Chris Lahr

My first Blog Entry

This is my first blog entry ever. See me blog.

Chris Lahr's Blog

small things with great love / Jan 22, 10:52 AM

No one does anything great! I am convinced that we do not need to do anything great, but simply do small things with great love. A radical following of Jesus is about the day-to-day grind of life, it is doing small things with great love. Then at some point in your life, you take a step back and you become amazed at all of the “greatness” that has occurred.

Comment [1]

Critical Pedagogy and Race / Jan 20, 02:15 AM

New Years Revolution…

Each year I take some time during the last week of the year to think up a “new year’s revolution.” It’s a set of goals to help me live life to its fullest, and to make I stay balanced in my relationships at home, work, friendships, church, neighborhood, etc. It seems since I’ve moved to Philly I have been reading a lot less than I had in a while (no kidding I was in seminary and college). Anyway, part of my new years revolution 08 is t read (at least) 25 books (including the Bible) (could be a challenge with three kids). The following are some notes and quotes from the book that I thought were particularly interesting…

Book One: Critical Pedagogy and Race
Edited By: Zeus Leonardo

What a way to start off the year. One of my all time favorite books is “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire. Last month I had the opportunity to walk several Theology of Poverty students through the book. It was amazing to go back through the key themes of the book and see how they apply to life as I now know it.

First of all, this book is not a light read. It is a scholarly book and I feel like at times I was lost in some of the wording and concepts. That said, I was able to sift through the jargon and gain some good insights. Over the past couple of years I have re-looked at the issue of race and racism, and this book goes deep into that subject.

Introduction: Racism and New Racism
White supremacy in America (the racial structure of America) has changed. A new racism has emerged that is more sophisticated and subtle than Jim Crow racism and yet is as effective as the old in maintaining the status quo. (P18)

Yes things have changed since the 60s, but racism is still alive and well in good ol’ USA. The elements of the new racism are… 1) it has an increasingly covert nature (in racial discourse and practices); 2) the avoidance of racial terminology and the ever-growing claim by whites that they experience ‘reverse racism’; 3) the elaboration of a racial agenda over political matters that eschews direct racial references; 4) the invisibility of most mechanisms to reproduce racial inequality; and finally, 5) the re-articulation of some racial practices characteristic of the Jim Crow period of race relations. (p18).

Chpt 1: The Color of Supremacy: Beyond the discourse of ‘white priviledge’
Racial privilege is the notion that white subjects accrue advantages by virtue of being constructed as whites. (p37).

Racial advantages in our nation go back to its beginning>> slavery, patriarchy, etc. Today whites don’t participate in slavery but they surely recreate white supremacy on a daily basis. They may not have supported S. African apartheid, but many whites refuse interracial marriage, housing integration and fully desegregated schools (p41).

This is a general alibi to create the racist as always other, the self-being an exception. Since very few whites exist who actually believe they are racist, then basically no one is racist and racism disappears more quickly that we can describe it. We live in a condition where racism thrives absent of racists (p44).

P46-48 a very enlightening list of ways white supremacy exists.

Chpt 2 Whiteness and Critical Pedagogy
This chapter brings out several themes throughout pedagogy of the oppressed and applies them to the racial situation in the United States.

Freire believed that it is possible for the oppressor to be converted. The author suggests several steps that white folks can take in the process of new birth.

1) White folks need to accept and admit that they are the oppressor>> that is, they are racist as a consequence of their structural and epistemological standing as a member of the white race (p61).
2) Reborn whites must become comfortable with this fact, much like the alcoholic who has developed a new sense of self around his admittance of being an alcoholic. The white person needs to unlearn a lifetime of problematic white subjectivity, ideology, and behavior. They must learn to see the world through new eyes and reveal the complexities and problematics of whiteness (p.62)
3) Beyond cognitive changes, reborn whites must situate ourselves in opposition to whiteness and risk our standing in the white community by becoming traitors to the normative functioning of our group (p.62).
4) Whites must be able to engage in strategic and solidarity discussions with people of color about the dismantling of white supremacy in order to avoid acting without their trust (p.63).
5) For whites to be transformed, we need to be engaged in a curriculum that de-centers whiteness as a favored epistemological vantage point (p.64).

Those in the oppressor position can change if they are willing to enter into a cross-racial dialogue as a humble learner courageously seeking to be humanized (p.65).

Chpt 3 Maintaining Social Justice Hopes within Academic Realities
Racial diversity means racial groups are merely present on the campus. On the other hand, real diversity, or I guess you could call it pluralism, would mean the different racial groups are not only present on the college campus, but are considered equals. This means they affirm each other’s human dignity and are ready to benefit from each other’s experience. And also it means they acknowledge each other’s contributions to society in general and to the common welfare of students and faculty on campus (p.86).

>>> we must move beyond racial diversity, in terms of simple having underrepresented staff and students on campus>> must go beyond diversity, toward racial pluralism. That means we must include these underrepresented groups in the college and also integrate their culture and experiences into the mission, curriculum, and pedagogy of the college (p.86).

Chpt 10 An Apartheid of Knowledge in Academia
Meritocracy allows people with a Eurocentric epistemology to believe that all people—no matter what race, class, gender, or sexual orientation—get what they deserve based solely on their individual efforts. Those who believe that our society, deserve based solely on their individual efforts. Those who believe that our society is truly a meritocratic one finds it difficult to believe that men gain advantage from women’s subordination or that whites have any advantage over people of color (p189).

White Supremacy: a political, economic, and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and on-white subordination are daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social setting (p.189).