Can racism be silenced? Join us as Reverend Nikia Smith Robert, PhD and Reverend Doctor Willie D Francois tackle this pressing question by exploring the concept of "white noise" from Francois’s book, "Silencing White Noise: Six Practices to Overcome Our Inaction on Race." Together, we dissect how racist speech, silence, and inaction serve to maintain white supremacy, and how even those affected by racism can unknowingly perpetuate it. From the specific vulnerabilities of Black women to the intersectionality of various forms of oppression, this episode lays bare the urgent need for comprehensive anti-racism practices.
Hear Dr. Francois and Dr. Robert as they scrutinize the theological underpinnings of punishment and incarceration, revealing how entrenched societal narratives frame Black bodies as inherently dangerous. With insights from Christian doctrines on sin and punishment, parallels are drawn between the concept of hell and the punitive nature of prisons. By weaving in perspectives from Chinese Buddhism and real-life stories, such as that of Kelly Williams Bolar, we illuminate the moral and ethical implications of a racially biased carceral system.
Finally, this episode explore actionable steps toward creating a true abolitionist sanctuary, grounded in the rhythms of reparative intercession. Dr. Francois discusses moving beyond white guilt to racial grief, emphasizing the transformative power of Jesus' ministry in fostering compassion and justice. Discover how these spiritual principles can guide us towards a society where sanctuaries of refuge and solidarity replace systems of policing and punishment. Dr. Francois challenges us to stay connected as we strive for communal flourishing and a just society, following the teachings and hope of resurrection.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One, two, three, four .
Welcome to the AbolitionistSanctuary podcast, where we
consider critical conversationsand call to actions at the
intersections of faith andabolition.
I am your host, reverend DrNakia Smith-Robert, the founder
(00:21):
and executive director ofAbolitionist Sanctuary, a
nonprofit organization leading afaith-based abolitionist
movement.
I'm here with Dr Willie DFrancois, the author of
(00:45):
Silencing White Noise SixPractices to Overcome Our
Inaction on Race.
I am excited to have thisconversation.
I wanted to jump in with yourfabulous book Groundbreaking in
fact and was wondering, as weare talking about white noise.
(01:06):
I really like this metaphorthat you're using because, as
you know, I'm a mother of threeand I remember we used white
noise a lot for our first childwhen we were new, into the
parent game and it was faithful.
We would have a iPhone app, wewould play our white noise and
(01:28):
it would be the only way thatour new infant would go to sleep
.
And so I can relate as youshared about white noise being a
father and it's used for yourson and as you describe it for
our listeners, who may have notyet had the opportunity to read
(01:48):
the book, but certainly aretyping in the URL and Googling
and searching for this book topurchase right now, right right,
right, right, right right now.
Do you have a definition thatyou want to share with us?
What exactly is white noise?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
definition that you want to share with us.
What exactly is white noise?
Yeah, white noise is the racistspeech, silence, inaction and
misrepresentations that protectwhiteness, that protect white
supremacy.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, and causes a slumber for everyone else right.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It causes what I borrowed from Walter Fluker.
It causes this sociopoliticalnarcolepsy.
We live in this violent slumberthat has mass casualties all
around us.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah, I like that.
Sociopolitical narcolepsy,that's really good.
Fluker is one of the mostprofound scholars of this age.
How is it possible?
I was reading your introduction.
How is it possible?
(03:03):
Right, the ways in which we,even in our embodiment of
Blackness, can be complicit andcooperate in this white noise.
So how is it possible to quotecommunicate white noise in Black
voice and Black sacred space?
End quote.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah, no, and this is a very important question, and
I always make sure that I'mclear that the problem of white
supremacy, yeah, it's a whiteproblem and it's a white problem
that white people have created,but it is not a problem that
only white people perpetuate.
When you live enmeshed in agiven social world, it is
(03:47):
possible for that world to shapeand form you.
So I talk about white supremacyas a type of power that works
beneath the consciousness.
It is a type of power that isgoverning just below the levels
that many of us are able to nameand be aware of.
And so, yeah, it's possible forwhite supremacy to inhabit
(04:12):
black bodies.
When a young teenager, whosepants may be sagging, walks by
you and walks by your car, youroll up your window and you hit
the button to lock your car doorand you're a black person
yourself.
That is a part of white noiseat work, right?
Latino folk, latino men orwomen walking behind you on an
(04:34):
escalator and you speed up yourpace.
Right, that is a part of howwhite noise is at work.
If you're a pastor and you arepreaching Black pastor, you're
preaching about Black-on-Blackviolence as if Black-on, as if
intra-violence in the Blackcommunity is something unique to
Black folk, and you tell usthat if we want to cure racism,
(04:58):
don back in the day.
We need to pull up our plants,take care of our children and
clean our streets.
That's all white noise comingin in black boys, and the
problem is not the black peoplewho do it.
Problem is the actual grammarand logic that lives in our
world, right, and so even when Italk about black people who
(05:20):
have, who allow, who host blackpeople, who host anti-Blackness
and who host white, this senseof whiteness as superior to all
other things, black folk are notthe problem.
It's racism that's the problem,and none of us are inoculated
(05:41):
from the anti-Black, anti-latinx, anti-asian sentiment that live
in the Western world,particularly that live in the
American mythology.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, and we're certainly going to make the
pivot toward the church, butbefore we do, I want to hear
your thoughts about white noiseas an intersectional device.
Right?
So it seems that white noise isdescribing a type of racism in
(06:14):
response to racism, right, butwhat about other interlocking
oppressions?
And how might black women inparticular factor into the
conversation about white noise?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, no, thank you for that question, and that is a
part of the attempt in the bookis to show how all of these
forms of domination actuallycoincide, they co-mingle, they
live together.
I mean, you really can't talkabout the history of this
country that is built on stolenland and stolen people without
(06:49):
talking about an idea of racialcapitalism that has been
anti-woman, a racial capitalismthat is tied to patriarchy in so
many ways.
And so to talk about racewithout talking about about
sexism or patriarchy, misogyny,without talking about homophobia
, queerphobia, transphobia,without talking about the types
(07:13):
of classism that extract fromthose who live on the underside
of America's economic pyramid,is to not take race seriously at
all.
Right.
And to be honest about thematrix of domination, this
matrix of domination thatnon-white lives live under is to
(07:40):
also raise a serious microscopeto the ways that Black women,
oppression and dominationintersect and have very real
(08:08):
lived consequences.
It is no mistake that thepoorest folk in our country are
Black mothers.
There's no mistake that themost vulnerable to incarceration
in this country.
Although we love to talk aboutbrothers and we have to do that
too right, unfortunately we haveto walk and chew gum at the
same time, but to not name theway that black mothers are most
(08:31):
vulnerable to the suctionmachine of hyper incarceration
in America is to be disingenuousabout the work of justice, the
work of economic justice, thework of racial justice, of
justice, the work of economicjustice, the work of racial
justice, and so, yeah, I thinkthat that, and I know we are
we're going to pivot to thechurch in a moment but I think
that is one of the sins ofchurch leaders, and I'm always
(08:57):
cautious when I talk about sinsof the church.
I'm really talking about thesins of church leaders,
particularly the sins of churchmale leaders, particularly the
sins of church male leaders.
