This is a conversation between Anthony Reddie and Al Barrett about whiteness. Weaving personal experiences with theological insights, they reflect on privilege, power, empire, race and identity, and wrestle with the need for both critical deconstruction and hopeful reimagining. It’s a nuanced and inspiring conversation between two scholar activists about the pursuit of a more just world.
We have made this conversation public domain, so you are free to turn it into an episode on your own podcast. We ask that you don’t edit the conversation, but please do feel free to add your own introduction and reflections. We also ask that you acknowledge Nomad Podcast.
Click on the download button to access the MP3 and WAV files of the interview, and guest images and bios.
QUOTES
“The phenomenon of ‘whiteness’ – its biggest power is that it’s often unnamed and just becomes the default position that then defines everything else.” – Anthony Reddie
“Christianity has played a huge part in the mapping of whiteness because Christianity essentially is a religion of empire.” – Anthony Reddie
“The last thing that people like me – that tick all the boxes of structural privilege – should be doing is imagining that we’re in the place of Jesus in the world.” – Al Barrett
“The last thing that people like me – that tick all the boxes of structural privilege – should be doing is imagining that we’re in the place of Jesus in the world.” – Al Barrett“History tells us that when you have revolution – and ‘revolution’ usually means in its popular sense ‘violent change’ – you then can’t put the violence back in the box once you’ve decided that it’s done its job and now we’ll rebuild. Violence begets violence.” – Anthony Reddie