Dr. Derek Woodard-Lehman joins me today to help us make sense of a lot of the jargon that we tend to hear surrounding racial tension – words and phrases such as racist, racism, critical race theory, and racial formation.
Derek teaches at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, specializing in Christian Ethics. He is focused particularly on how Christian commitments have mobilized political resistance to racial injustice. We have been talking about situations on the podcast such as the American Civil Rights Movement, which is definitely one such instance of this having happened.
I hope that you will join us as we discuss important topics such as the recent rise in racial tension in 2020 that took place especially during the presidential election, why people seem to be bothered and pained by racism still being a problem being brought up in conversation, whether or not it is sufficient to identify as colorblind, how there is a difference between equality and fairness, what racial formation is and how we should best approach talking about racism, and so much more.
Derek gives us a great deal of information to process, encouraging us to think about how our society is structured. Join us next time as Derek and I continue this conversation, making sense of what we have learned so far by remembering the American story more completely, and be sure to invite your friends to listen in as well!
Show Notes:
[2:04] – Dr. Uffman opens the conversation by discussing the rise in racial tension that permeated much of 2020 and the 2020 presidential election.
[4:36] – Dr. Derek Woodard-Lehman offers possible explanations as to why it tends to be painful for people to talk about racial tensions, explaining that some people take the suggestion that racism is still a problem as a personal attack.
[7:08] – There is a possibility, as Dr. Uffman and Derek both posit, that some people are bothered by the topic of racism because they see it not only as a personal attack but also as an attack on their culture or region of the country.
[10:06] – Derek evaluates the appropriateness of the term colorblind and whether or not it's sufficient to identify as such.
[12:18] – We hear Derek share a story of being in Upstate New York this past summer, offering the topology of the Finger Lakes as a metaphor for racism in current times.
[14:40] – Dr. Uffman provides us with insight as to why identifying as colorblind is not yet sufficient.
[17:15] – Derek gives us a metaphor for the appropriateness and sufficiency of identifying as colorblind – a metaphor involving being a coach on a soccer team in which your child is a teammate.
[19:32] – We should treat everyone fairly but not blindly. We have to account for various demographics and differences.
[22:19] – Derek touches upon systemic racism, offering his own definition of what it means when it's said that a community or a nation is systemically racist.
[24:39] – Derek uses a metaphor of water allocation as a link to systemic racism.
[25:45] – In Protestant tradition, there is a conception of sins as total depravity, and Derek explains what this means to him.
[27:52] – Derek ties the concept of total depravity to structural racism.
[30:35] – Derek begins to propose an appropriate way to discuss racism in, for example, a classroom setting.
[33:23] – We learn how Derek's pastor talked about racial formation as Derek was growing up.
[36:38] – Dr. Uffman offers closing insight on the conversation, presenting the possibility that speaking of racism should not necessarily be assessing one individual's motives.
Links and Resources:
Connect with Dr. Craig Uffman:
The Way of Love