I want to speak to these terms and conditions from an angle that I don't think we hear enough: the fact that even if it were true that "black-on-black" crime were special, it still wouldn't automatically mean that black people have to fix it before we can resist all of the other ways that we experience racial injustice in America.
Read MoreAs I've spoken up about racial injustice last year, I've gotten a lot of feedback to the tune of, "You talk about the problem a lot, but you haven't suggested any solutions."
Read MoreThe idea that until they are convinced that racism is a problem, then the problem of racism doesn't exist. Therefore, black people have to "prove" that racism is a real thing that is hurting people today. There are a couple of problems with those terms.
Read MoreWhenever we are trying to master a new skill, we risk making a fool of ourselves. That's a part of the journey.
Read MorePart 2 of the Terms and Conditions series.
The real question here is not why are so many black people so angry, because the answer to that question is pretty obvious. The real question here is why is it so hard for people to just honor our feelings?
Read MoreWe are not pleading with people to save us. We are inviting them to save themselves.
Read MoreHe accessed the best part of the American tradition: to speak truth to power, and to demand access to our inalieble rights as human beings.
Read MoreIn my experience, the longer I’ve known people, and the closer they are, the less they listen. Perhaps I should have bought them a beer.
Read MoreAmericans need to come to grips with the fact that this is the type of society we are living in: where people continue to suffer because of the color of their skin, where people are literally hunted by those who have been sworn to serve and protect, and where there are systems and policies in place to protect that social order and those who participate in it and profit from it.
Read More"...we may not be able to do much about the past, but perhaps we can choose a better future."
Read MoreIt's kind of messy, and I think that's a good thing.
Read MoreWe need a liturgy that calls us deeper into the world as God’s co-regents, commissioned with its care, and reminds us that a part of that vocation of human is justice.
Read MoreCover photo courtesy of Jonathan Timothy Stoner Photography
Read MoreAnd so A Subversive Liturgy is now because now is the time to speak candidly about the world that is. It's not time--if it ever were--to worry about offending those who have yet to see. It's time to prioritize people's lives over other people's feelings.
Read MoreWe don't gather there to escape, but to bear witness to the pain of our world in within earshot of the powerful.
Read MoreOn that first night, I looked up from the shield embedded in the floor, and giggled in disbelief as way more bodies emerged from the shadows than I expected.
Read MoreIn the wee hours of the morning on September 30, 2016, Reginald "J.R." Thomas was killed by the Pasadena Police Department. I live just a mile up the road from his apartment, and felt compelled to do something.
Read MoreFor nearly 3 months now, I've been dragging a solid granite boulder around Los Angeles on a wagon, to convey to all who see it the weight that people of color carry in America.
Read MoreIt seems like hundreds of reviews and think-pieces have been written, questioning whether the movie and its problematic creators are worth defending; but this is no such think-piece. This is article is about how black and white Christians can be gathered in the same room for worship, but sit a world apart from one another.
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