All language subtitles for White.Savior.Racism.In.The.American.Church.2019.1080p.WEBRip

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[APPLAUSE]

NARRATOR: November
2008-- this was

the night many people
in the United States

believed that our nation's
long history of racial division

had come to an end.

We were entering what
was optimistically

called post-racial America.

[CHEERING]

But in the decades since
the American people elected

the country's first
black president,

most of our nation's most
complex social issues

continue to revolve around race.

Why is this such a
stumbling block for us?

What will it take for us
to finally come together?

Can the issues of race
ever truly be overcome?

Or is it just human
nature to divide ourselves

along racial lines?

There are a lot of people who
believe that racism is there

it's always going to be there.

There's nothing you
could do about it.

You are the race you
are, blah, blah, blah.

And I say, no, this is
something we made up.

NARRATOR: Wait, what?

DEBRA L. LEIGH: This is
something we made up.

NARRATOR: So if we made
race up, what's the story?

A closer look at history
reveals that the story of race

is a story of labor.

Most of us were taught that
North America was initially

colonized by those
seeking religious freedom.

But in fact, most Europeans,
including the Pilgrims,

came for land and
economic opportunity.

At that time, there was no
concept of race as we know it.

No one identified by
the color of their skin,

but by their country of origin--

French, English, Dutch, Spanish.

By the early 17th century, the
colony's plantation economy

was booming.

This created a massive
need for cheap labor,

a need largely filled by
poor European immigrants.

Some land owners also
used enslaved people

from African nations.

But at the time, an
enslaved person's status

was not lifelong.

One could gain their freedom.

However, in 1676,
enslaved Africans

joined with European indentured
servants in a large rebellion

against the colonial
government in Virginia.

Alarmed by the natural
alliance between

the indentured and
enslaved, the ruling class

passed a series of laws that
segregated and permanently

enslaved those of
African descent,

while also giving their
European counterparts

new rights and status.

This divide and conquer
strategy paved the way

for what would
become an organized

system of racial chattel--

slavery.

And that was how you
kept a system in place

and why you had white people
who were poor not challenging

the system, because they
were sold a bill of goods

that somehow whiteness
was going to include them

in all the benefits of society.

NARRATOR: The first legal
use of the term "white"

appeared in 1691 in
a document created

by the colonial government of
Virginia, used intentionally

to differentiate people
by the color of their skin

rather than their
nation of origin.

In 1790, Thomas
Jefferson put forth

the first US national census,
which placed the population

into the categories
of free white males,

free white females, and
all other free persons.

Enslaved black people were
counted as well, but only

as 3/5 of a person.

Native Americans
weren't counted at all.

And at its first
seating, Congress

passed the
Naturalization Act, which

stated that only free whites
could become United States

citizens.

You have to be white.

That was the first
thing they said.

The very first thing.

You have to be white.

What humans have done is
ascribe meaning and difference

to skin colors and
then use those meanings

to create hierarchies.

And so when we say race
is socially constructed,

it's about the ways in which
humans have created hierarchies

related to racial difference.

NARRATOR: The construct
of race as a way

to assign value to
human beings became

woven into the structures
of this new nation,

with white people
valued above all others.

This ideology has been
upheld and reinforced

throughout our
country's history,

continually seeking
legitimization

through pseudoscience, civil
policy, and bad theology,

all examined through
a white lens.

White supremacy is the idea
that not only is it great

to be white, but it's
better than anybody else.

It's better than
any other color.

It is the best.

The way that white
folks do things,

the way that white folks think,
the way that white folks do

church, the way that white
folks write and talk about God

is better than anybody else.

As a person of
color, I notice this

when I walk into
denominational headquarters

or I walk into seminaries
and Christian colleges

and I look at all the important
people of that denomination,

and they're old white men.

And it's telling me that for
the history of this denomination

or for the history of
this Christian college

or university, they believe
that the only important people

to put up on the walls
are old white men.

That implicitly is affirming
or asserting white superiority.

NARRATOR: Whiteness became
a culture in and of itself

to be defended at all costs.

In the 19th century,
Chinese immigrants

became another target of
racially biased policies.

And because
there was this fear

that these Chinese laborers were
stealing "good white man jobs,"

as if those jobs
belonged to them,

this sentiment kind
of emerged and swelled

and ultimately led to
the Chinese Exclusionary

Act, the one and
only time we excluded

an entire group of
people from being

able to immigrate into
our country just based

on their ethnicity.

The Exclusionary Act
starts as a 10-year act,

but ultimately is
extended for 60 years.

NARRATOR: European immigrants,
such as the Irish, Italians,

and Germans, were also
initially viewed as a threat

and were often persecuted.

But they had one
distinct advantage--

they were light-skinned.

So over time, by
stripping away or hiding

their ethnic heritage,
eventually they

could assimilate
and become white.

The United States has been
referred to as the melting pot,

a metaphor for the fusion
of nationalities, cultures,

and ethnicities.

I've never really liked
the term "melting pot"

because it just means that
it's going to become one thing,

and so who decides
what the one thing is?

When you're the minority, that
means that everything of yours

is lost.

NARRATOR: It seems the metaphor
of the melting pot in truth

is a push for white
homogeny rather than

an embrace of diversity.

My own children are way
lighter-skinned than I am.

