Ep. 34: When Racism and Compassion Collide (pt. 2) w/ Deconstructing Black

Show Notes

Episode Summary

Continuing our conversation from last week (click here to listen to the first part) with C Davis, we hear more about her faith journey, as well as chat about why she is able to have so much compassion despite everything she’s experienced and seen and able to see beyond rhetoric to the truth.

Bio

C Davis is a woman who is making waves in the deconstruction community on Instagram through Deconstructing Black and Deconstructing Colors. Not only is her voice so invaluable in all these conversations about Christianity, evangelicalism, race, politics, and purity culture, she brings so much love, compassion, and kindness to them.

Follow her on Instagram: @DeconstructingBlack and @DeconstructingColors; and consider supporting her work: https://cash.app/$DeconstructingBlk

Quotables

• “We could stay the way we are in America another 20, 30, 40, 50 years, but I don’t want that. And that’s what drives me.” (tweet this)

• “My aim for togetherness starts with everyone meeting each other directly. Me talking to you, you talking to me, turning off the TVs and putting down our phones.” (tweet this)

• “Racism isn’t going to change overnight. You’re going to have to have the same patience we have had. Don’t give up, though. We didn’t give up on y’all.” (tweet this)

• “You know what you’re not going to do when you first meet a person of color? You’re not going to immediately start talking about race.” (tweet this)

• “Compassion comes up in me because I see how foreign the experience of tension is to white people.” (tweet this)

• “We need to drop all the political stuff just long enough to get to know each other and be in this country as a nation and not just as factions.” (tweet this)

• “To hear somebody say, ‘It is as serious as you’ve been saying,’ is really encouraging because ultimately that’s what we were asking for.” (tweet this)

• “When we say ‘equality,’ what privileged folks hear is ‘superiority’ because in their mind they equate fairness, justice, and equality with being superior.” (tweet this)

Timestamps and References

• [03:30]—How C responds to people who either don’t believe that racism in the U.S. is systemic or want her to prove to them that it is

• [04:59]—Charles Colcock Jones (Wikipedia entry)

• [08:15]—The Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States (1842)

• [11:54]—How C keeps from hating those who seem to hate her

• [20:38]—What C says to privileged folks who are trying to make changes and root out racism but get discouraged when they don’t get it right every time right from the beginning

• [29:45]—C’s thoughts on why white folks tend to respond so poorly to tension

• [36:00]—How C practices finding common ground with people who are given privileges that she’s often denied

• [39:33]—Discussing voter suppression, the creation of Christian schools, and segregation

• [40:32]—NYT article on the 1985 voter fraud case and Jeff Sessions: “The Voter Fraud Case Jeff Sessions Lost and Can’t Escape”; WaPo article: “The facts about the voter fraud case that sank Jeff Sessions’s bid for a judgeship”

• [43:50]—What gives C hope for the future of race relations and politics in the U.S.

• [48:38]—Fun Rapid Fire questions

Please follow us on social media (use the buttons below) and help us get the word out! (Also, please don’t hesitate to use any of these channels or email to contact us with any questions, concerns, or feedback.)

Support Us on Patreon

And get access to every episode 5 days early! In addition, your financial support gives us the time we need to be able to create and produce amazing content, including Patreon-exclusive content. Please consider joining our team of patrons by clicking the button below. Thank you!

If you prefer just giving with no strings attached, you can also just buy us a coffee! Any amount helps us cover the costs of creating this show.

Credits

This episode was produced by The Sophia Society. Music is by Faith in Foxholes, and sound engineering is by Joshua Mudge (currently accepting new clients: josh.mudge09@gmail.com).