Jessica Vasquez Torres began by saying she wanted to help us answer the question, “How can I be a good ally for racial justice?”  Adopting that role may well lead to our liberation as well.  The opening exercise was to create a “Map of Affiliations,” placing those most important to us nearest to the center.  As she expected, none of the “white” women in the circle included anything about race.  Studies show that most “non-white” persons make that a central identity piece.

Culture can be described under three categories:  Language, Life ways,  and World View.  “Language,” which is constantly forming itself, includes intonation and meaning as well as vocabulary and fluency.  “Life ways,” which are also constantly shifting, include what foods we eat and when, clothing, our neighborhoods, how we do church.  It is not “grocery store culture,” so that we steal the culture of our meal choice:  tonight Mexican, tomorrow Chinese, next week Italian.  “World View” includes one’s own self-identification.  Puerto Ricans have an “always enough” view even though dirt poor, while others may see their world through a lens of “never enough.”  One world view may be “We are the saviors of the world”; another may assume that all information is held by the community, not the individual.

We do not all have the same ears as we listen.  If a given group self-defines as Queer, the racial and cultural distinctions do not disappear.  It is helpful to try to trace how your people came to be who you are.  By the third generation, most of that memory is lost.  Read How the Irish Became White as a model of how race is created.  The Irish became fully American only after John F. Kennedy Jr. became President.  Identities can be created: one family on coming to America took a new name and changed their identification from Polish Jews to German Lutherans.  Teddy Roosevelt said any white person can become American in two generations.

Cheri Moraga in This Bridge Called My Back uses “Amerika” to designate a culture constructed to subjugate.

The U.S. Census has 37 categories of race, but all are subsumed under just five:

Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, American Indian, and Asian American.

When the data is sorted without the term “Hispanic,” the “Caucasian” category grows substantially.  Eighty-eight per cent of Puerto Ricans identify themselves as Caucasian.

It is impossible to eliminate the concept of race entirely.  “White” people think nothing has power over them.  Melissa Etheridge’s song “Living the American Dream” talks about how she “worked really hard” and “got it all” as if we all begin with a level playing field.  Jan Griesinger said it is helpful to ask someone: “Who owned the land before your family owned it?”  Historic land races divided up stolen land.

Sustainability can come through analytical work.  Don’t be diverted by the classic “I have a good friend who is … .”  Jessica and her partner have a pillow that says, “We have good friends who are white heterosexuals.”  Eily Marlow recommended that we create support groups for white women in which we can share stories of how we are using our privilege in wrong ways.  Jessica said a new “Euro-American Society” has recently been formed in the ELCA to “tell the church how it is being racist.”  She was told, “The group exists for us so we can change the church.”

Additional resources recommended include:  the LGBT magazine Color Lines;  James Lowen’s Lies My Teachers Taught Me; and Roedigger’s Working Toward Whiteness.