The way that we make Blackwomen's pain invisible or the
way we make it subordinate toBlack male pain is a part of the
sin of Black Christianity thatwe have a serious responsibility
(09:20):
to atone for, and particularlyBlack churches have a
responsibility to atone for this, and particularly Black
churches have a responsibilityto atone for this, because there
is no Black church withoutBlack women's dollars, black
women's prayers, black women'scooking, black women's ushering,
black women's preaching, blackwomen speaking in tongues, black
women's service.
There is no Black churchwithout that and to be an entity
(09:41):
that makes invisible the veryreal pain of Black women is to
not take seriously how whitenoise is functioning.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, yeah, I see.
I see how you are bringing itall together and making this
turn towards the church.
So let's, let's fully go there.
How do you see white noise as atheological intervention?
How do we apply your analysisof white noise in the social
(10:13):
landscape as a critique of thechurch and its harmful teachings
and practices?
Whether it's sin atonement andso forth.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Thank you for that.
So, in what is chapter tworight and what is chapter two in
the book I start workingthrough?
I start working through a, Istart working through this this
definition of whiteness as sin,and I talk about these three
(10:43):
forms of sin as the way we seewhiteness manifest.
Right, it is sin as segregation, it distances humans from their
own core, but it also segmentshuman communities in the sense
of a hierarchy Whiteness assegregated, whiteness as
(11:05):
idolatrous.
To do this work of to live in asociety where we place a
premium on whiteness is also todraw from Paul Tillich is that
whiteness, in a real sense, hasbecome the ultimate concern of
America and Americans, right,people in the United States, and
whatever your ultimate concernis, that has become your
ultimate concern of America andAmericans.
Right, people in the UnitedStates, and whatever your
(11:26):
ultimate concern is, that hasbecome your God right.
And so, in that sense, many ofus, particularly white
evangelicals, have becomeacolytes of whiteness.
Right that we have madewhiteness the God that supplants
the God of liberation, the Godof the exodus, the God of
freedom, the God of abolition.
We've made whiteness itself theGod, because it has the God of
the exodus, the God of freedom,the God of abolition.
We made whiteness itself Godbecause it has become the
(11:47):
concern, it has become the verytemplate by which we judge the
value of human life, right.
So whiteness as idolatrous,whiteness as as, as, as
segregated, but also whitenessas demonic.
Right, in a sense.
Again drawing from a veryTalikian reading of of what the
demonic is.
I'm not talking about somethingthat's connected to a being
(12:07):
that lives in the underworld,satan.
But no, tillich talks about thedemonic as anything that denies
or anything that negates humanflourishing, human creativity,
human love, human beauty.
So anything that is anti-humanand anti-the person is demonic.
It's anti-human and anti-theperson is demonic.
And whiteness within itself,the way it demonizes, the way it
(12:28):
criminalizes, the way itdenigrates, dehumanizes black
flesh, black and brown flesh, issimply demonic.
So I think about whiteness inthose categories of sin.
So that's a theologicalintervention that I'm working
through, and I'm also workingthrough this, this, this idea of
(12:54):
abolitionist spirituality,which which I talk about as a
form of spirituality that takesseriously and I'm paraphrasing
it that takes seriously theearthiness of today, that takes
seriously the pain, theunprotected, takes seriously the
dominations that exist in multiforms today and works to
(13:16):
dismantle those, while alsoforecasting a vision for the God
of freedom in the world today.
So it's an earthy sort ofspirituality that takes
seriously a God that is alwaysincarnate, not a God that only
incarnates in Jesus, but a Godthat incarnates in us every
single day.
A God that is always incarnate,not a God that only incarnates
in Jesus, but a God thatincarnates in us every single
day.
A God that is incarnational asa rule and that God forecasting,
(13:42):
offering dreams of what thisworld can be, that really leans
against what this world hasalways been.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate the ways in which you
are shaping a theologicaldiscussion about sin that
problematizes whiteness throughits reinforcement of segregation
, the demonic.
How do you connect thatdiscussion of sin to its twin,
(14:18):
which would be punishment?
And so what does white noisetell us about church teachings
around punishment that doesn'tconstitute whiteness as demonic
but, in fact, blackness asguilty?
(14:39):
And how does that then open upa wider discussion about church
teachings and carcerality?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
No, thank you for that.
Thank you for that question.
What is interesting is that onein the book I'm calling out
whiteness as sin because of theway it projects onto black flesh
, the way it maps on certainnarratives around black flesh,
and one of those, two of thosenarratives are and this is Kelly
(15:06):
Brown, douglas, not me, but twoof those narratives are black
flesh as dangerous and blackflesh as guilty.
That is, the sin of whitenessis that it is flesh on queer
(15:34):
flesh in ways that I would say,in ways that that create systems
of social control and makesocial systems normal.
So what white?
What white noise does whitenoise makes a trail from a
classroom to a prison cell forBlack and brown people normal.
(15:57):
What white noise does?
It makes Black women's povertynormal and their fault right.
What white noise does?
It tells us that we must beafraid of certain flesh because
that flesh does not deservefreedom.
And when a flesh does notdeserve freedom, we have a
(16:19):
responsibility.
It becomes an act of faith andit becomes a realization of
Christian faith to make sure wemake that which is dangerous
disappear, that which is thatwhich is demonic and non-human
to disappear, right.
So you have a carceral systemthat is propped up on these
narratives of Black danger,these narratives of Black guilt,
(16:42):
these narratives of Blackirresponsibility, right and the
need for Black control that makeprison so normal in this
country, no one is questioningwhether or not our courts
actually work or whether or notour police are designed for
public safety.
No one's asking the question ofwhether or not prisons actually
(17:04):
work because white noise hasnormalized the idea that certain
flesh does not deserve to be inthe public square, and so we
blink.
When our cousins go to prison,because we're told that's where
they belong, we don't sayanything as a congregation when
(17:24):
the mother comes to church,weeping and crying because maybe
it's her fault that her son isin prison, because she was not a
good enough mother, becausethey were so dependent on
welfare and she was never home.
To these narratives that whitenoise create, that are embedded
in our theologies right,embedded in our theologies.
I am often I'm often, uh takenaback by the ways that we don't
(17:56):
see the implications of adoctrine like original sin,
which tells us that all humansare sinful because of the act of
two human beings, and we don'tsee how that maps onto the ways
that we're able to masscriminalize all Black people
(18:17):
because a few Black criminalsexist, right.
So we map on to an entirepeople, but was done by a few.
That is the doctrine oforiginal sin.
That, then, is the masscondemnation of the humanity
based on a story about twohumans, two figurative,
(18:40):
narrative humans.
That is the same way that weget to an idea that, you know,
black folk are dangerous.
Black folk belong in prison.
Right, the concept of hell inprison, right, the concept of
hell, the idea that we can holdon to an all-loving God, an
all-knowing God, an all-powerfulGod who has no choice but to
(19:01):
send people to hell aspunishment.
You know, of course we don'thave a problem with predatory
prisons that don't offerhigh-quality, that has that pays
so much in health care, buteverybody in prison is sick,
right?
Prisons that allow for isolatedconfinement, of course those
(19:26):
things don't bother us, becausewe love a God that loves us and
to send, send us to hell foreternity.
Right, those are ways that Ithink that white noise comes
through our doctrines and allowsus to put certain narratives
onto Black bodies.
