The Reverend Doctor LeAnn Snow Flesher was our professor for a Berkeley School of Theology class this summer called “White Supremacy and the Bible.” My final paper was “Ethnocentrism and Racism.” The paper starts:
“Are ethnocentrism and racism different or the same, and what difference does this make? I engage these terms regarding American social structures, biology, and power / domination, as well as considering to what extent ethnocentrism and racism are mutually exclusive or overlapping. I will focus on two of our class books that examine these and related concepts, the Rev. Canon Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas’s Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, and Dr. David M. Goldenberg’s The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This paper starts by reviewing definitions of ethnocentrism and racism from a variety of sources, followed by a section on what Douglas and Goldenberg write and seem to mean by those concepts, concluding with a section that considers how these meanings make a difference.”
You can read the whole paper here. Below is the “Social /Cultural Group Evaluation – Ethnocentrism <-> Racism Scale” graphic, discussed on pages 19-20 of the paper.
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Thanks, Katy. Kelly Brown Douglas did a clergy retreat for CT clergy 3 years ago. She is terrific; allowing us to confront our own racism and that of our parishes.
Pam Strobel+
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I heard Canon Douglas give a sermon at National Cathedral years ago. She is a very impressive speaker and a remarkable and inspiring leader!
Hi Katy, What an interesting paper. Lots of food for thought. Certainly areas of discussion for people to agree or disagree. Thanks for sharing.