Thread by @thearmchaircom

So here goes.

Taking out the garbage Part 1 (of idk how many)

If you missed my tweet from earlier today, my family left our home church a week ago.

This is a “multiethnic” church that has recently started claiming antiracism.

My husband and I have a long history with this church (that’s another long story). We started attending again about 2 years ago after we had moved back home to Missouri.

It is the “most diverse” church where we live. We started going there again because of our history there.

The church as a whole was not always that diverse, but they started getting some black folks coming a few years ago and the pastor “has a heart” for diversity.

The quotes aren’t to be facetious but to put stuff into terms that aren’t necessarily mine.

In full transparency, I knew that they thought they were farther along than what they actually were. I knew the risks involved with that. I had hoped that my history with the organization and my work would make a way for me to be able to help and lend strength to some weak areas.

I was there for a year and no one really said anything to me about race (or of there was a conversation, I was usually being talked at instead of talked to). Last summer, I had the opportunity to do an internship at another church (part of my degree) and so I did it.

My internship was great. It lasted for about a year. My family continued to attend our home church and I visited here and there.

Anyway, in March, I get a nastygram from a member of the home church who was upset about something I said on my FB writers page.

Y’all, this woman, who was a mid-level leader at the church, was mad because I defined racism as prejudice plus power.

I told one of the campus pastors of the church about it. There were meetings.

These folks wanted me to sit down with homegirl.

I told them that I absolutely would not. She had bullied me and I was not going to sit down with someone who treated me that way. I said, “That isn’t how you do reconciliation .” I gave them some advice on what needed to be done in this situation and so it wouldn’t happen again.

They had no paradigms for how to deal with this stuff.

Anyway, I went back there after my internship ended in June because I was told that the church was taking a new antiracist approach and that I could be part of helping to build that aspect of the church up.

I had concerns about all of this, which I shared with the leadership.

They were really concerned with getting buy in from me. I told them that I was cool, but I was gone if they showed a pattern of prioritizing whiteness over black dignity.

Nothing could prepare me...

I hadn’t even been to church on a Sunday yet (though I was leading a small group on Austin Channing Brown’s “I’m Still Here”) when some white parishioner popped off with something racist on Facebook.

That’s a LOOONG story.

Anyway, this issue resulted in a group of black women having a couple of meetings with the lead pastor.

So here’s where I’m going to get even more broad because I don’t know how much of the garbage I want to unpack...

There were two meetings with the lead pastor. They were both...well they were.

That whole thing about thinking they are farther along than they are...well that showed up big in both of these meetings.

The fact that the church and the leaders and everything else needed work isn’t why we left. We didn’t leave because it looked like it would be hard work or anything like that.

We left because it became clear to me that there was not the necessary organizational self awareness.

And that lack of self-awareness had tremendous consequences for black women. I sat in one of those meetings where a black woman leader was the subject of harsh stereotyping and policing. It was couched in “coaching” but it wasn’t a healthy model of coaching. Periodt.

I am skipping over a WHOOOOOOOLE lotta details here. But I saw racist stereotypes being weaponized against a black woman and that woman be penalized for other’s racism.

When I called it out, I was told that they took what I said to heart...but then my friend was STILL penalized

Me, being charitable, wanted to try to get their perspective on what was happening and why they took the actions that they did. But nobody would meet with me.

Once again, there is soooooooooooooooooooooo much that I’m not telling.

But after alla that I noped all the way tf outta there because it was CLEAR how much I was valued.

It was traumatic. Also, secondary trauma is realer dennamug.

Trust and believe that one day I will tell more of this. It’s too fresh and new right now. Trust and believe that i have a lot more take aways than what I’m fittna share here...

I want y’all to listen to me REAL HARD.

This whole name-brand multiethnic church thing is a sham. I don’t care who is leading it. It’s shifting sand. People don’t want deep work, they want quick results they can get a piece in the local news about.

It’s like the church at Ephesus. A name that it’s alive but dead on the inside. I’m not talking about my former church. I’m talking about the entire “reconciliation” movement that’s taking place in evangelical churches. Y’all think y’all are doing something but y’all ain’t.

I’m not out here dissing nobody or nothing. I’m not naming names. I’m not putting anybody on blast. I’m just saying that this thing ain’t what y’all think it is and y’all are harming people because you won’t divest in white power.

Black and white leaders care about placating whiteness more than they do dignity, healing, and justice. Y’all want the photo op and not the work.

And yes. I know that people have a “heart” or a “call” for this kind of work. You can have the call, but you will do harm if you center and cater to whiteness.

White people act like being “called” to something makes them impervious to correction or critique. NOPE.

If y’all can’t give up your power and let those on the margins teach and lead you everything you do will turn to ashes in your mouth. It might look good and feel good but it ain’t good. Just like any other sin.

And if you are a black, indigenous, or brown person in this work and you care more about not hurting white people’s feelings than about the truth and the dignity of your people, you are no better than your white colleagues.

At this point, y’all can keep your name-brand multiethnic churches. Y’all can keep the foot washing and the hand holding. You can keep your book groups and your woke language. I’m not here for any of it unless black, brown, and indigenous folks are leading.

And when I say that BBIPOC are leading, I don’t mean in some whitewashed, white centered way. I mean when we can bring our full selves to the table and when we have the power to dismantle and rebuild.

So anyway. That’s the SUUUUUUPER abridged version of why this month has been awful and why I’ve taken naps on most days the past three weeks. My body is shutting down because I haven’t been able to properly attend to the trauma.

This is why I have a therapist. Because I knew that in the work I’m doing I need it. I do not have a mental illness, but it’s these types of things that can create mental heath crises for anyone.

Anyway, here’s Wonderwall