That allows us to control Blacklives, black flesh, in ways
(19:49):
that are so detrimental to whatneeds to be a motivational
democracy.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Wow, that is extremely rich and we certainly
need this theological framingfor how we understand punishment
and our participation incondemning and blaming
particular individuals andscapegoating them to a larger
carceral system that churchesare in fact complicit because of
(20:16):
our teachings and practices, asyou have noted, through the
doctrine of sin and ourunderstanding of who is worthy
and unworthy of salvation andprotection and human dignity.
And I'm not sure if you knowthis, but in Mandarin I teach
religious studies and one of thefaculty members in our
(20:41):
department, in fact as the chair, is a Chinese Buddhist nun and
she shared with me that inMandarin the word hell
translates in English to Earth'sprison.
The word hell translates inEnglish to Earth's prison Whoa,
Right.
So I think you're spot on inyour analysis about our
(21:17):
theological understandings ofhell.
In fact, Kelly Williams Bolaris a poor black mother who was
criminalized for sending herchild to a better school
district in Ohio and when shewent into prison, as she was
going in, she stopped at theprison guard and she said to the
prison guard it smells like sinin here.
And the prison guard said toher you aren't the first person
(21:38):
to say that, Right.
So there are these correlationsabout how we are thinking about
God, how we're thinking aboutsin, how we're thinking about
consequences of hell and moraldepravity that has been
theologized not only throughhuman experience but through our
(21:59):
own ideologies and teachingspassed down from the reformers.
Right Of this kind of schismbetween the elected and the
condemned.
Right, the chosen and theunchosen, those who are morally
depraved and those who can besaved, Right.
And we carry this theology,these religious beliefs.
(22:23):
We carry them with us as we areinteracting with others and in
our moral appraisals of others.
And it is based on thosereligious beliefs that we even
inherited the penitentiary rightPenitence being a deeply
religious word.
(22:44):
Right, we look at, thearchitecture of the early
prisons were deeply religious.
If you look at the crucifixionin the prisons, that you know,
that is deeply religious.
If you look at the crucifixionin the prisons, that is deeply
religious.
If you look at the priest whois holding a Bible in one hand
and walking a person down to thedeath penalty, is deeply
(23:08):
religious.
Right, the idea that someonehas to go to prison to reflect
on their sins is deeplyreligious.
The fact that we think aboutpunishment as an indicator,
earthly indicator, of divinepunishment, of the punishment
we'll receive after we die isdeeply religious Right.
So how does white noise now,having described the problem,
(23:33):
how does it prescribe thesolution?
How does white noise not onlycritique the church and its
harmful teachings, but what doesabolitionist spirituality?
How does that give us aconstructive way forward for
churches to apply in theirteachings and practices and the
(23:56):
larger society?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Good.
Thank you for that.
So you know.
Yes, I know we spent a lot oftime wrestling with the problem
here, but the book is actuallyorganized in a way that
solutions are what I talk aboutas processes.
I know the title says practices.
You know publishers are theylike to.
(24:18):
They want to sell things.
But, really these practices aretoo thick to call practices.
They're really processes that weundertake that do the work of
internal freedom and externalfreedom fight.
(24:39):
The book is designed to help ussee how do we fit ourselves
inwardly as we are doing thiswork of saving the soul of
America, as we do the work ofmaking this democracy up to what
it says.
It is on paper, so the book isframed, yes, around white noise
(25:01):
and these types of white noise,but really the bulk of the book
is is dedicated to what I callrhythms of reparative
intercession.
This, this idea of reparativeintercession, says one that the
work that we're supposed to bedoing is to repair harm that has
been done.
This is not the work ofreconciliation, this is not the
(25:22):
work of kufa'iyah, but this isliterally the work of repair.
This is the work where we'retalking about the redistribution
of power, we're talking aboutsacrificing our power and
privilege on behalf of the mostothered and the most
underprotected, and so it'sabout repair, but it's also
about this, this, this work ofstanding in the tragic gap.
(25:43):
You know, and it draws this ideafrom from Christian traditions
of intercessory prayer.
But I pray our intercessionneeds to be political and prayer
that we are supposed to speakup and act up on behalf of those
who don't have as much powerand don't have as much privilege
as we, as we have.
(26:03):
And so I frame this book aroundthese six rhythms of reparative
intercession.
Cues to color what does it meanto take color and race
seriously, the pulse to risk?
What does it mean to sacrificepower and privilege?
Pattern recognition how do Ibegin to see and honor the
interdependence of human lifeacross these narratives of
(26:27):
difference?
A syncopated identity how do Iexplore the fullness of my
identity I like to think aboutthat is yes, I am a Black man
and as a Black person, there'ssomething about my identity that
is marginalized and isoppressed.
But I'm also a man, right, andthere's male privilege that I
have.
There's class privilege that Ihave.
I'm a citizen of the UnitedStates.
(26:47):
There's citizenship privilegethat I have.
There's class privilege that Ihave, I'm a citizen of the
United States.
There's citizenship privilegethat I carry I am a Christian
minister.
That's the kind of religiousprivilege in the West that I
also bring to life.
So that syncopated identityallows me to see myself.
The momentum to encounter meansthat I want to take history
seriously and not as somethingthat is in the past.
(27:09):
But actually there is a historyto every single moment we live
in.
Right now, dr Nakia, you and Iare living in a moment that was
produced by history.
Something got us to a momentwhere a January 6th could happen
, right.
And then downbeat truth.
How do I tell on myself?
Those are the rhythms that Ithink about Cues to color,
(27:31):
repulsorists, patternrecognition, syncopated identity
, momentum to encounter anddownbeat truth.
You'll see that they're leaninginto that rhythm, motif, rhythm
, language, because the work ofbeing a reparative intercessor,
the work of doing anti-racistwork, the work of abolitionist
spirituality is not a science,it is an art, it is rhythmic.
(27:57):
It requires us to experiment,it requires us to try again, it
requires us to continue to uselife, as what I say in the
conclusion, as a laboratory ofhope every single day.
So that's how the book isframed around these processes,
(28:19):
these practices, these rhythmsof reparative intersection.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Wow, I have so many questions.
I know we are strapped for time.
Wow, I have so many questions,I know we are strapped for time.
(28:54):
So, as you know, I am theexecutive director of
Abolitionist Sanctuary and weare indeed honored to have to
train the church to apply theirbeliefs to abolitionist
principles that really resonatewith the practices or processes
that you're outlining.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
How would you apply these practices as a training
mechanism that churches can useto no longer rely on white noise
and practice this abolitionistspirituality.
Much of what I, of what I'mtheorizing in the book, rolls
out of my own experiences as ananti-racism trainer, and so I
try to draw some of the bestlessons from curricula,
curricula that I developed as Iwas working on on on my own
(29:44):
doctoral journey, working on myown doctoral work, on my own
doctoral journey, working for myown doctoral work.
And you know, like in that, inthat first chapter, when I talk
about moving from white guilt orracial guilt to to white grief
or racial grief, there areactual practices that you can
(30:05):
undertake.
When you say that, when you'reconfronted with your own bigotry
, when you say that when you'reconfronted with your own bigotry
, confronted with your owncomplicity with racism, is like
that is not a time to just beguilty, that's a time to grieve.
