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How Can I Oppose White Supremacy?

Steven Harris

I think for many Christians it's hard to conceive of because I think we often in our imaginations think of white supremacy as white sheets and something of decades and years gone by. It's really a conversation about understanding how racism, white supremacy, et cetera, manifests itself in our current culture and society. It may be individualized or institutionalized, it is very complex. I'm often encouraging Christians who are sensitized to these things or who are becoming sensitized to these things that as they see and try to participate in the national conversation about race that the country perceives itself to be having, there are very particular things that they can do on the ground in their local environments and local spaces of influence.

I think oftentimes Christians are asking, "So, what mass movement do I need to join and what kind of broad and very public and national way can I affect change?" Those are good questions to ask but it also starts around your dinner table. In what ways are you seeking to push back against ethnocentrism and any kind of siloing of life being lived out that doesn't reflect the diversity that you profess to appreciate and support and encourage and celebrate. How you live daily, seeking to live diverse relational lives, seeking to push back against certainly any kind of racial bias wherever it may present itself in your daily live whether it's family, work, community. There's just very local ways in which you can affect change in this area.

I think individuals, and families, and communities having that perspective across the country, I think that's where you really will see a kind of noticeable difference so that when we have these flareup moments it's a matter of you addressing that flareup moment wherever it may be, distant as it may be, making sure that within your own space, where God has planted you, you are seeking to push back against darkness and hate and affirm what is good and what is right. I would say start locally. Think globally, nationally yes but start locally, particularly family, community, work, there's some good to be done there.

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