{"id":39372,"date":"2024-11-07T22:39:59","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T06:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=39372"},"modified":"2024-11-07T22:40:54","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T06:40:54","slug":"the-all-embracing-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-all-embracing-struggle\/","title":{"rendered":"The All Embracing Struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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  1. Summary of my most deeply held convictions before the readings and why I have these beliefs.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    My first encounter with my whiteness occurred as a young teen when I was visiting my dad\u2019s extended family in Michigan for a family reunion.\u00a0 I clearly remember sitting in a Pizza Hut as I heard my grandpa and great aunts and uncles talk about my dad\u2019s cousin.\u00a0 She had brought a gentleman with her to the reunion who was (whisper) Black!\u00a0 She was not present in this conversation; it was all said behind her back.\u00a0 I honestly don\u2019t remember what was said about this relationship or him, but I do remember a deep, sickening feeling in my gut that something was wrong. I was profoundly uncomfortable and remember walking outside to escape the conversation.\u00a0 I grew up in North Dakota with 99% white people around me and one native American.\u00a0 So I don\u2019t know where the conviction came to walk out except that the Spirit nudged my heart and gut long before I had head knowledge of Colonialism and Slavery and its impact.<\/p>\n

    I also remember my mom sitting me down in High School and inviting my sister and me to watch Roots.\u00a0 I am SO grateful for my mom.\u00a0 This series, at an impressionable age, changed my worldview forever.\u00a0 I studied Psychology and Sociology in college in South Dakota and took a J-term class in Chicago called \u201cIntro to the City.\u201d\u00a0 We examined the impact of public housing, visited these neighborhoods, and heard speakers of businesses bring hope back to these neighborhoods.\u00a0 I spent the night in a shelter, and another exercise was voted \u201cmom\u201d in a group of 5 college students. We had to shop and eat on a minimum wage paycheck for a family of 5 for 3 days.\u00a0 All of this had a huge impact, but living it, even for a few days, was eye-opening.<\/p>\n

    I did not learn most of what I believe about colonialism from school.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t even know what we had done to the Native Americans in North Dakota and what reservations were until I was long gone from that very state. My education was tragic in this way.\u00a0 But as my story began, I had a gut feeling that I was experiencing the world from a tiny worldview, and the television series ROOTs was my foundation.\u00a0 When I think of Colonialism, I think of conquering, destroying, and forced assimilation.\u00a0 My deeply held conviction on Slavery is that it is evil and has created generational sin and toxicity for white people and generational trauma for those of African descent.\u00a0 And that reparations are only a beginning to trying to right a ship gone so far off course; there has to be a deep repentance and a conscious effort to own what our ancestors did and be people of action and advocacy.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. How have the readings affirmed your beliefs and were challenged, and why?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Now that I have written my thoughts and beliefs, all I had to do was open Nigel Biggar\u2019s book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning<\/em>, and I immediately felt affirmation by the chapters’ names.\u00a0 I used many of the exact words to describe my deeply held beliefs, words such as \u201cConquest,\u201d assimilation, and destruction, which can be tied to \u201cslavery, superiority, genocide, exploitation, and pervasive violence.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

      Immigration is a \u201chot topic,\u201d especially in the USA\u2019s last election (2 days ago at the writing of this blog).\u00a0Biggar starts chapter 4 with the following quote: \u201cInnocent motives and good intentions can still be vitiated by acts of injustice. While there is nothing wrong per se with emigrating in pursuit of a better life, that pursuit involves trampling over the rights of others. It would become wrong.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 I can appreciate what the author is saying by giving the benefit of the doubt by stating innocent motives and good intentions, and perhaps this is true in some cases. Still, the lack of transparency and owning of when even these innocent and good intentions have been twisted and manipulated for evil has now negated the innocence and good.\u00a0 We all must take stock and own when our intentions meant for good were used for evil.\u00a0 Ego seems to take hold over and over again like a cancer, and cultures of privilege turn a blind eye over and over again. The cycle of oppression, violence, and \u201cconquest\u201d occurs over and over again.\u00a0 When we have a president-elect who can stand and publicly say words like \u201cthose rapists and criminals\u201d to describe an entire group of people, we have chosen to turn a blind eye because we know our intentions are good, and he didn\u2019t mean \u201call\u201d of them.\u00a0 This is a big, enormous, gigantic, wicked problem, and perhaps the only solution we have is to set Big, Hairy, Audacious goals to defeat it, even when those around us don\u2019t want to address our conquering the conquered mentality.\u00a0 It is just backward.<\/p>\n

      I didn\u2019t find anything that challenged my beliefs in either book on an inspectional level, except maybe something I read in the \u201cLegacies and Conclusions\u201d [3]<\/a>.\u00a0 My challenged belief is that I thought we had come a long way since the 1950s and the civil rights era. In many ways, we have had an African American president, but this chapter begins with a quote by President Harry Truman that shakes this belief. \u201cI have had hardly a day in office that has not been dominated by this all-embracing struggle–this conflict between those who love freedom and those who would lead the world back into slavery and darkness.\u201d\u00a0 This quote hits me hard in my gut today.\u00a0 This struggle for freedom and the right of all US citizens to pursue life, liberty, and happiness and that all men (and women) are created equal.\u00a0 This quote may become my prayer for our new president.\u00a0 I pray there is not a day he has in office that isn\u2019t dominated by the all-embracing struggle between those who love freedom and be convicted by actions and policies he and his office may pass that will lead the world back into slavery and darkness.\u00a0 I believe Love wins.\u00a0 End of the story, but we cannot end the conversation there.\u00a0 WE MUST SPEAK UP, SHOW UP, AND WALK ALONG THOSE WITH WHOM POLICY AND RHETORIC DESTROY AND SEND INTO DARKNESS. BE THE LIGHT!<\/p>\n

      [1]<\/a> Biggar, Nigel. Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning <\/em>(London, HarperCollins, 2023), table of contents.<\/p>\n

      [2]<\/a> Biggar, Nigel, (pg 98).<\/p>\n

      [3]<\/a> Black, Jeremy. Slavery: A New Global History (<\/em>London, Constable & Robinson, 2011), pg 246.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Summary of my most deeply held convictions before the readings and why I have these beliefs. My first encounter with my whiteness occurred as a young teen when I was visiting my dad\u2019s extended family in Michigan for a family reunion.\u00a0 I clearly remember sitting in a Pizza Hut as I heard my grandpa and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2489,3120,2012],"class_list":["post-39372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp02","tag-biggar","tag-black","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39372"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39375,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39372\/revisions\/39375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}