It filtered how I read articles about the disproportionate effects of Covid-19 on black communities. It became the lens through which I watched the DNC convention and the presidential debates. But after I saw it, I could not unsee it. As a phenomenologist, description is my primary method. Description is not liberation-by which I take her to mean: describing violence and its conditions is not liberative. They need to see this, I thought.Įarlier this year, I stumbled upon this 2019 tweet from black studies scholar Katherine McKittrick. I thought it was fundamentally unethical to teach a class on the movement for black lives without directly attending to the violence that conditioned its emergence. I thought it was absolutely important for nonblack students to see the effects of their complicity. Before 2020 though, I thought this day was necessary. If you are cringing right now, trust me: I am cringing as I write these words. While demanding that all of my nonblack students stay. I show these videos in class, I encourage all of my black students to leave I say prayers before, during, and after class on this day. And when I say I hate thisĭay, I mean it. State-sanctioned violence against black people. (For those who are familiar with black religious studies, I turn to William Jones and Kelly Brown Douglas to do this.)īut here is why I will not teach this class anymore: theĮntire first module leads up to one day in which I show videos of Their lethal violence is necessary for justifying the goodness of whiteness. This is why, for example, police are rarely indicted-let alone convicted-for killing black people. This religion is the geopolitical channel through which whiteness and white people justify themselves. The state and its actors adhere to the religion of whiteness. Whiteness and white people justify themselves through the violence they enact against black people. This module shows whiteness enacts antiblackness as a theodicy. The first module is organized around what I call the religion of whiteness. To explain why, perhaps it is best to describe how the class is structured. By all external measures, theīut after this year, I doubt I will teach it anymore. Successful, popular, relevant, and effective. I have taught this course for three years. Racism” and the social ontology of antiblackness. Conversely, many nonblack studentsīegin-but only begin-to detect the distinction between what we call “systemic Many students-quite a few of whom are black

The religious dimensions of antiblackness, particularly when it comes to Students are always engaged and, by the time we are done, they can articulate For the past three years, I have taught a course entitled “#BlackLivesMatterĪnd Religion.” The course is popular: I am a pretty good teacher, so the

Of the unliving