And in this grieving process,right and I walk through these
five stages of grief in the book, which I think is a part of
what it means to outlivewhiteness right Is to honor the
(30:30):
fact that we're doing whitegrief is to name the fact that
something has to die.
Right, we have to do the workof dying.
We have to do the work ofallowing whiteness to die to us
so that we no longer die towhiteness right.
And so, even like in that firstchapter, I think about ways
(30:53):
that we can teach this kind ofgrief, walking people through
what it means to offer deferenceto those who are marginalized
and unprotected.
What does it mean to track yourown racial awareness, what is
the old?
And one of the things I do intraining and I talk about in
(31:14):
that chapter is what is theoldest, what is the first
racialized memory that you had?
And then ask yourself where didyou get that idea from and what
caused you to do that kind ofaction?
I think in the book I talkabout when I was in elementary
(31:35):
school and I'm sitting at atable with a group of my friends
a group of my friends, many ofthem are Latinx, and the lunch
lady who gives us extra food isalso Latinx and I refer to her
as Mexican at the table and myHonduran brother says, no, she's
(31:58):
El Salvadorian.
Right, and I go.
Well, what's the difference?
Right, child saying somethingso dismissive of the uniqueness
and particularity and diversitywithin Latinx communities.
But somewhere along the line Ipicked up.
You know they all must beMexican Somewhere along the line
, I thought it was appropriateto say well, what's the
(32:18):
difference between being fromthis country and being from that
country?
And going back to that momentand reliving the pain of what it
meant to hurt a friend is apart of what it means to grieve
racially in some way, so that'sjust one example of how this
book lends itself to a type oftraining for churches, a
(32:42):
training for multiracial groupsto think about the ways that we
uphold individually what'shappening institutionally.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, yeah.
And do you see people using thepractices or processes in a
linear way?
Do you see them referencingthem as they are experiencing
and needing these steps?
How do you envision peopleusing them?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, I don't think of it linearly at all, because
there's sometimes that I need totell myself something about the
history of this country, thehistory of Black evangelicals,
which we don't talk about enough.
But sometimes I need to pauseand tell myself about the
history of Black evangelicalreligion and how I may be
(33:32):
related to that.
There are some other times Imay need to remind myself of the
intersections that make myidentities what they are, and
reminding myself like, willie,no, you have a significant
amount of class privilege.
You know, you went to MorehouseHarbor, right, you have
(33:56):
graduate degrees.
You actually aren't profiled bypolice on a regular basis.
In fact, willie, when was thelast time you actually felt
profiled by a police officer?
I have to do that work Right,and so there's no linear way
there.
But these practices, differentmoments, may demand differently.
(34:18):
It may demand a different, adifferent engagement with, with
a different rhythm, with adifferent practice, with a
different rhythm, with adifferent practice.
That's important.
So I see folk trying to findways to develop a command of
(34:38):
what these processes, practices,rhythms are and then innovating
them.
You know it's not cookie cutter, because I don't know what it
means to be a black man inAppalachia.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I don't know what it means to be a Black woman.
Period right.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
And so there are ways that my own gaps in
consciousness may not be able tooffer the fullness of what it
means to practice students ofcolor right.
I don't work in corporateAmerica.
I work for Black folk at aBlack church and I work for
Black folk at a predominantlynon-white seminary in New York
City.
I don't work in corporateAmerica.
(35:10):
I don't know what it means tohold my coworker, who is a white
woman, accountable for my Blackflesh, Like no, don't say you
don't see me, you do see me, yousee my Blackness and that
matters that.
You see my, so it is my.
It is my hope that people willdevelop a command, a facility
(35:31):
and a facility for what's here,but then innovate them innovate
on them, improvise on them inways that make sense for their
context and their experience.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, and Willie, Dr Willie.
Who is this book for?
Who's your audience?
Who do you want to reallybenefit from from this book?
Who are you speaking to?
Speaker 2 (35:51):
When I was writing the book, the profile I had in
mind was Moderate Christiansblack white brown Asian period.
Black white brown Asian period.
People who live in the middleand know that there's something
off, know that there's somethingwrong and wish they could do
(36:14):
something.
But they don't have thelanguage, they don't want to out
themselves, they're notcomfortable naming where they
are most impacted or how theyare most impacting in other
people's lived experiences.
That moderate Christian, whichis what I think most of American
(36:38):
Christians live, in spite ofhow loud the white evangelicals
tend to be like, they can evenstorm a Capitol and, you know,
barely go to jail.
And their pope can sit inMar-a-Lago and take government
documents that belong to thepeople as if they are his right.
You know, my hope is that thosefolk who live in purple space,
(36:58):
those folk who even who live in,and even white progressives,
can take this book and start todo the self-work that manifests
into the institutional andsystems-wide work as necessary.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Well, thank you so much, Dr Willie.
That is a phenomenal engagementwith your book.
Silencing White Noise SixPractices to Overcome Our
Inaction on Race.
This is groundbreaking.
I love the imagery and thesymbolism and the metaphor of
white noise and how widely it isadaptable across social
(37:41):
landscapes and within our church.
So thank you for both yourcritique but also your
constructive work in pointing ustoward an abolitionist
spirituality as we conclude ourpodcast for today.
Where can we purchase your book?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Right.
So you can purchase the book onAmazon, and that's available in
print, it's available indigital book and it's also
available in audio book.
So you could do that via Amazon.
But you are surely encouragedto go to the publisher, which is
Baker Publishing Group, and youcan find the book there as well
(38:21):
.
But it's sold everywhere.
Books are sold digitally, I'mtold, and there's a few places
you can also find this.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Wonderful, and I also want to put a plug in for some
independent Black bookstores.
If you can find it there,please feel free to patronize
and pick up one or two orseveral for your friends and
colleagues.
And then finally, dr Willie,where can people contact you?
How can people find you?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Sure.
So you can find me on FacebookWillie Dwayne Francois III Type
that in it's right to me AlsoTwitter and IG at Willie
Francois.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Thank you, it was so great having you.
I wish you all the best withyour book and look forward to
how it will make atransformative impact in our
world.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Thank you, Dr Nakia, for all you do making our world
better.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Again, I am your host , reverend Dr Nakia Smith-Robert
, and the Executive Director ofAbolitionist Sanctuary.
Find us on Twitter, facebookand Instagram and join our
mailing list atwwwabolitionistsanctuaryorg.
As we conclude this episode,remember that abolition is not
only a practice, but it is areligion, and here is what we
(39:37):
believe.
We believe in God of theoppressed.
We believe that Black womenshare divinity with God and
salvific qualities that are asource of wholeness and
liberation, as demonstrated byHagar, harriet, sojourner, fanny
, carol and countless others whomake a way out of no way.
We believe in a brownPalestinian Jew, the black
(39:58):
Messiah Jesus, who was profiled,policed and persecuted by the
state on trumped-up charges.
We believe that Jesus died acriminal but did not wake up one
.
He transcended criminality onthe cross and no one ever needs
to die again for us to be saved.
We believe that Jesus'.
Life and ministry teaches us toapply these abolitionist
(40:20):
virtues compassion, care,creativity, courage and
community to transform socialstructures where the last become
first and the captives are setfree.
We believe in spirit asadvocate who draws people of all
gender and sexual identities,conviction, status and other
particularities together in abeloved community.
