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White Supremacy Erases Its Violence: The Predictable Blaming of Antifa

By Stephen Young

…ions they facilitated or incited—they blame the people who oppose them. My students are always stunned after they read Dr. Carol Anderson’s “Reconstructing Reconstruction” chapter in her indispensable 2016 book White Rage. They learn, often for the first time, that after the American Civil War and then toward the end of Reconstruction, there was a reign of murderous terror by White Supremacists (e.g., the KKK) against Black people who wanted to vo…

Alabama’s Yoga Ban Is Part of the Christian Right’s War on Pluralism

By Manisha Sunil

…g through Alabama’s legislature, I find it tremendously disappointing that students are even being denied instruction on the roots of yoga, which differs significantly from a religious endorsement. As critics have pointed out, the denial of this educational opportunity is in many ways a vestige of colonialism. But these points, at least, can be debated in good faith. Here on RD, for instance, Dr. Candy Gunther Brown wrote on whether Hinduism is in…

Decolonizing Jewish Studies Part II: A Response to the Backlash

By Gilah Kletenik and Rafael Rachel Neis

…dies minimally entails making it more accessible to non-white scholars and students and to the study of non-white lifeworlds. This isn’t just about “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) or questioning the ways that “merit” obscures structural inequities. Confronting racism encompasses probing how our conceptual paradigms reproduce racializations and racisms. DEI often perpetuates extractive models of labor in which people of color are just adde…

What My Christian High School Taught Me About Being a Black Girl

By Carlyn Ferrari

…ailed me. And schools like Bartram Trail High School in Florida fail their students when they doctor yearbook photos for the sake of “modesty.” My Christian education groomed me for my harassment. Most of my teachers were white men, and they weren’t just teachers. They were spiritual leaders. My classes began with a brief devotion and prayer, and the curriculum was filled with religion classes that taught the “right” way to interpret the Bible. In…

We Can’t Spiritualize Our Way out of American Polarization

By Chrissy Stroop

…and dialogue. But how much does it really prove to get privileged college students who can afford to study in private institutions but tend to have opposing political leanings to find common ground and engage in respectful dialogue? To bring Worthen’s concern with polarization down to earth, multiple academic disciplines and approaches have established a causal link between wealth inequality and economic decline in a society on the one hand, and…

Where Did White Evangelicalism’s Hatred of Critical Race Theory Really Begin?

By Andre E. Johnson

Critical Race Theory (CRT), the academic study in which students and scholars examine how race and racism function, is under attack by conservatives who claim that CRT promotes a distorted view of American history through a racial and ideological lens. According to the Washington Post, conservative activists and politicians use the term as a “catchall phrase for nearly any examination of systemic racism in the present.” It’s often “portrayed as t…

‘Dog-Cat’ Incumbent Reelected to Texas Board of Education

By Lauri Lebo

…te board may ignore some of the anti-evolution parts, like those requiring students to “analyze and evaluate the scientific explanations concerning the complexity of the cell.” On the surface, the wording sounds reasonable, but “complexity of the cell” is coded language that, in practice, is a personal invitation for pro-intelligent design educational materials. Also, in 2012, the board will begin reviewing new social studies textbooks and materia…

Synod or Sin Oddly: Vatican Encourages Catholics to ‘Walk Together’ as Long as the Hierarchy Leads the Way and Decides the Route

By Mary E. Hunt

…Social Concerns where I was greeted by a recording. Twice I left my name, number, and email address but received no response. Finally, in reply to my later email, I was directed to three local parishes in my zip code to find out about attending their listening sessions. A priest from one of the three I contacted replied courteously but had to report that the parish has nothing in place yet. He assured me that they would do whatever the diocese in…

The Right Wing Slant on Religious Freedom is a Slippery Slope

By Frederick Clarkson

…tomized by an op-ed in The Tennessean by three gutsy Methodist high school students, Emma Anne Stephens, Tate Keuler, and Natalia Del Pino. They write about adoption discrimination at the Holston United Methodist Home for Children. The students invoked historical Methodist views on religious freedom and antisemitism against the Methodist Home’s action. Quoting from the Methodist “Book of Discipline” they write: “We condemn all overt and covert for…

Christian Schools Invoke Religious Liberty to Reopen Despite Warnings of Health Experts

By Chrissy Stroop

…raw attention to the ways that conservative parochial schools indoctrinate students in bigotry and “alternative facts.” Indeed, one nine-year-old student at Circle Christian School in the affluent Orlando suburb of Winter Park, Florida, tested positive for COVID-19 last week. As a result, the school has shifted to online instruction only until August 24, which is more than two weeks from when the boy tested positive. But while this move may seem r…