As we continue to hold ourselves concretely accountable to follow through with action on our CSTM Strategic Plan for Racial Justice, it is crucial that CSTM faculty, staff, and students also engage in the internal reflection and work that provides the interpersonal foundation for real and lasting change. To that end, it is particularly important for those of us who are white to allow ourselves to be challenged by the voices of those who are not. With this in mind, the CSTM faculty chose this past fall to engage in reading groups--and to invite members of the administrative team to join them--around Rev. Dr. Willie James Jennings’ After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Eerdmans, 2020).
As a theologian and former academic dean in a divinity school, from page one of the book, Prof. Jennings speaks as someone who knows from a perspective behind the scenes how theological schools work. This puts him in a good position to call out the historical racial dynamics embedded in theological education in the United States and to describe how these dynamics play out among faculty, staff, and students. In After Whiteness, Prof. Jennings articulates how those dynamics influence the ideals we hold for ourselves, for our students, and for our churches.
While Prof. Jennings does some fairly heady analysis, he also utilizes real-life stories, poetry, and prayer in the book. In doing so, Jennings breaks through the academic mold to engage the hearts of his readers as well as our minds. Prof. Jennings understands the truth that the road to real change—cultural, communal, and structural change—must proceed through the holistic transformation of persons, and that this transformation involves a conversion of the heart as well as of the mind. After Whiteness engaged me intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally and invited me to question things I have always taken for granted.
The most striking example of what I’ve always taken for granted is Prof. Jennings’ figure of the white master, who embodies “white, self-sufficient masculinity” and who has historically determined what we mean when we hold up images of the ideal scholar, educator, and minister. This figure of the white master influences what we educate toward (learning outcomes), shapes our desires (what we want for ourselves and our students), and determines our institutional culture (right down to concrete policies and procedures). It is no wonder, then, that those who do not fit this figure of the white master find it difficult to navigate and belong in such a culture. For myself, I realize that I have been formed by this figure of the white master: it has indeed shaped how I was trained as an academic and influenced what I value as an educator and administrator. At the same time, I have an uneasiness with it because there are parts of me that don’t fit with it. Some of the most painful experiences in my career have occurred when I am at odds with the white master, who resides both within and outside myself.
In After Whiteness, Jennings puts forth his vision for theological education for ministry that forms future ministers for a just and anti-racist church. He suggests that the road to embodying such a vision lies through a “letting go” of the figure of the white master and moving toward a community grounded in interdependence and belonging. However, Prof. Jennings does not prescribe how we get there, or presume to know our specific context. Rather, in his workshop with the faculty at the end of the fall semester, Jennings invited us to reflect on how we see ourselves as teachers: What do we want for and from our students? How do we gather our students into a learning community that furthers those goals? More and more, Prof. Jennings suggested, our students are not asking us to master what and whom we are teaching, but rather asking us to help them weave together the fragments of themselves, of one another, and of what they are learning. What would such a teaching life look like? Prof. Jennings’ gently invited the faculty—and all of us—into this ongoing work of inner reflection with him. To be continued. . .