What's happened I think
even with my children

is that our celebrations
and our language

are slowly dissipating
and disappearing,

and I wonder what my
grandchildren will be like.

And I keep thinking they'll
be the next white generation.

NARRATOR: Today, the concept
of race and the structures

that hold up whiteness as the
norm have become so embedded

in our culture that
it's extraordinarily

difficult for most white people
to see the ways they influence

life in this country.

Because being white
is what's normal,

and it's normal for everybody.

It's just what it
means to be human.

We don't think of
it in racial terms.

And so my question's always
been, what is white culture?

Let's talk about that.

And that's hard to
define because really

what they might be alluding
to is white supremacy.

We don't see the advantages,
and we usually only recognize

it when we are with
persons of color

and they get treated
differently than us.

What we think as normal
is really an advantage.

NARRATOR: And the
advantages are often stark.

A 2016 national study
of household wealth

found that the median net
worth of white families

was eight times higher than
that of Hispanic families

and 10 times higher than
that of black families.

Another 2016 study revealed
that black, Hispanic, and Native

American children
are more than twice

as likely as white children to
be living in low income homes.

When we focus on
what makes us, quote,

"the same," it denies the fact
that our lives are not the same

and we live in different worlds
with different realities.

And so when we focus on the
things that make us the same,

we can't agree on humanity.

I think what we have
done with race is evil.

I mean, I'm of the belief
that difference is not evil.

NARRATOR: You and I did not
start this system of race

in white supremacy, but
if we do not actively

work at uncovering
our own inherent bias

and tearing down the
system, we are guilty still

of supporting it.

We need to recognize
that we do live

in a society that is
oppressive to people of color

and has had a long history
of white supremacy.

This has always
been who America

is, the dissolution of the
American exceptionalism

dream, where we're
realizing sort

of in our collective
consciousness

that we're no better than any
empire that's ever come before.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: We've been taught that
the United States was founded

on religious
liberty, which means

the history of the
American church

is tightly bound to the
history of American culture,

including colonialism,
racism, and white supremacy.

But how is it possible
that a religion founded

in the boundless love
and compassion of Christ

could ever align itself
with the ideologies that

have only brought harm?

It's all in the interpretation.

KRISTOFER DALE COFFMAN: There is
no concept of race in the Bible

because race is a thoroughly
modern construction.

There are, though,
a lot of things

that look like
race in the Bible.

NARRATOR: In the Old Testament,
a great deal of focus

is placed upon a concept
of people, translated

from the Hebrew word "am."

People, in this instance,
are God's chosen people,

the Israelites.

Those who were not
a part of Israel

are referred to as the Nations.

The Nations shared a common
ancestry with Israel,

but worshiped different gods.

It does not involve
facial features, skin tone,

things that are physical
characteristics.

NARRATOR: In the
New Testament, we

find a similar divide
between Jewish people

and non-Jewish people,
who are called Gentiles.

And so while
there are components

of national identity,
components of cultural identity,

they're all subsumed
under this question of,

what's your religious identity?

NARRATOR: The white
church in the US

would often interpret
these passages

about ancient religious
divides as parallels

to the racial divides
that were deemed

essential to the success
of the American experiment.

In American theology,
that divide then

gets applied white
versus other--

Israel equals white Americans,
the Nations equals the others.

NARRATOR: In the
Book of Joshua, we

see the Israelites invading
and eradicating many nations--

the Hittites, the Girgashites,
the Amorites, the Canaanites,

the Perizzites, the
Hivites, and the Jebusites--

all in order to claim the
land God had promised them.

In the age of colonization
and westward expansion,

North America became
the promised land.

The Pilgrims, the
Puritans, and the Pioneers

became God's chosen people, and
the nations they were subduing

were the many
Indigenous tribes--

the Seminoles, the Algonquin,
the Cherokee, the Choctaw,

the Iroquois, the Chickasaw,
and many, many more.

In the case of
slavery, we can trace

the progression of this
race-based theology

through colonial law.

In 1656, an enslaved
woman of African descent

named Elizabeth Key won her
and her infant son's freedom

in court partly on
the grounds that she

was a baptized Christian.

At that time, it was English
law that a baptized Christian

could not be enslaved.

Shortly after Key was
freed, a new colonial law

was passed that eliminated
this loophole clearly stating

that baptism did
not equate freedom

from the bonds of slavery.

If you already think that
slavery is an institution that

needs to continue for
your economic survival,

you go to Ephesians
and you say, Paul says,

slaves, obey your masters.

And the problem with this
is it's an incredibly

decontextualized reading.

It was the Christian
church that baptized Africans

as they left the shores
of Africa into slavery

and gave them Christian
names, or English names,

to replace their African names.

The ability to be
a Christian and still

be a slave owner, which I think
most of us today would say

is completely contrary
to the scripture

that we read, that
foundation was

built by white theologians
who, in a sense,

manipulated the text.

NARRATOR: Even as slave owners
used the Bible to justify

and sanctify the
ownership and oppression

of other human beings,
the slaved Africans

embraced biblical narratives
of justice and freedom,

finding hope in the
story of God's promise

to deliver an oppressed people.

And so we see
enslaved Africans

taking Old Testament
stories of Israelites

and using that to connect
with, to understand

that there were enslaved
people in the Bible and God

freed them.

