Sunday, November 20, 2016

Christians of color

Many Christians of color are stunned by the support the president-elect received from white evangelicals. They’re not only stunned, but many have expressed feelings of deception and betrayal by their white brothers and sisters (and black and brown brothers and sisters) in Christ who voted for the president-elect despite his racist and offensive rhetoric against so many communities, including communities of color. 
As a result, many black and brown Christians are experiencing an identity crisis. The crisis is that the election season highlighted in no uncertain terms to many black and brown members of a predominately white evangelical movement that the term evangelical is now clearly identified with white political power and privilege. 
https://www.raanetwork.org/broken-table-fellowship-white-evangelicals-christians-color/

What's missing in this description? It talks about white folks, which are set in contrast to persons of "color". Yet persons of color are further delineated as black and brown persons. 

Hmm. Doesn't that leave out some rather significant people-groups? I don't know how RAAN defines "brown" persons. Is that supposed to be a synonym for Latinos? 

Where do American Indians fit into this taxonomy? Or East Indians? Or Samoans? 

Then you have the vast category of Asians, which is an umbrella term. Asians currently represent the majority of the human race.

So why is a discussion about persons of color framed in terms of white, brown, and black?  If RAAN really cares about Christians of color, why does it paint with such a limited palette? Quite a few pigments are missing. 

5 comments:

  1. As I read the paragraph you quoted my question was where does the issue of others fit in; too often I find articles like this naively assume they speak for all other non-white "colors."

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wondered where otherkins fit in. I hear dragon otherkins particularly feel let down by white evangelicals, claiming that this supports the "white knight" narrative, where white knights hunt dragons to save princesses.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm olive colored. I am offended that I wasn't included. I need a safe space.
    Plus Trump is orange. Can't even get his color right, good grief.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't have any official stats, but from the little that I saw and heard - in my circles among my Hindu friends and acquaintances, it seemed like they went for Trump. Also it did not seem like a reluctant lesser of two evils vote.

    It may well be the case that good percentage of Indians voted for him. One of the front page photos of USA Today showed Trump speaking at a Hindu Republicans group. Out in India also he had a lot of support even including from at least one prominent newspaper.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Always a funny issue. I'm white and pass for either German or even Irish, but because I'm a middle eastern born Armenian, I'm not considered white.

    ReplyDelete