(40:43):
We believe in a resurrection,hope that we can realize in the
here and now and that calls usinto right relationship by
restoring the human dignity ofindividuals who are criminalized
, caged and cast out.
We affirm discipleship as acall to advance a faith-based
abolitionist movement to createspiritual, legal and economic
(41:06):
sanctuaries where the vulnerablecan find refuge, deep
solidarity and flourishing.
Beyond policing, prisons andpunishment, we are abolitionist
sanctuaries, leading a coalitionto repair, restore and rebuild
a more just and equitablesociety of communal flourishing.
(41:27):
Thank you for joining us.
Stay tuned for the next episodeof Abolitionist Sanctuary
Podcast.
You can find us on Twitter,instagram, facebook or visit us
(41:53):
at wwwabolitionistsanctuaryorgyou.
One, two, three, four .
Welcome to the AbolitionistSanctuary podcast, where we
consider critical conversationsand call to actions at the
intersections of faith andabolition.
I am your host, reverend DrNakia Smith-Robert, the founder
(00:21):
and executive director ofAbolitionist Sanctuary, a
nonprofit organization leading afaith-based abolitionist
movement.
I'm here with Dr Willie DFrancois, the author of
(00:45):
Silencing White Noise SixPractices to Overcome Our
Inaction on Race.
I am excited to have thisconversation.
I wanted to jump in with yourfabulous book Groundbreaking in
fact and was wondering, as weare talking about white noise.
(01:06):
I really like this metaphorthat you're using because, as
you know, I'm a mother of threeand I remember we used white
noise a lot for our first childwhen we were new, into the
parent game and it was faithful.
We would have a iPhone app, wewould play our white noise and
(01:28):
it would be the only way thatour new infant would go to sleep
.
And so I can relate as youshared about white noise being a
father and it's used for yourson and as you describe it for
our listeners, who may have notyet had the opportunity to read
(01:48):
the book, but certainly aretyping in the URL and Googling
and searching for this book topurchase right now, right right,
right, right, right right now.
Do you have a definition thatyou want to share with us?
What exactly is white noise?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
definition that you want to share with us.
What exactly is white noise?
Yeah, white noise is the racistspeech, silence, inaction and
misrepresentations that protectwhiteness, that protect white
supremacy.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, and causes a slumber for everyone else right.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It causes what I borrowed from Walter Fluker.
It causes this sociopoliticalnarcolepsy.
We live in this violent slumberthat has mass casualties all
around us.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah, I like that.
Sociopolitical narcolepsy,that's really good.
Fluker is one of the mostprofound scholars of this age.
How is it possible?
I was reading your introduction.
How is it possible?
(03:03):
Right, the ways in which we,even in our embodiment of
Blackness, can be complicit andcooperate in this white noise.
So how is it possible to quotecommunicate white noise in Black
voice and Black sacred space?
End quote.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah, no, and this is a very important question, and
I always make sure that I'mclear that the problem of white
supremacy, yeah, it's a whiteproblem and it's a white problem
that white people have created,but it is not a problem that
only white people perpetuate.
When you live enmeshed in agiven social world, it is
(03:47):
possible for that world to shapeand form you.
So I talk about white supremacyas a type of power that works
beneath the consciousness.
It is a type of power that isgoverning just below the levels
that many of us are able to nameand be aware of.
And so, yeah, it's possible forwhite supremacy to inhabit
(04:12):
black bodies.
When a young teenager, whosepants may be sagging, walks by
you and walks by your car, youroll up your window and you hit
the button to lock your car doorand you're a black person
yourself.
That is a part of white noiseat work, right?
Latino folk, latino men orwomen walking behind you on an
(04:34):
escalator and you speed up yourpace.
Right, that is a part of howwhite noise is at work.
If you're a pastor and you arepreaching Black pastor, you're
preaching about Black-on-Blackviolence as if Black-on, as if
intra-violence in the Blackcommunity is something unique to
Black folk, and you tell usthat if we want to cure racism,
(04:58):
don back in the day.
We need to pull up our plants,take care of our children and
clean our streets.
That's all white noise comingin in black boys, and the
problem is not the black peoplewho do it.
Problem is the actual grammarand logic that lives in our
world, right, and so even when Italk about black people who
(05:20):
have, who allow, who host blackpeople, who host anti-Blackness
and who host white, this senseof whiteness as superior to all
other things, black folk are notthe problem.
It's racism that's the problem,and none of us are inoculated
(05:41):
from the anti-Black, anti-latinx, anti-asian sentiment that live
in the Western world,particularly that live in the
American mythology.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, and we're certainly going to make the
pivot toward the church, butbefore we do, I want to hear
your thoughts about white noiseas an intersectional device.
Right?
So it seems that white noise isdescribing a type of racism in
(06:14):
response to racism, right, butwhat about other interlocking
oppressions?
And how might black women inparticular factor into the
conversation about white noise?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, no, thank you for that question, and that is a
part of the attempt in the bookis to show how all of these
forms of domination actuallycoincide, they co-mingle, they
live together.
I mean, you really can't talkabout the history of this
country that is built on stolenland and stolen people without
(06:49):
talking about an idea of racialcapitalism that has been
anti-woman, a racial capitalismthat is tied to patriarchy in so
many ways.
And so to talk about racewithout talking about about
sexism or patriarchy, misogyny,without talking about homophobia
, queerphobia, transphobia,without talking about the types
(07:13):
of classism that extract fromthose who live on the underside
of America's economic pyramid,is to not take race seriously at
all.
Right.
And to be honest about thematrix of domination, this
matrix of domination thatnon-white lives live under is to
(07:40):
also raise a serious microscopeto the ways that Black women,
oppression and dominationintersect and have very real
(08:08):
lived consequences.
It is no mistake that thepoorest folk in our country are
Black mothers.
There's no mistake that themost vulnerable to incarceration
in this country.
Although we love to talk aboutbrothers and we have to do that
too right, unfortunately we haveto walk and chew gum at the
same time, but to not name theway that black mothers are most
(08:31):
vulnerable to the suctionmachine of hyper incarceration
in America is to be disingenuousabout the work of justice, the
work of economic justice, thework of racial justice, of
justice, the work of economicjustice, the work of racial
justice, and so, yeah, I thinkthat that, and I know we are
we're going to pivot to thechurch in a moment but I think
that is one of the sins ofchurch leaders, and I'm always
(08:57):
cautious when I talk about sinsof the church.
I'm really talking about thesins of church leaders,
particularly the sins of churchmale leaders, particularly the
sins of church male leaders.
The way that we make Blackwomen's pain invisible or the
way we make it subordinate toBlack male pain is a part of the
sin of Black Christianity thatwe have a serious responsibility
(09:20):
to atone for, and particularlyBlack churches have a
responsibility to atone for this, and particularly Black
churches have a responsibilityto atone for this, because there
is no Black church withoutBlack women's dollars, black
women's prayers, black women'scooking, black women's ushering,
black women's preaching, blackwomen speaking in tongues, black
women's service.
There is no Black churchwithout that and to be an entity
(09:41):
that makes invisible the veryreal pain of Black women is to
not take seriously how whitenoise is functioning.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, yeah, I see.
I see how you are bringing itall together and making this
turn towards the church.
So let's, let's fully go there.
How do you see white noise as atheological intervention?