We also see enslaved
people contesting

the ways in which masters
used the Bible to subject them

and saying, this is morally
wrong and morally corrupt.

NARRATOR: The Bible
has long helped

fuel black peoples' fight
against injustice in the United

States, from the
abolition of slavery

to securing the right to
vote to ending Jim Crow laws

and on into today.

When I think about the story
of Jesus and connecting it

to enslavement, to the
history of African-Americans,

it's always being on the side of
those who are most marginalized

and trying to transform society
to respond to those people.

So you look at
the Bible and you

read the first century church
and how the church was formed.

It was formed in
Jewish communities,

and Jews in the
first century were

an oppressed ethnic
and religious minority.

So the church, though, that
came to the United States came

from Europe, and it was a
church built on colonialism

and white supremacy
was interwoven.

And so what we received was a
European form of Christianity

that was very
different than what

you read about in the
pages of the Bible.

NARRATOR: Even as our
theological frameworks

have expanded to reflect the
experiences and theologies

of Christians around the world,
the bedrock of white supremacy

still shows through
our language.

When we talk about
Western theology,

we don't say this is
actually Swiss theology

or German theology or
specifically American theology.

We just say it's theology.

We centralize Western
theology by just calling

it theology and all the
others are on the periphery--

black theology, womanist
theology, liberation theology.

And we've created an otherness
because we're saying,

you're not the norm.

My entire experience
in seminary, we're

going to assimilate
you, we're going

to teach you good
theology, we're

going to teach you
the way that we do it,

and then we're going to
send you out there, right?

It's the way we
think about how

we're going to bring our
good American or Western

progressive theology to a world
that doesn't know any better.

To say, we're going
to go to Africa

and fix their theology for them.

We're going to go to Asia and
fix their theology for them.

I think that assumption of
the superiority of one culture

or one people group
over against the other

is much more common
than we realize.

If you're not
willing to submit

to the leadership
of a local leader,

an Indigenous leader,
a leader of color,

then you're not actually
coming in to do ministry.

You're actually going to be
manifesting colonization.

Just the way
that I saw missions

being worked in our communities
of color here in Chicago

as well, seeing how white
churches that had money

would come in that thought
that there wasn't Jesus here

until they came, that they were
bringing Jesus into our city.

And I'm like, Jesus is
already in this city.

Jesus is already working
through plenty of us

that are doing this work.

NARRATOR: The Eurocentric
roots of the American church

have created structures that
focus on the experiences

and perspectives of white
people, a focus that creates

all kinds of unseen biases.

I'll be honest, I know
I have plenty of bias.

I have plenty of things that
I assume about other people.

And so I think
it's not a question

of not having assumptions.

I think it's a question of,
what do you do with them,

and are you aware of them?

I think the most important
thing that we can do

is to get out of
the way in the sense

that there are people
in the United States

and people around the world
in immigrant communities,

in global Christianity, who
are reading the Bible very

differently than we are.

And by having folks speaking
for their own communities,

speaking of how they
interpret the scripture,

we now have a
counternarrative that

can be put in conversation
with our traditional narrative.

NARRATOR: The diversity of
voices around the world serve

to remind us that the word
of God carries a core message

of inclusion and that God cannot
be limited to one cultural

expression.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There is a popular story of
race in the United States

that goes something like this.

SEAN HANNITY: The
United States of America

is the land of opportunity,
a melting pot, where

people from all over the
world come to live in freedom,

to escape repression, to
share in the American dream.

NARRATOR: This is
a familiar story,

one we've all heard many times.

It is the story of
American exceptionalism.

This story is about
a noble war to end

slavery in the United
States and extending

the right to vote to formerly
enslaved peoples, of banding

together to win a world war
twice, a story of civil rights

earned, equality before the law
and equality at the ballot box.

This is a story of progress.

In this story, there
is no organized effort

to harm black people
by white people.

BILL O'REILLY: The truth is,
there is no organized effort

to harm black people
by white people.

That doesn't exist here.

NARRATOR: See?

There is, however,
a counternarrative

of our nation's history.

There are these
huge gaping holes

in what we call US
history because it's not

told from the perspective
of people of color

because it's not written
or institutionally affirmed

by people of color.

NARRATOR: Filling in the gaping
holes of US history paints

a very different
picture of what it means

to celebrate the United States.

This story includes
the beginning

of the trans-Atlantic slave
trade and the growth of slavery

across the English colonies.

This story recognizes
the resistance

to evil among those
who were enslaved

and the commitment to
slavery among white people.

This story is characterized
by the violence

against black and brown
bodies, and born out

of white supremest
theology, racist laws,

and cultural
oppression, one that

celebrates black achievement
in the face of such oppression

and confronts violence always.

White Americans
have never needed

to tell this other story.

The narrative of
white supremacy makes

it possible to see only
the story of progress.

I think white folks
don't need to imagine it,

or thought they didn't.

If you're not thinking
about black folks 24/7--

and by black, I mean
people of color--

you can spare yourself.

You can read books.

You can watch TV shows.

But at the end of the day,
you can go back to being white

and be spared.

ANGELA KHABEB: When I
served in rural Ohio,

we were the only black family
in the town that we lived in.

And it was about as
challenging as you can imagine.

I just had another baby.

That was our youngest.

