Yes, I'm a minister. No, I don't have a church.

This post was first published on ecclesio.com on June 18, 2015.  This blog post is not about convincing you racism is real. This blog post is not about how talking about race is not the same as racism. This blog post is not ranking people of color groups from least to most oppressed. This blog post is not going to explain the basics (You can check out the first chapter of Race in a Post-Obama Era ) . Nobody wants to be called a racist.  We in the U.S. tend to think the only racists are the white supremacists on terrorist watch lists. The rest of us are… what? Just innocent, yet well-meaning bystanders to the real problem? I was the Online Conversation Curator for the NEXT Church 2015 national gathering. At the opening, planners discussed the NEXT Church’s commitment to talking about racism. I was struck by the invitational tone with which the NEXT Church strategy team stated its opposition to racism and its commitment to talk more often about race. Anyone who can rea...

I spend a lot of time thinking about race in the U.S., but for me, race is all bound up in religion. The whiteness of my family is shaped by American Jewish and Unitarian and not-religiously-affiliated experiences. The Asian Americanness of my family is shaped by Buddhism, the not-religiously-affiliated, and Christianity in its mainline/Pentecostal/Roman Catholic/evangelical experiences. The multiraciality meshes with our multifaith nature. I remember an early conversation with my parents when they sat us down and explained we would not be sending out Christmas letters to friends and family, because not everyone celebrates Christmas. Instead, we sent out Thanksgiving letters (sorry, Native American friends).  I could decide that all religions are basically the same, because they point to the same things, but I don’t actually believe that. Different religions are quite distinct. There are some qualities shared across religions, and many beliefs in different religions that have no...