Race

Rebecca Randall 3-07-2024

Volunteers from Calvary Reformed Church plant trees in their Cleveland neighborhood in 2019. Courtesy Calvary Reformed Church.

In a Cleveland neighborhood, a set of 25 young trees line the space between the sidewalk and the road. The trees were planted by volunteers from Calvary Reformed Church in 2019, an example of the types of actions that churches can take to address rising heat in their neighborhoods. Now, thanks to 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act, nearly $1 billion will fund similar projects across the nation.

People hold a sign during a demonstration against police violence and racial inequality in Chicago. July 24, 2020. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

What remains for all who’ve hit rock bottom is the long road to healing.

Allie Blosser 7-17-2020

I spent a year collecting ethnographic data in a predominantly white, conservative, Christian K-12 school. It troubled me that my tax dollars were being used to support the kinds of teaching and discriminatory admissions practices I witnessed.

Aaron E. Sanchez 6-24-2020

'We Serve White's Only No Spanish or Mexicans' sign outside a Texas restaurant. 1949. Credit: Wikimedia Commons 

This history runs through, into, and over my interracial children.

New York Police Department (NYPD) officers are pictured as protesters rally against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Times Square in the Manhattan borough of New York City. June 1, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Segar

That’s how fragile black life in the U.S. is. Our risk of being killed by police hinges on little things like the weather. 

Voters line up to cast their ballots outside of a polling location after Democratic and Republican primaries were delayed due to the coronavirus disease restrictions in Atlanta, Georgia. June 9, 2020. REUTERS/Dustin Chambers

These types of failures in the voting process may become additional tools in the arsenal of voter suppression, and the Black community must be prepared.

Michael Rothbaum 6-04-2020

Terrence Floyd visits the site near where his brother George was taken in Minneapolis police custody and later killed, in Minneapolis, Minn. June 1, 2020. REUTERS/Eric Miller/File Photo

In Exodus, the Egyptians shed innocent blood. Then God made this blood visible for all to see. 

Meredith Brasher 6-03-2020

A protester holds a sign near near the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct in Seattle, Wash. June 2, 2020. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

Looting is not the story. Murder is the story.

Photo by Jake Gard on Unsplash

COVID-19 reveals the artificiality of the urban/rural divide. 

Fragment of the face of a terracotta statue of Apollo Roman beginning of 3rd century BCE. Original image courtesy of Mary Harrsch. Edited by Candace Sanders. 

Burton and Dreher share similar aesthetic views about Christianity and the past. 

Amber Neal 5-13-2020

A man stands next to the memorial for Ahmaud Arbery, at the place where he was shot and killed in Feb. after being chased by two white men in Brunswick, Ga. May 8, 2020. REUTERS/Dustin Chambers

When will the lives of black people ever matter to America? Black people are tired.

Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot and killed in Brunswick, Ga., on Feb. 23, 2020, is seen in an undated photo provided by Marcus Arbery via REUTERS.

What value is there in circulating a depiction of innocent black death?

Brittini L. Palmer 5-06-2020

Jan. 13, 2019: Protesters gather in Hurt Park, Atlanta to protest and make demands in response to Brian Kemp being elected as the Governor of Georgia. Credit: Shutterstock

Governor Kemp's COVID-19 response, and the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, replay a longer history. 

Joey Chin 2-13-2020

When we started questing the bible, everything falls apart. What can we even trust or believe in? But I think the second fear is that it will drive a wedge between us and this community that is really important to us especially as Asian Americans because we’re a super community oriented culture. So I think that a lot of Asian American Christians are afraid to do that and I think for legitimate reasons. Those fears are not unwarranted.

Gareth Higgins 1-17-2020

There’s no such thing as an objective critic, or objective criteria by which any of us could judge a movie. The question is whether the critic, or the audience, is able to be honest about the criteria they are using. So I’ll say something I’ve said before: By my sights, the purpose of art is to help us live better, and the best cinema occurs when technical and aesthetic craftsmanship operating at their highest frequencies, and a humane concern for the common good, kiss each other.

Aaron E. Sanchez 12-19-2019

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg holds a town hall event in Creston, Iowa, Nov. 25, 2019. REUTERS/Scott Morgan/File Photo

Meritocracy fails to give communities of color the comforts and privileges of mediocrity.

Montgomery, Alabama/USA - June 14, 2018: National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Via Shutterstock 

It's impossible to use the language of lynching without calling to mind horrors like those visited upon George Taylor.

Matt Dodrill 10-18-2019

Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger leaves the 204th District Court in Dallas, Texas. Oct. 2, 2019. Tom Fox/Pool via REUTERS

A racial leveraging of forgiveness followed Amber Guyger’s trial in Dallas.

Kyrie Mason 9-26-2019

A great migration north. By Jacob Lawrence.

Much like Isaac from the book of Genesis, I am the son of a family seemingly destined to transience.

the Web Editors 8-23-2019

Attack and take of the Crête-à-Pierrot (4 - march 24, 1802). Original illustration by Auguste Raffet, engraving by Hébert.

On this day in 1791, an uprising of enslaved Africans on the island of Saint Domingue (modern Haiti) began.