So I'm at home and
getting ready to nurse,

and Benhi, my husband,
goes for a walk,

takes the two other kids
in the double stroller.

And as he's going for a
walk, he comes right back.

I mean, just a matter of two
minutes, he's right back home.

And I said, what happened?

And he said, this
parishioner, he said,

he just tried to kill us.

I said, what are
you talking about?

I'm thinking he's exaggerating.

He said, he tried
to run us over.

He drove up onto the
curb and he said--

it was right after President
Obama was re-elected--

he said, "that fucking
nigger president

is trying to ruin
my country, and I'm

going to run you fucking
niggers out of this town,"

and proceeded to
drive up onto the curb

to kill my husband and
our two small children.

The American mistake
is believing that we

are exceptional and different.

This is a country that's built
on the genocide of Indigenous

people, that an entire
economy is built

on the black backs of people
who've never been given

reparations, and has
continued to reinforce

those racist structures and
systems for its own benefit.

And that fault line runs through
the entire American experience.

This has always
been who America is.

NARRATOR: It's easy to think
that the story of violence

against black bodies belongs
to the country's past,

but white supremacy
is still on the march.

Enabled by the lack
of understanding

of how society reinforces
racial prejudice across legal,

educational, professional,
and social metrics,

racist systems are
failing black Americans.

One example is home ownership--

[DOORBELL RINGS]

--The centerpiece of
the American dream.

What we understand and what
historically we can see with

African-Americans is that the
way that you become a citizen

is through ownership.

Because what happens
when you own a home?

You have say not only
of your own domicile,

but then you get to be a
part of a community that

can take political action.

NARRATOR: The benefits of
home ownership in the US

are enormous, from tax
breaks and credit benefits

to building equity and
passing it to our descendants.

These benefits have been
systematically denied

to a majority of
black Americans.

In the 1930s, as
part of the New Deal,

loan programs were created to
help Americans purchase homes.

In order to determine
who received a loan,

the government created
color-coded maps,

where green neighborhoods
indicated low risk and red

neighborhoods were high risk.

This practice, now
known as redlining,

heavily favored
white communities.

Homeownership for
African-Americans has been

racially contested because of
the ways in which the federal

government colluded with
mortgage companies to red line

and to blockbust
African-American neighborhoods.

Neighborhoods that were
predominately African-American

were automatically
deemed high risk,

which meant they were
less likely to get

loans to purchase, right?

Right after World War II,
we had this huge endowment

or investment in the suburbs
that came from the Federal

Housing Authority.

Of the $120 billion that was
invested in suburban housing,

less than 2% of that went
to non-white families.

ANNOUNCER (ON VIDEO): This
is Levittown, Pennsylvania,

a new suburban community
of 60,000 people midway

between Philadelphia
and Trenton, New Jersey.

With its giant shopping
center, winding

lanes named for
flowers and trees,

it is fairly typical of
communities all over America,

where families are
pursuing the American dream

to give their children
a better chance in life.

Why did you select
Levittown to live?

We were looking for
a place to buy a home.

We looked at Levittown, and
we liked the homes here.

We liked the advantages
that Levittown

seemed to offer in
comparison to other cities.

And we understood that it
was going to be all white,

and we were very happy
to buy a home here.

NARRATOR: In the 19th
century, the US government

claimed that people of
African descent were property.

In the 20th century,
the same government

worked to ensure black
Americans couldn't own property.

Predatory and biased
lending practices

have been exposed over and
over in the United States,

revealing a continuing
systemic effort

to withhold economic
benefits from black families

that are readily available
to white families.

So what is a white
homeowner to do?

Give up their home?

We're not asking
you to sell your home.

We're not asking
you to even move.

But we're asking you to
think about the structures

that we all implicitly buy
into that create and replicate

inequality and how we can
think about dismantling those.

The answer to the
problem is eventually

when you find that
there are no more areas

to which a white person can
move without having a Negro

family in, well, that
would be the best end

that there could be to
segregation and is probably

something that will
happen in the future,

perhaps in the near future.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MAN: [INAUDIBLE]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: When
Christopher Columbus

arrived on the shores
of a new world in 1492,

he brought with him a belief
in his God-given right

to take over any lands he
found in the name of Spain

and Christianity.

This right was given to Columbus
and all European explorers

by various papal
edicts that would

come to be known as the
Doctrine of Discovery.

It's hard to
overstate the impact

the Doctrine of
Discovery has had

on the world in
the last 500 years.

So the Doctrine of
Discovery is basically

an agreement between
the European nations

in the 15th century.

Whoever discovers it first
and lays claim to the land,

they own that.

If Portugal goes out and
discovers some land in Western

Africa, and 15
years later, France

goes out and discovers
the same land,

who does this land belong to?

NARRATOR: With the
Doctrine of Discovery,

such questions are
easily dispensed of.

It essentially starts out as
this peace agreement between

European nations, but
really what it becomes is

the theological authority to
enslave non-Christian people

and also just to strip their
land of all the resources.

Any movable or immovable good
now belongs to the crown.

NARRATOR: The earliest
edict of this kind

was the Dum Diversas issued by
Pope Nicholas V in 1452, which

gave colonizing Europeans
permission directly from God

to, quote, "capture,
vanquish, and subdue

the enemies of Christ, to put
them into perpetual slavery

and to take all their
possessions and property."

