll do a little happy dance and pick a new book.
• Repeat.

We’ll start by reading Bruce Reyes-Chow’s But I Don’t See You as Asian: Curating Conversations about Race. It was free on Amazon last week so a bunch of us got a sweet deal — but if you didn’t happen to get in on that discount, go ahead and order a copy now. We will start reading next week on Sunday July 12 which means that two weeks later we’ll share in a series of reflection questions. (That would be Sunday July 26.) I’ll post the reflection questions on the off week because I want this to happen — and I’ll do everything I can to make it happen.

Ready to make this happen? Send me a message and let me know that you’re eager and ready to participate. (Please share with me your blog address so I can be sure to share it with one and all.) Then, go and share this blog post on your favorite social media platform. Tell everyone you know that this is something you’re doing. If you have a blog, go ahead and download this image and post it in your blog. Tell the story of why you’re participating.

Oh, and don’t forget to buy the first book.