Everyday, women in Turkey are being slaughtered for being…women.
I learned about the systemic oppression of women just before George Floyd was murdered and systemic racism came into the world’s spotlight. Understanding for the first time how a systemic problem in a patriarchal society affected me (even in small ways) opened my eyes to the monster of systemic racism and systematic oppression of those who don’t look like me.
Christians, we’ve played a significant role in this oppression of God’s dearly beloved daughters and dearly beloved people of color, and used God and the Bible to justify these individual and systemic sins. I’ve done this. To others and to myself. I’m only beginning to see and live into the fullness of who God designed me to be as a woman who bears the image of God. We must re-examine the foundations of how we view humanity, and learn to see the world and read Scripture through a lens of the narrative of the Gospel, which points to God’s heart for the liberation and restoration of all people, found in the person of Jesus.
That’s why I love the heart of womanism. It is concerned with the wholeness of all people: yes for women, but also for their children and their men. It recognizes that God’s heart is for the wholeness and flourishing of women, men, and children of all races, nationalities, religions, sexualities, education levels, and socioeconomic statuses. But it begins by listening to the voices on the margins…to those who have been oppressed by systems that dominant society invented to keep them from flourishing.
Everyday, people of color are having their lives ripped out of their hands for being…POC. Police brutality, mass incarceration, and the war on drugs are just a few of the systems in place to keep them from thriving as members of dominant society, through which we have said their lives matter less because they aren’t white.
Everyday, we’re raising children inside systems that are inherently broken and teaching them to carry on the function of these broken systems in their everyday life.
This must end. We must engage in the fight for wholeness. And once we reach our own individual liberation, we must not stop.
Image: The Quad - Daily Bruin