That papal bull
is kind of the birth

of white Christian
relationship to Native people,

to Indigenous people.

One of the things it did was
it allowed people, white people

or non-Native people,
non-Indigenous people,

to put themselves on a higher
level of their relationship

with God.

NARRATOR: 40 years and
numerous additional edicts

reinforcing these beliefs would
pass before Columbus set foot

in the new world.

By the time Columbus arrives
in the Western hemisphere

in 1492, the thought that
these people he's encountering

are made in the image
of God doesn't even

enter into his
consciousness at that point

because for 40 years
now, the church

and these European
nations have been

operating under
the understanding

that these are not people.

It's like any other resource.

You can do what
you will with it.

And we, as Natives,
kind of point

to this as the foundation for
all of the atrocities that

takes place with so-called
discovery and imperialism

because we were
not seen as human.

We were seen as barbarians.

We were resources to either
be enslaved and utilized

or removed entirely.

NARRATOR: The
Doctrine of Discovery

was both a political and
religious document sanctioning

centuries of slavery, genocide,
and other atrocities worldwide.

Even now, its tenets remain
embedded in modern society.

The very fact that I
have a piece of paper

that says that I own this
house and the lot that it's on,

my right to own that is rooted
in the Doctrine of Discovery.

NARRATOR: In the 19th century,
a series of Supreme Court cases

updated the Doctrine
of Discovery

from the age of exploration to
the time of westward expansion.

In the 1823 case of
"Johnson versus M'Intosh,"

the court ruled unanimously
that Natives did not

own the land that
they occupied, as it

belonged to the European
nation that discovered it.

That ruling provided
the groundwork

for westward colonial expansion
via the land rush, the pioneer

spirit, and the belief
in Manifest Destiny--

Manifest Destiny being the
belief that white settlers had

a right imbued by God to claim
all the lands of the continent,

from the Atlantic
to the Pacific.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[GRUNTS]

This land is mine!

Mine by destiny!

The value for Native people
has always been our land.

That's what they wanted.

They always wanted our land.

NARRATOR: The hunger for
land required policies

for the removal or eradication
of Native communities.

These included forced
relocation to reservations,

forced conversion
to Christianity,

outlying native spiritual
practice, and child removal

to boarding schools.

Well, I guess I can start
out with my own story.

I was sent to a boarding
school when I was a child,

and it was called St. Mary
School for Indian Girls,

and it was run by the church.

And when we got to the school,
we were isolated or separated

from our families.

We went to school, of course.

We took our classes.

But before we did
that, we worked.

We were the maintenance
crew for the school.

So we took care of the grounds,
we took care of the buildings.

We did all of the work.

That is the Doctrine of
Discovery on the church side

because they took
our family away,

they took our identity away.

We really became non-children.

NARRATOR: The
boarding school system

aspired to nothing less
than the total annihilation

of Native identity.

As Brigadier General
Richard Henry

Pratt, founder of Carlisle
Indian Industrial School,

wrote, "Kill the
Indian, save the man."

Quite literally,
boarding schools

are where Indians went to die.

You don't know who you are
anymore because your family

traditions are gone, your
cultural traditions are gone,

your pride is gone.

You aren't Indian or
Native American anymore

and you're not white.

The voice that screams from
the shadows of these boarding

schools is that these
were horrible places.

These were places of
trauma, abuse, of death.

NARRATOR: The goal of
eradicating Native identity

has allowed white people to
ignore the very existence

of modern Native people.

People don't bring
Native Americans

into their collective
imagination

and collective consciousness
into the 20th century

and certainly not
into the 21st century.

People say, well,
you say you're Indian,

but you don't look Indian.

NARRATOR: What does it
mean to look Indian?

For many, it means a
romanticized pop culture

cliche.

A noble chief on
horseback wearing

a headdress or an Indian maiden
at the sight of a babbling

brook doing her daily tasks.

NARRATOR: The failure to imagine
contemporary Native people has

left American culture
dangerously uninformed.

Now listen up, these
are our seats now,

and there ain't a damn
thing you can do about it.

So why don't you and Super Injun
there find yourself someplace

else to have a powwow, OK?

I would say it probably
happens twice a year where

someone will say,
I seriously thought

that the Native people
had all died out,

that there were no
Native people anymore.

NARRATOR: The erasure of
Native identity in America

and in Christianity
has left all of us

looking at an incomplete
image of the world.

When we ignore cultures,
erase authentic identities,

we ignore part of
God's creation.

What is missing when you
completely other Native people

and you shut them out and you
don't allow the wisdoms from

their ceremonial practices
and their spirituality,

you don't even give it audience,
you don't even give it a good

face-to-face, you're
missing so much.

You're missing rootedness.

You're missing connection.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ALL: This is what a
feminist looks like!

This is what a
feminist looks like!

[CHEERING]

NARRATOR: By some
accounts, the Women's March

in January of 2017 was
the biggest single day

protest in the history
of the United States.

In response to the election
of President Donald Trump,

an estimated 4.5 million
people marched in the streets

across the nation.

But not everyone felt welcome
at the marches that day.

Many women of color,
in particular,

felt excluded from
the organizing efforts

and unwelcome at the event.

The critique was
of the Women's March

was that it only represented
a narrow portion of women.