How do we apply your analysisof white noise in the social
(10:13):
landscape as a critique of thechurch and its harmful teachings
and practices?
Whether it's sin atonement andso forth.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Thank you for that.
So, in what is chapter tworight and what is chapter two in
the book I start workingthrough?
I start working through a, Istart working through this this
definition of whiteness as sin,and I talk about these three
(10:43):
forms of sin as the way we seewhiteness manifest.
Right, it is sin as segregation, it distances humans from their
own core, but it also segmentshuman communities in the sense
of a hierarchy Whiteness assegregated, whiteness as
(11:05):
idolatrous.
To do this work of to live in asociety where we place a
premium on whiteness is also todraw from Paul Tillich is that
whiteness, in a real sense, hasbecome the ultimate concern of
America and Americans, right,people in the United States, and
whatever your ultimate concernis, that has become your
ultimate concern of America andAmericans.
Right, people in the UnitedStates, and whatever your
(11:26):
ultimate concern is, that hasbecome your God right.
And so, in that sense, many ofus, particularly white
evangelicals, have becomeacolytes of whiteness.
Right that we have madewhiteness the God that supplants
the God of liberation, the Godof the exodus, the God of
freedom, the God of abolition.
We've made whiteness itself theGod, because it has the God of
the exodus, the God of freedom,the God of abolition.
We made whiteness itself Godbecause it has become the
(11:47):
concern, it has become the verytemplate by which we judge the
value of human life, right.
So whiteness as idolatrous,whiteness as as, as, as
segregated, but also whitenessas demonic.
Right, in a sense.
Again drawing from a veryTalikian reading of of what the
demonic is.
I'm not talking about somethingthat's connected to a being
(12:07):
that lives in the underworld,satan.
But no, tillich talks about thedemonic as anything that denies
or anything that negates humanflourishing, human creativity,
human love, human beauty.
So anything that is anti-humanand anti-the person is demonic.
It's anti-human and anti-theperson is demonic.
And whiteness within itself,the way it demonizes, the way it
(12:28):
criminalizes, the way itdenigrates, dehumanizes black
flesh, black and brown flesh, issimply demonic.
So I think about whiteness inthose categories of sin.
So that's a theologicalintervention that I'm working
through, and I'm also workingthrough this, this, this idea of
(12:54):
abolitionist spirituality,which which I talk about as a
form of spirituality that takesseriously and I'm paraphrasing
it that takes seriously theearthiness of today, that takes
seriously the pain, theunprotected, takes seriously the
dominations that exist in multiforms today and works to
(13:16):
dismantle those, while alsoforecasting a vision for the God
of freedom in the world today.
So it's an earthy sort ofspirituality that takes
seriously a God that is alwaysincarnate, not a God that only
incarnates in Jesus, but a Godthat incarnates in us every
single day.
A God that is always incarnate,not a God that only incarnates
in Jesus, but a God thatincarnates in us every single
day.
A God that is incarnational asa rule and that God forecasting,
(13:42):
offering dreams of what thisworld can be, that really leans
against what this world hasalways been.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate the ways in which you
are shaping a theologicaldiscussion about sin that
problematizes whiteness throughits reinforcement of segregation
, the demonic.
How do you connect thatdiscussion of sin to its twin,
(14:18):
which would be punishment?
And so what does white noisetell us about church teachings
around punishment that doesn'tconstitute whiteness as demonic
but, in fact, blackness asguilty?
(14:39):
And how does that then open upa wider discussion about church
teachings and carcerality?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
No, thank you for that.
Thank you for that question.
What is interesting is that onein the book I'm calling out
whiteness as sin because of theway it projects onto black flesh
, the way it maps on certainnarratives around black flesh,
and one of those, two of thosenarratives are and this is Kelly
(15:06):
Brown, douglas, not me, but twoof those narratives are black
flesh as dangerous and blackflesh as guilty.
That is, the sin of whitenessis that it is flesh on queer
(15:34):
flesh in ways that I would say,in ways that that create systems
of social control and makesocial systems normal.
So what white?
What white noise does whitenoise makes a trail from a
classroom to a prison cell forBlack and brown people normal.
(15:57):
What white noise does?
It makes Black women's povertynormal and their fault right.
What white noise does?
It tells us that we must beafraid of certain flesh because
that flesh does not deservefreedom.
And when a flesh does notdeserve freedom, we have a
(16:19):
responsibility.
It becomes an act of faith andit becomes a realization of
Christian faith to make sure wemake that which is dangerous
disappear, that which is thatwhich is demonic and non-human
to disappear, right.
So you have a carceral systemthat is propped up on these
narratives of Black danger,these narratives of Black guilt,
(16:42):
these narratives of Blackirresponsibility, right and the
need for Black control that makeprison so normal in this
country, no one is questioningwhether or not our courts
actually work or whether or notour police are designed for
public safety.
No one's asking the question ofwhether or not prisons actually
(17:04):
work because white noise hasnormalized the idea that certain
flesh does not deserve to be inthe public square, and so we
blink.
When our cousins go to prison,because we're told that's where
they belong, we don't sayanything as a congregation when
(17:24):
the mother comes to church,weeping and crying because maybe
it's her fault that her son isin prison, because she was not a
good enough mother, becausethey were so dependent on
welfare and she was never home.
To these narratives that whitenoise create, that are embedded
in our theologies right,embedded in our theologies.
I am often I'm often, uh takenaback by the ways that we don't
(17:56):
see the implications of adoctrine like original sin,
which tells us that all humansare sinful because of the act of
two human beings, and we don'tsee how that maps onto the ways
that we're able to masscriminalize all Black people
(18:17):
because a few Black criminalsexist, right.
So we map on to an entirepeople, but was done by a few.
That is the doctrine oforiginal sin.
That, then, is the masscondemnation of the humanity
based on a story about twohumans, two figurative,
(18:40):
narrative humans.
That is the same way that weget to an idea that, you know,
black folk are dangerous.
Black folk belong in prison.
Right, the concept of hell inprison, right, the concept of
hell, the idea that we can holdon to an all-loving God, an
all-knowing God, an all-powerfulGod who has no choice but to
(19:01):
send people to hell aspunishment.
You know, of course we don'thave a problem with predatory
prisons that don't offerhigh-quality, that has that pays
so much in health care, buteverybody in prison is sick,
right?
Prisons that allow for isolatedconfinement, of course those
(19:26):
things don't bother us, becausewe love a God that loves us and
to send, send us to hell foreternity.
Right, those are ways that Ithink that white noise comes
through our doctrines and allowsus to put certain narratives
onto Black bodies.
That allows us to control Blacklives, black flesh, in ways
(19:49):
that are so detrimental to whatneeds to be a motivational
democracy.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Wow, that is extremely rich and we certainly
need this theological framingfor how we understand punishment
and our participation incondemning and blaming
particular individuals andscapegoating them to a larger
carceral system that churchesare in fact complicit because of
(20:16):
our teachings and practices, asyou have noted, through the
doctrine of sin and ourunderstanding of who is worthy
and unworthy of salvation andprotection and human dignity.
And I'm not sure if you knowthis, but in Mandarin I teach
religious studies and one of thefaculty members in our
(20:41):
department, in fact as the chair, is a Chinese Buddhist nun and
she shared with me that inMandarin the word hell
translates in English to Earth'sprison.
