Forgetting Lynching at Our Peril

Last updated on: August 22, 2015 at 3:21 pm by Rebecca Todd Peters

Forgetting Lynching at Our Peril 2015-08-22T15:21:47-04:00 Rebecca Todd Peters

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

My third grader is a white child in a Title I school in our town. She’s writing a report on Harriet Tubman for her Black History month project and has spent the week devouring information about Tubman and proudly sharing stories and facts about her life with our whole family. “Mom, did you know Harriet Tubman was a spy during the Civil War!” We have spent the week talking together about Tubman, slavery, and the history of racism in the South. As a white mother of two white daughters, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to educate my children about history and slavery and how each of these continue to shape the racism in our communities and in our lives.

It is imperative that I teach my children that their white skin is a privilege in a country where brown people are discriminated against in both conscious and unconscious ways. But, talking about privilege is hard, and not just for parents. For most people with privilege, talking about it makes us uncomfortable. Admitting that we have privilege seems unseemly at best, but worse than that, for many of us, it feels arrogant. The fact that people have difficulty even recognizing their own privilege is well documented and one of the reasons that privilege is so hard to address as a cultural phenomenon. For starters, how do I teach my children about social privilege without reinforcing social privilege? Well, its not easy, but it certainly won’t happen if we ignore it or pretend like we don’t have it.

One of the most pernicious forms of privilege is the social control of history and what gets remembered (and often honored or memorialized) and what doesn’t. The Equal Justice Initiative has just published an important report documenting their investigations into lynchings in twelve Southern states between Reconstruction and World War II. Their research documents almost 4000 people who were brutally tortured and murdered by their fellow citizens between 1877 and 1950.

read the rest of this new blog post at the Huffington Post – Forgetting Lynching at Our Peril

Previous Post

February 11, 2015

Bias against female professors is real

Next Post

February 20, 2015 Fighting Poverty and Politics in North Carolina

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category book review christian ethics christianity college/higher education economics ecumenism environment feminism feminism and feminist theology justice motherhood parenting politics poverty public policy reproductive justice sexuality social change solidarity Uncategorized

Select a Month September 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2017 January 2017 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was healed by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment?

Select your answer to see how you score.

A leper A woman with an issue of blood A centurion A blind man