NARRATOR: The event's original
name, the Million Women March,

was the same as the
historic March in 1997

organized by black women to
protest the feminist movement's

history of ignoring
women of color.

There was this focus on
what the general understanding

of women's rights and
equality would be.

And for some, that's what
white women's interests are.

NARRATOR: Because some
considered the Women's March

to be primarily an expression
of white interests,

it places the event in a
long history of tension

between the efforts
for women's equality

and advancing rights
for people of color,

a tension perhaps
best illustrated

in the person of
Susan B. Anthony.

Anthony was a Quaker born
in 1820 in Massachusetts.

She spent her life tirelessly
fighting for women's rights,

particularly the right to vote.

A founding member of the
American Equal Rights

Association and the National
Women's Suffrage Association,

Susan B. Anthony is perhaps
the most well-known figure

from the women's
suffrage movement.

She is a towering
figure in the fight

for women's equality
in the United States,

more specifically
equality for white women.

Susan B. Anthony's legacy
in the feminist movement

stands and should,
but it should not

be divorced from
her legacy on race.

Anthony was close friends with
abolitionist Frederick Douglass

and active in the
anti-slavery movement.

But upon the passage of
the 14th Amendment, which

gave voting rights to black
men and not white women,

she responded thus.

WOMAN: "We say, if you will not
give the whole loaf of suffrage

to the entire people, give it
to the most intelligent first.

If intelligence,
justice, and morality

are to have precedence
in the government,

let the question of the
woman be brought up first,

and that of the Negro, last."

NARRATOR: Words like
these established

the women's equality
movement in the United States

as one primarily
motivated by white women

seeking power comparable to
white men, interests that

alienated women of color
from the feminist movement

for over a century.

I never thought of
myself as a feminist

because the way it was
portrayed in the world

is it felt like a
very white movement.

You know, burn the bra.

No one's going to
burn their bra.

Their bra costs
10.99 or whatever.

So it was always
this kind of, where

do I belong in this movement?

Am I a part of this
movement at all?

NARRATOR: Excluded from the
women's movement due to racism,

women of color also
faced oppression from men

in the civil rights movement.

Consider the story
of Ella Baker.

I am here to represent
the struggle that

has gone on for 300 or
more years, a struggle

to be recognized as citizens
in a country in which we were

born.

I would call her a leader.

She probably
wouldn't call herself

that because she
was a person who

liked to be behind the scenes.

NARRATOR: Throughout
her work, Baker

argued for truly shared power
among a network of leaders

rather than relying on
charismatic individuals.

This opinion was not popular
with many of the prominent men

in the movement.

And what she noticed among
the black ministers there

was their extreme
sexism, and she was not

afraid to call that out.

And so Ella Baker had these
difficult relationships,

particularly with
folks like Dr. King

and with black ministers
because they did not

want to see black
women in positions

of leadership and power
because of the gender

dynamics at the time.

NARRATOR: Baker is remembered
as a crucial organizer and voice

for black women in
the civil rights

movement, someone who stood
up to sexism when she saw it.

And she was not alone.

Ella Baker's life becomes kind
of a mirror through which we

could see the lives
of other women.

The fact that we have
many black women working

behind the scenes doing all
types of work for the movement,

and yet we know very
little about them.

And Ella Baker really caused
us to redefine and rethink

leadership and the democratic
potential of civil rights.

NARRATOR: There is a word
for the combined experience

of oppression that
women of color

have faced in the United States.

It's a word that has become
very popular in recent years,

but is often misunderstood.

Intersectionality.

Intersectionality.

Intersectionality.

NARRATOR: The word
"intersectionality"

was coined by civil rights
activist and professor Kimberlé

Crenshaw in 1989, calling
attention to the reality that

an individual can experience
compounding oppression from

multiple directions
for different aspects

of their identity.

Usually we think of race,
class, gender, sexuality, et

cetera.

What parts of a
person's identity kind

of come together to create their
specific form of oppression?

NARRATOR: Attention
to intersecting

identities began to
emerge in the 1970s

with groups like the
Combahee River Collective,

which formed to address
the needs of not

only black feminists,
but also black lesbians.

One member of the
Combahee River Collective,

poet and activist
Audre Lorde, succinctly

captured the importance of
intersectional feminism.

WOMAN: "I simply do not believe
that one aspect of myself

can possibly profit from the
oppression of any other part

of my identity.

Within the lesbian
community, I am black,

and within the black
community, I am a lesbian.

I cannot afford the luxury of
fighting one form of oppression

only."

NARRATOR: The influence
of women like Ella Baker,

the Combahee River Collective,
and Kimberlé Crenshaw is

evident in the more recent
creation of a powerful

contemporary
political movement--

Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter was created
by Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi,

and Patrisse Cullors
after George Zimmerman

was acquitted for the murder
of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

In the past 10 years,
Black Lives Matter

has grown into an international
organization comprised

of dozens of chapters
fighting on behalf

of racial profiling, police
abuse, transgender rights,

and many other injustices.

I really like the
organizational structure

of Black Lives Matter in the
sense that it's decentralized,

that the way they think about
leadership is different.

Instead of having one
particular charismatic leader,

they don't have that.

They call their movement
a "leaderful" movement.