The word hell translates inEnglish to Earth's prison Whoa,
Right.
So I think you're spot on inyour analysis about our
(21:17):
theological understandings ofhell.
In fact, Kelly Williams Bolaris a poor black mother who was
criminalized for sending herchild to a better school
district in Ohio and when shewent into prison, as she was
going in, she stopped at theprison guard and she said to the
prison guard it smells like sinin here.
And the prison guard said toher you aren't the first person
(21:38):
to say that, Right.
So there are these correlationsabout how we are thinking about
God, how we're thinking aboutsin, how we're thinking about
consequences of hell and moraldepravity that has been
theologized not only throughhuman experience but through our
(21:59):
own ideologies and teachingspassed down from the reformers.
Right Of this kind of schismbetween the elected and the
condemned.
Right, the chosen and theunchosen, those who are morally
depraved and those who can besaved, Right.
And we carry this theology,these religious beliefs.
(22:23):
We carry them with us as we areinteracting with others and in
our moral appraisals of others.
And it is based on thosereligious beliefs that we even
inherited the penitentiary rightPenitence being a deeply
religious word.
(22:44):
Right, we look at, thearchitecture of the early
prisons were deeply religious.
If you look at the crucifixionin the prisons, that you know,
that is deeply religious.
If you look at the crucifixionin the prisons, that is deeply
religious.
If you look at the priest whois holding a Bible in one hand
and walking a person down to thedeath penalty, is deeply
(23:08):
religious.
Right, the idea that someonehas to go to prison to reflect
on their sins is deeplyreligious.
The fact that we think aboutpunishment as an indicator,
earthly indicator, of divinepunishment, of the punishment
we'll receive after we die isdeeply religious Right.
So how does white noise now,having described the problem,
(23:33):
how does it prescribe thesolution?
How does white noise not onlycritique the church and its
harmful teachings, but what doesabolitionist spirituality?
How does that give us aconstructive way forward for
churches to apply in theirteachings and practices and the
(23:56):
larger society?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Good.
Thank you for that.
So you know.
Yes, I know we spent a lot oftime wrestling with the problem
here, but the book is actuallyorganized in a way that
solutions are what I talk aboutas processes.
I know the title says practices.
You know publishers are theylike to.
(24:18):
They want to sell things.
But, really these practices aretoo thick to call practices.
They're really processes that weundertake that do the work of
internal freedom and externalfreedom fight.
(24:39):
The book is designed to help ussee how do we fit ourselves
inwardly as we are doing thiswork of saving the soul of
America, as we do the work ofmaking this democracy up to what
it says.
It is on paper, so the book isframed, yes, around white noise
(25:01):
and these types of white noise,but really the bulk of the book
is is dedicated to what I callrhythms of reparative
intercession.
This, this idea of reparativeintercession, says one that the
work that we're supposed to bedoing is to repair harm that has
been done.
This is not the work ofreconciliation, this is not the
(25:22):
work of kufa'iyah, but this isliterally the work of repair.
This is the work where we'retalking about the redistribution
of power, we're talking aboutsacrificing our power and
privilege on behalf of the mostothered and the most
underprotected, and so it'sabout repair, but it's also
about this, this, this work ofstanding in the tragic gap.
(25:43):
You know, and it draws this ideafrom from Christian traditions
of intercessory prayer.
But I pray our intercessionneeds to be political and prayer
that we are supposed to speakup and act up on behalf of those
who don't have as much powerand don't have as much privilege
as we, as we have.
(26:03):
And so I frame this book aroundthese six rhythms of reparative
intercession.
Cues to color what does it meanto take color and race
seriously, the pulse to risk?
What does it mean to sacrificepower and privilege?
Pattern recognition how do Ibegin to see and honor the
interdependence of human lifeacross these narratives of
(26:27):
difference?
A syncopated identity how do Iexplore the fullness of my
identity I like to think aboutthat is yes, I am a Black man
and as a Black person, there'ssomething about my identity that
is marginalized and isoppressed.
But I'm also a man, right, andthere's male privilege that I
have.
There's class privilege that Ihave.
I'm a citizen of the UnitedStates.
(26:47):
There's citizenship privilegethat I have.
There's class privilege that Ihave, I'm a citizen of the
United States.
There's citizenship privilegethat I carry I am a Christian
minister.
That's the kind of religiousprivilege in the West that I
also bring to life.
So that syncopated identityallows me to see myself.
The momentum to encounter meansthat I want to take history
seriously and not as somethingthat is in the past.
(27:09):
But actually there is a historyto every single moment we live
in.
Right now, dr Nakia, you and Iare living in a moment that was
produced by history.
Something got us to a momentwhere a January 6th could happen
, right.
And then downbeat truth.
How do I tell on myself?
Those are the rhythms that Ithink about Cues to color,
(27:31):
repulsorists, patternrecognition, syncopated identity
, momentum to encounter anddownbeat truth.
You'll see that they're leaninginto that rhythm, motif, rhythm
, language, because the work ofbeing a reparative intercessor,
the work of doing anti-racistwork, the work of abolitionist
spirituality is not a science,it is an art, it is rhythmic.
(27:57):
It requires us to experiment,it requires us to try again, it
requires us to continue to uselife, as what I say in the
conclusion, as a laboratory ofhope every single day.
So that's how the book isframed around these processes,
(28:19):
these practices, these rhythmsof reparative intersection.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Wow, I have so many questions.
I know we are strapped for time.
Wow, I have so many questions,I know we are strapped for time.
(28:54):
So, as you know, I am theexecutive director of
Abolitionist Sanctuary and weare indeed honored to have to
train the church to apply theirbeliefs to abolitionist
principles that really resonatewith the practices or processes
that you're outlining.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
How would you apply these practices as a training
mechanism that churches can useto no longer rely on white noise
and practice this abolitionistspirituality.
Much of what I, of what I'mtheorizing in the book, rolls
out of my own experiences as ananti-racism trainer, and so I
try to draw some of the bestlessons from curricula,
curricula that I developed as Iwas working on on on my own
(29:44):
doctoral journey, working on myown doctoral work, on my own
doctoral journey, working for myown doctoral work.
And you know, like in that, inthat first chapter, when I talk
about moving from white guilt orracial guilt to to white grief
or racial grief, there areactual practices that you can
(30:05):
undertake.
When you say that, when you'reconfronted with your own bigotry
, when you say that when you'reconfronted with your own bigotry
, confronted with your owncomplicity with racism, is like
that is not a time to just beguilty, that's a time to grieve.
And in this grieving process,right and I walk through these
five stages of grief in the book, which I think is a part of
what it means to outlivewhiteness right Is to honor the
(30:30):
fact that we're doing whitegrief is to name the fact that
something has to die.
Right, we have to do the workof dying.
We have to do the work ofallowing whiteness to die to us
so that we no longer die towhiteness right.
And so, even like in that firstchapter, I think about ways
(30:53):
that we can teach this kind ofgrief, walking people through
what it means to offer deferenceto those who are marginalized
and unprotected.
What does it mean to track yourown racial awareness, what is
the old?
And one of the things I do intraining and I talk about in
(31:14):
that chapter is what is theoldest, what is the first
racialized memory that you had?
And then ask yourself where didyou get that idea from and what
caused you to do that kind ofaction?
