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So, this book came out awhile back. New York Times bestseller, apparently. Library Journal, whoever they are, had good things to say:
> “An inspiring compendium of original prayers and essays written by progressive faith leaders. Each entry is a meditative gift offering a gateway for one to sit with the challenges of living in the world today...The words here allow spiritual devotions to be approached with a diverse lens while remaining God-centered...A book that allows people to speak in their own words while reminding those in positions of privilege that their faith in action is a catalyst for change. This is a welcome addition for those who enjoy contemplative prayer collections that intersect with important topics such as social justice.”
Reviews look fairly positive, for the sort of people interested in such things. I'm too lazy to set up archive links, but at the moment, most of these sites are showing 4.5 to 5 stars on the reviews. Middle-class women are generally big into pop spirituality, so it's a reliable product. Roll the presses.
From somewhere in the middle of the book:
>Prayer Of A Weary Black Woman
>
>by Chanaqua Walker-Barnes, Ph.D.
>
>Dear God,
>
>Please help me to hate White people. Or at least to want to hate them. At least, I want to stop caring about them, individually and collectively. I want to stop caring about their misguided, racist souls, to stop believing that they can be better, that they can stop being racist.
>
>I am not talking about the White antiracist allies who have taken up this struggle against racism with their whole lives--the ones who stand vigil for weeks outside jails where black women are killed; who show up in Charlottesville and Ferguson and Baltimore and Pasadena to take a public stand against racism and police brutality; who are so committed to fighting White supremacy that their own lives bear the wounds of its scars.
>
>No, those aren't the people I want to hate. I'm not even talking about the ardent racists, either, the strident segregationists who mow down nonviolent antiracist protesters, who open fire on black churchgoers, or who plot acts of racial terrorism hoping to start a race war. Those people are already in hell. There's no need to waste hatred on them. Perhaps, however, you could make sure that they don't take the rest of us with them, that their attempts at harming others are thwarted, and that they don't gain access to positions of power.
>
>My prayer is that you would help me to hate the other White people--you know, the nice ones. The Fox News-loving, Trump-supporting voters who "don't see color" but who make thinly veiled racist comments about "those people", The people who are happy to have me over for dinner but alert the neighborhood watch anytime an unrecognized person of color passes their house. The people who welcome Black people in their churches and small groups but brand us as heretics if we suggest that Christianity is concerned with the poor and the oppressed. The people who politely tell us that we can leave when we call out the racial microaggressions we experience in their ministries.
>
>But since I don't have many relationships with people like that, perhaps they are not a good use of hatred either. Lord, grant me, then, the permission and desire to hate the White people who claim the progressive label but who are really wolves in sheep's clothing. Those who've learned enough history, read enough books, seem knowledgeable even though that knowledge remains far from their hearts. Those whose unexpected White supremacy bubbles up at times I'm not expecting it, when I have my guard down and my heart open. Lord, if you can't make me hate them, at least spare me from their perennial gaslighting, whitemansplaining, and White woman tears.
>
>Lord, if it be your will, harden my heart. Stop me from striving to see the best in people. Stop me from being hopeful that White people can do and be better. Let me imagine them instead as white-hooded robes standing in front of burning crosses. Let me see them as hopelessly unrepentant, reprobate bigots who have blasphemed the holy spirit and who need to be handed over to the evil one. Let me be like Jonah, unwilling for my enemies to change, or like Lot, able to walk away from them and their sinfulness without trying to call them to repentance. Let me stop seeing them as members of the same body.
>
>Free me from this burden of calling them to confession and repentance. Grant me a get out of judgement free card if I make White people the exception to your commandment to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
>
>But I will trust in you, my Lord. You have kept my love and my hope steadfast even when they have trampled on it. You have rescued me from the monster of racism when it sought to devour me. You have lifted up my head when it was low and healed my heart when it was wounded.
>
>You have not given me up to slavery or to Jim Crow or to the systems of structural oppression, but you have called me to be an agent in your ministry of justice and reconciliation.
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>And you have not allowed me to languish alone, but you have lighted the path towards beloved community with the loving witness of the ancestors, elders, and sojourners who have come before me and who stand with me today.
>
>Thus, in the spirits of Fannie and Ida and Pauli and Ella and Septima and Coretta, I pray and I press on, in love.
>
>Amen.
>
>Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes is a clinical psychologist, womanist theologian, and ecumenical minister whose work focuses upon healing the legacies of racial and gender oppression. The author of I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation and Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden Of Strength, she currently serves as Associate Professor of Practical Theology at Mercer University. She was ordained by an independent fellowship that holds incarnational theology, community engagement, social justice, and prophetic witness as its core values.
From our rules:
>Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
My point in transcribing and posting this passage is not "can you believe what Those People did this week". My point is that nothing in this passage is unbelievable, or particularly surprising. This is a handy snapshot of bog-standard Social Justice Progressivism, nothing more or less.
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