I think the fact that not
only is it three women,

but three queer women
starting Black Lives Matter,

I think that's really
important for thinking

about the ways in
which we can be

more intersectional in
our approach to justice.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: In the late
1700s, Richard Allen,

a formerly enslaved devout
Methodist and lay minister,

accepted an invitation to
preach at St. George's Church

in Philadelphia.

Allen's preaching
was very popular,

causing a rapid growth
of black membership.

Soon the church had outgrown
its seating capacity.

But when Allen requested
the church create

a second congregation
for black people,

the white elders refused.

Instead, they built a balcony
to segregate black members

from white members.

In 1792, a fellow lay
minister, Absalom Jones,

challenged this division
by sitting downstairs.

He was then physically removed
during the opening prayer.

In response, Richard Allen led
the entire black membership out

of the building.

Later, Allen said
of the incident,

"We all went out of
the church in a body,

and they were no
longer plagued by us."

Allen and Jones
each went on to lead

their own black congregations.

Reverend Allen would
eventually form

a new denomination, the African
Methodist Episcopal Church,

the first independent
denomination founded

by black people in the US.

Even after the Civil War
and the end of slavery,

the divide between the white
church and the black church

remained wide and
kept getting wider.

In the early 20th century,
facing rampant inequality,

voter suppression,
persecution, and violence,

droves of black
families moved out

of the rural southern
United States

into urban areas of the
Northeast, Midwest, and West

in what is called
the Great Migration.

Millions of black
people left and sometimes

had to escape from
the South because

of the horrid conditions
there, and they

came north for better
opportunity, for better jobs,

for better education.

It changed the
landscape of America.

NARRATOR: In 1890, around
90% of black people in the US

lived in southern states.

Over the next 80
years, nearly 50%

would leave the
South in an exodus

of over 6 million people.

The growth of black populations
in historically white

communities led to
another kind of migration.

What we know that happened
during the Great Migration is

this mass group of
African-Americans moving

into these urban places
creates housing problems.

And so instead of many
cities firmly addressing

these housing problems,
what typically happens

is overcrowding.

In conjunction
with overcrowding,

what happens is that white folks
also are leaving neighborhoods.

And that's when you see the
growth of the megachurches

in the suburbs because a lot of
the churches in the cities were

being abandoned by
white Protestants,

moved to the suburbs,
and created kind of these

communities in the suburbs
that are white middle-,

upper-middle class communities,
as well as white middle-,

upper-middle class churches.

And many of the urban
centers became places

where ethnic minority
churches were started.

NARRATOR: Despite the progress
of the civil rights movement,

school desegregation, and
policies like Affirmative

Action, Christian
communities have

remained highly segregated.

As of 2014, nearly
80% of Christians

attend churches where they are
among the overwhelming racial

majority.

Unlike most large
US institutions,

the church is not required
by law to integrate.

Congregations are made of
individuals who intentionally

choose to come together, which
means a majority of Christians

are choosing segregation,
making church possibly the most

telling measure of where race
relations in the United States

actually stands.

Even well-meaning
white congregations

who might want to reflect
the full diversity of the US

population struggle
with the reality

that their theology
and practices are

immersed in white cultural norms
that alienate people of color.

Our liturgy is
constructed a certain way

that feeds and fills
white Christians.

The way that we choreograph our
movement around the sanctuary

is also very white
and very European.

The way that we talk,
how we keep things

under 12 minutes
in our sermons, how

we sing three verses of a
hymn, how the hymns always

have to be played from the
organ or from the piano,

those are constructs
that make perfect sense

in our mind as being
worshipful, but at the same time

are excluding.

[CONGREGATION SINGING]

JUAN PABLO HERRERA: Why are
we singing songs by Germans?

Why don't they include any
songs from authors and composers

that are not white?

Who decides that this is the
way that we should worship

and this is the way that
we should do things?

I remember sitting there
when the service was over

and thinking, hmm, I came in,
I sat down, I was prayed over,

I was sang to, I was preached
at, and I was dismissed.

For me, there was no
spiritual component

to the worship service, and I
thought it was very sterile.

NARRATOR: Black churches, on
the other hand, often focused

on Christ as a source of
hope and rescue in the face

of ongoing
oppression, a theology

shaped by the history
and experience

of black lives in America.

When I have to be able to
rise above the pain of the cuts

that I receive on a
daily basis, when I just

need to let go and
let God, connecting

with people on a much deeper
level because of the pain

that we have
experienced together,

it's different than what I
could imagine a life where

I have everything that I need.

I'm not suffering at all.

It's just different.

It's a different place.

NARRATOR: Can black
and white Christianity

find common ground?

Can the chasm between us created
by racism and white supremacy

be overcome?

There is not enough
diversity in our congregations

in our denomination because
we refuse to make space

for that diversity.

And so when they talk
about racial reconciliation,

they don't really want their
congregation body to change.

They don't really want
50/50 white and people

of color, maybe one
or two, because I

think people are comfortable
where they're at.

When congregations
become multiracial,

you will often see a group of
white people leave the church.

And it's either
a fear of change,

a fear of doing
things differently,

a fear of losing power.

NARRATOR: Richard
Allen and Absalom Jones

left St. George's Church
because it was not,

in fact, their church,
but a white church they

were being allowed to attend.

The persistent
segregation of churches

today raises the question,
how much has really changed?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Baptize me, John.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I think it's very
hard for us to grasp

the depths of the
racism inherent inside

of our own church.

