Everything is on the table.
Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing political boundaries in such a way as to intentionally create minorities. In secular politics, this practice leads to the convoluted shape of many U.S. congressional districts. The majority party will intentionally draw boundaries to give the minimum number of seats to the opposing party. The following graphic illustrates how […]
A few years ago, I was enjoying a Quarter Pounder meal with an old friend at a McDonalds located across the street from a Mega-Church in North Dallas. This McDonalds had been remodeled to serve that social location. Its countertops, floors, and other surfaces were polished granite. It featured polished brass fixtures, fine tables and […]
While living on the U.S. Mexico border, I once asked an FBI investigator how difficult it was for his agency to discover evidence of the illicit drug trade. “In most cases not hard at all,” he said, “we just follow the money.” His point was that the use of money, not the amount of money, […]
Like the Big Sell, Bait and Switch seeks to elicit a transaction, but what is given is not what was originally offered. Instead of dressing up a structurally racist proposal in glowing promises, Bait and Switch offers one thing, and then replaces it with something harmful or inferior. While most think of tricks used to […]
Marketing is a form of propaganda that elicits a transaction by provoking a desire for products and services. With churches, marketing can help broaden engagement and connect the church to its mission field. Church marketing takes many forms. Before starting an appointment as a new-church pastor in 1999, I attended a seminar at Duke University […]
As we continue this survey of the tactics deployed by structural racism in resistance to institutional change, we now look at the practice of revisionism. Societies are built around common narratives. These narratives simplify, reduce, and communicate shared history in ways that provide the public with role models and an etiology for the structures of […]
In 2001, I conducted a study of the membership, worship, growth, and demographic statistics of over 300 churches within the Southwest Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. To enhance the effectiveness of this study, I combined internal data gathered annually from each church with demographic information in the context of each local church […]
Spotlighting is the practice of focusing attention on an individual, event, or action. Every organization will have a means to concentrate attention in this manner. Anti-racists must learn to develop their own means of spotlighting. Attention is influence. Influence is power. As a concentrator of attention, the spotlight can convey the currency of favor, privilege […]
If there is one thing we know about racism – it’s that racism is deeply personal. Racism arises from within human personalities even as it dehumanizes others. Those subjected to its trauma feel the sting of being constantly defamed, excluded, and oppressed. Those indoctrinated and brainwashed into racism either accept its false-narratives and participate in […]
The General Commission on Religion and Race has challenged United Methodists to spend the month of September “dismantling” racism. In response to this challenge, I will be sharing experiences from over 25 years of United Methodist Ministry that involve structural racism. I joined the UMC in 1990 as a student at the University of Texas, […]