I think in the book I talkabout when I was in elementary
(31:35):
school and I'm sitting at atable with a group of my friends
a group of my friends, many ofthem are Latinx, and the lunch
lady who gives us extra food isalso Latinx and I refer to her
as Mexican at the table and myHonduran brother says, no, she's
(31:58):
El Salvadorian.
Right, and I go.
Well, what's the difference?
Right, child saying somethingso dismissive of the uniqueness
and particularity and diversitywithin Latinx communities.
But somewhere along the line Ipicked up.
You know they all must beMexican Somewhere along the line
, I thought it was appropriateto say well, what's the
(32:18):
difference between being fromthis country and being from that
country?
And going back to that momentand reliving the pain of what it
meant to hurt a friend is apart of what it means to grieve
racially in some way, so that'sjust one example of how this
book lends itself to a type oftraining for churches, a
(32:42):
training for multiracial groupsto think about the ways that we
uphold individually what'shappening institutionally.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, yeah.
And do you see people using thepractices or processes in a
linear way?
Do you see them referencingthem as they are experiencing
and needing these steps?
How do you envision peopleusing them?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, I don't think of it linearly at all, because
there's sometimes that I need totell myself something about the
history of this country, thehistory of Black evangelicals,
which we don't talk about enough.
But sometimes I need to pauseand tell myself about the
history of Black evangelicalreligion and how I may be
(33:32):
related to that.
There are some other times Imay need to remind myself of the
intersections that make myidentities what they are, and
reminding myself like, willie,no, you have a significant
amount of class privilege.
You know, you went to MorehouseHarbor, right, you have
(33:56):
graduate degrees.
You actually aren't profiled bypolice on a regular basis.
In fact, willie, when was thelast time you actually felt
profiled by a police officer?
I have to do that work Right,and so there's no linear way
there.
But these practices, differentmoments, may demand differently.
(34:18):
It may demand a different, adifferent engagement with, with
a different rhythm, with adifferent practice, with a
different rhythm, with adifferent practice.
That's important.
So I see folk trying to findways to develop a command of
(34:38):
what these processes, practices,rhythms are and then innovating
them.
You know it's not cookie cutter, because I don't know what it
means to be a black man inAppalachia.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I don't know what it means to be a Black woman.
Period right.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
And so there are ways that my own gaps in
consciousness may not be able tooffer the fullness of what it
means to practice students ofcolor right.
I don't work in corporateAmerica.
I work for Black folk at aBlack church and I work for
Black folk at a predominantlynon-white seminary in New York
City.
I don't work in corporateAmerica.
(35:10):
I don't know what it means tohold my coworker, who is a white
woman, accountable for my Blackflesh, Like no, don't say you
don't see me, you do see me, yousee my Blackness and that
matters that.
You see my, so it is my.
It is my hope that people willdevelop a command, a facility
(35:31):
and a facility for what's here,but then innovate them innovate
on them, improvise on them inways that make sense for their
context and their experience.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, and Willie, Dr Willie.
Who is this book for?
Who's your audience?
Who do you want to reallybenefit from from this book?
Who are you speaking to?
Speaker 2 (35:51):
When I was writing the book, the profile I had in
mind was Moderate Christiansblack white brown Asian period.
Black white brown Asian period.
People who live in the middleand know that there's something
off, know that there's somethingwrong and wish they could do
(36:14):
something.
But they don't have thelanguage, they don't want to out
themselves, they're notcomfortable naming where they
are most impacted or how theyare most impacting in other
people's lived experiences.
That moderate Christian, whichis what I think most of American
(36:38):
Christians live, in spite ofhow loud the white evangelicals
tend to be like, they can evenstorm a Capitol and, you know,
barely go to jail.
And their pope can sit inMar-a-Lago and take government
documents that belong to thepeople as if they are his right.
You know, my hope is that thosefolk who live in purple space,
(36:58):
those folk who even who live in,and even white progressives,
can take this book and start todo the self-work that manifests
into the institutional andsystems-wide work as necessary.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Well, thank you so much, Dr Willie.
That is a phenomenal engagementwith your book.
Silencing White Noise SixPractices to Overcome Our
Inaction on Race.
This is groundbreaking.
I love the imagery and thesymbolism and the metaphor of
white noise and how widely it isadaptable across social
(37:41):
landscapes and within our church.
So thank you for both yourcritique but also your
constructive work in pointing ustoward an abolitionist
spirituality as we conclude ourpodcast for today.
Where can we purchase your book?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Right.
So you can purchase the book onAmazon, and that's available in
print, it's available indigital book and it's also
available in audio book.
So you could do that via Amazon.
But you are surely encouragedto go to the publisher, which is
Baker Publishing Group, and youcan find the book there as well
(38:21):
.
But it's sold everywhere.
Books are sold digitally, I'mtold, and there's a few places
you can also find this.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Wonderful, and I also want to put a plug in for some
independent Black bookstores.
If you can find it there,please feel free to patronize
and pick up one or two orseveral for your friends and
colleagues.
And then finally, dr Willie,where can people contact you?
How can people find you?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Sure.
So you can find me on FacebookWillie Dwayne Francois III Type
that in it's right to me AlsoTwitter and IG at Willie
Francois.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Thank you, it was so great having you.
I wish you all the best withyour book and look forward to
how it will make atransformative impact in our
world.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Thank you, Dr Nakia, for all you do making our world
better.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Again, I am your host , reverend Dr Nakia Smith-Robert
, and the Executive Director ofAbolitionist Sanctuary.
Find us on Twitter, facebookand Instagram and join our
mailing list atwwwabolitionistsanctuaryorg.
As we conclude this episode,remember that abolition is not
only a practice, but it is areligion, and here is what we
(39:37):
believe.
We believe in God of theoppressed.
We believe that Black womenshare divinity with God and
salvific qualities that are asource of wholeness and
liberation, as demonstrated byHagar, harriet, sojourner, fanny
, carol and countless others whomake a way out of no way.
We believe in a brownPalestinian Jew, the black
(39:58):
Messiah Jesus, who was profiled,policed and persecuted by the
state on trumped-up charges.
We believe that Jesus died acriminal but did not wake up one
.
He transcended criminality onthe cross and no one ever needs
to die again for us to be saved.
We believe that Jesus'.
Life and ministry teaches us toapply these abolitionist
(40:20):
virtues compassion, care,creativity, courage and
community to transform socialstructures where the last become
first and the captives are setfree.
We believe in spirit asadvocate who draws people of all
gender and sexual identities,conviction, status and other
particularities together in abeloved community.
(40:43):
We believe in a resurrection,hope that we can realize in the
here and now and that calls usinto right relationship by
restoring the human dignity ofindividuals who are criminalized
, caged and cast out.
We affirm discipleship as acall to advance a faith-based
abolitionist movement to createspiritual, legal and economic
(41:06):
sanctuaries where the vulnerablecan find refuge, deep
solidarity and flourishing.
Beyond policing, prisons andpunishment, we are abolitionist
sanctuaries, leading a coalitionto repair, restore and rebuild
a more just and equitablesociety of communal flourishing.
(41:27):
Thank you for joining us.
Stay tuned for the next episodeof Abolitionist Sanctuary
Podcast.
You can find us on Twitter,instagram, facebook or visit us
(41:53):
at wwwabolitionistsanctuaryorgyou.
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