10 years ago when
I was here, if you

were to walk into the
sanctuary, front and center

at the top of the chancel
would be this gorgeous painting

of a Norwegian Jesus, and it was
beautiful and it was inspiring.

But any time anyone who
didn't look Norwegian

looked at that painting,
they never came back,

and we all scratched
our heads wondering why.

I see a white Jesus,
that's telling me

that whiteness is good,
whiteness is holiness,

and that even the creator,
the savior of the world

who came down to love us,
in physical form is white.

Everything about kind of
the history of Christianity

from Europe to the US has
been built around whiteness.

It's just in the DNA
of the US church.

The church feels very white.

The phrase "white
Christianity," the phrase,

it's an idolatry.

Think about it.

White Christianity
is an idolatry.

And what do idols
do in the Bible?

Idols separate us from God.

NARRATOR: How can a church
immersed in white supremacy

even begin to reconcile its
ongoing legacy of exclusion,

oppression, and violence?

Is it even possible?

Reconciliation, take things
that are out of balance

and bring them
back into balance.

But the assumption is that there
was a balance to begin with.

Reconciliation implies a
prior healthy relationship,

which we don't have
in the United States.

So you can really only
speak of reconciliation

in theological terms.

There is a white Protestant
obsession with reconciliation.

Stop.

Stop.

It's the scariest
thing I've ever seen.

When do we get to
the reconciliation?

When do I get to feel good?

I don't know.

I haven't felt
good for 400 years

historically in this country.

I don't know when you get
to feel good about this.

NARRATOR: Some
Christians have looked

to foster unity by embracing
the ideology of colorblindness,

that we should look
past skin color and view

everyone as the same.

But this is problematic at best.

Colorblindness at a sort
of very simplistic level

seems like what we
should all embrace.

The reality is if I
don't see someone's color

who is not white, then
I don't see the fact

that they experience racism.

So I don't see color.

That's not reconciliation,
that's denial.

But to say we don't see
skin color automatically

makes me shake because I'm
like, well, am I invisible?

It basically means,
I see you as white.

I see you like me.

I've made you kind
of into my own image.

And it strips away all
difference of culture.

And so people take
up their experience

and then just lay
it over top of me.

Whiteness is going
to create whiteness.

And white supremacy, once
it's embedded in the culture

and in the culture
of a church, it

doesn't give you the
tools to dismantle itself.

NARRATOR: Try as
the church might,

we cannot whitewash this issue.

White supremacy must
be addressed directly,

with all the hard
truths exposed.

Acknowledging our
history and breaking down

the systems that
have upheld whiteness

as the norm will be messy.

It will be controversial.

And above all, it
will be painful.

When we talk about
racial injustice,

when we talk about
brokenness in our society,

when we talk about churches that
are hurting, maybe some of us

need to realize it's a
funeral service and not

a hospital visit.

We can't go into the
room and say, hey,

we're going to
just sing "Kumbaya"

and join hands and
say, I love you,

man, and things
are going to be OK.

We've got to deal with the
dead body that is in the room.

Because to be blunt, most of the
dead bodies in American history

are black and brown
and red bodies.

And if we ignore the
dead bodies and we

don't lament over
the dead bodies,

we're just kind of playing
the games of faith here.

We're just pretending
that things

are OK when they're really not.

NARRATOR: In the
Book of Lamentations,

the Israelites, after
turning away from God,

were exiled into Babylon.

They had lost everything.

Yet, God does not offer
them hope of deliverance

from their plight.

God doesn't call them
to reclaim their strength

and to go back and make
Jerusalem great again.

That's not the call.

The call is, enter
into a space of lament.

ALL (SINGING): Make
a joyful noise unto

the Lord all ye lands.

Come before His presence,
come before His presence

with singing.

NARRATOR: But in the case of
modern white Christianity,

there seems to be an
aversion to lamentation.

The church in America is lousy
at engaging suffering and pain

and lament.

And most churches, when they get
to a lament psalm, a song that

talks about suffering
or lament hymn

in their liturgical reading or
in their liturgical worship,

they skip it.

They drop it.

We're talking about a pretty
profound act of disobedience

to God to skip over the
parts of the scriptures that

make us uncomfortable.

Reality is, there
is no resurrection

without crucifixion,
and we're going

to have to go to
those painful places.

We're going to
have to acknowledge

the things within us that have
to die so that Christ can rise

and live in and through us.

In exposing issues,
it gets really bad

because you're
exposing this wound,

and the first thing
is recognizing

that we have a wound.

And I think we're in that
kind of messiness right now

of saying, we have a problem.

We have to let go of
what we think is right.

We have to let go of
what we believe we know.

We have to let go
of the structures

that we thought were the
right way to worship God.

NARRATOR: God calls us to stand
together as a diverse body,

to humbly and courageously
name and renounce the root

causes that divide
us, confronting

white supremacy at every turn.

This is the lifelong commitment
of racial justice and equity

in our churches, our
communities, and the world.

This stuff is not
happening in a vacuum.

The last four or
five years is not

some anomaly in human history.

And there have been people
who have been walking

this path for a long time,
and you need to find them,

you need to listen to them, and
you need to ask, what can I do?

And sometimes what can
I do is just shut up.

[MUSIC PLAYING]