Category Archives: Reparations

Just Politics Catholic Podcast Season 2

Season 2 of Just Politics Podcast is Complete – Listen Now!

Season 2 of Just Politics Podcast is Complete – Listen Now!

August 24, 2023

After a successful inaugural season of the Just Politics podcast, produced in collaboration with U.S. Catholic magazine, we came back for an exciting second season!  

Our hosts Sister Eilis McCulloh, H.M.Colin Martinez Longmore, and Joan F. Neal spoke with more advocates, Catholic Sisters, scholars, faith leaders, and even a Vatican official about how we can transform our politics for the common good.  

In season 2, which wrapped up in May, our hosts covered topics ranging from Pope Francis and integral ecology to the urgent, Spirit-filled call for economic justice, health care access, and women’s leadership.  

You can find the podcast on the U.S. Catholic website, as well as on Apple PodcastsSpotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe, and join the conversation about #JustPoliticsPod on social media!  

Also check out Just Politics press at www.uscatholic.org/justpolitics where you can also sign up for email updates, learn more about each episode, and find additional reading on each episode’s topics. 

COMING SOON: Season 3 of Just Politics podcast drops Monday, Sept. 11!  

Reparations United Rally Concertgoers Send an H.R.40 Action Alert

Reparations United Rally Concertgoers Send an H.R.40 Action Alert

Reparations United Rally Concertgoers Send an H.R.40 Action Alert

No matter what we look like, where we live, or how our ancestors came to our country, we should all feel safe in our communities and earn the resources we need to take care of ourselves and the ones we love.

Sadly, for hundreds of years, U.S. lawmakers have failed to reckon with the original sin of slavery and its legacy of racist violence and laws — and they’ve created policies designed to keep Black people from healthy wages, homeownership opportunities, and trapped in a discriminatory criminal legal system. This has hurt our whole country. Instead of offering real solutions to decrease violence, economic disparity, and inequitable health and education outcomes in Black communities, some lawmakers and lobbyists use power and money to continue a harmful agenda and shame and blame Black people for suffering in inequitable economic and political systems.

We know the misery that slavery has wrought. Now we need to experience the healing blessing that repair and redress can provide. Let the Administration know that the U.S. needs an H.R.40 reparations commission.

When we come together, as we did recently to gain equitable policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, we can influence policy that will transform our country into a multiracial, multi-faith democracy. Join us and send notice to President Biden that we need an H.R.40 study commission so all of us in our country thrive — no exceptions!

NETWORK is grateful for Reparations United’s reparatory efforts and advocacy. We are proud to help Reparations United Rally concertgoers send an H.R.40 action alert to the President.

Blogs

Continue to pray for Reparations

Sister Anita Baird, DHM

Sr. Anita is a member of the Religious Congregation of the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary having served as Regional Superior, Provincial Councilor, and most recently as United States Provincial. A trail blazer and history maker, Sister Anita became the first African American to serve as Chief of Staff to the Archbishop of Chicago in 1997. In 2000, Cardinal Francis George appointed her the founding director of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office for Racial Justice.

She is a past president of the National Black Sisters’ Conference,  and recipient of the organization’s Harriet Tubman “Moses of Her People” Award. Since 2001, Anita has traveled the country preaching at parish revivals, directing retreats, and presenting anti-racism workshops.

Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein

Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein has written and taught extensively about the case for slavery reparations in Torah and Rabbinic literature, including in a 2018 article, “The Torah Case for Reparations”. Aryeh is a fifth-generation Chicago South Sider who works as National Jewish Educator for Avodah and Educational Consultant for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.

Aryeh is a Senior Editor of Jewschool.com and a member of the Tzedek Lab. Aryeh studied at several institutions of higher rabbinical studies and was ordained by Rabbi Daniel Landes’s Yashrut Institute.

Dr. Iva Carruthers

Dr. Iva E. Carruthers is General Secretary of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (SDPC), an interdenominational organization within the African American faith tradition focused on justice and equity issues. SDPC is both a 501c3 and United Nations Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). As founding CEO and a trustee of SDPC, she has steered the organization as a unique, influential and esteemed network of faith based advocates and activists, clergy and lay. Former director of the Black Theology Project, Dr. Carruthers has a long history of teaching, engagement in community development initiatives and social justice ministry, fostering interdenominational and interfaith dialogue and leading study tours for the university and church throughout in the United States, Caribbean, South America and Africa.

Dr. Carruthers is Professor Emeritus and former Chairperson of the Sociology Department at Northeastern Illinois University and was founding President of Nexus Unlimited, an information and educational technology firm. She was appointed to the White House Advisory Council on the internet, “National Information Infrastructure”, Mega Project and the educational software she developed was awarded a ComputerWorld Smithsonian Award. She is also founder of Lois House, an urban retreat center, Chicago, Illinois.

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis 

The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis—Author, Activist, and Public Theologian—is the Senior Minister at Middle Collegiate Church, a multiracial, welcoming, and inclusive congregation in New York City that is driven by Love. Period. Jacqui is the author of several books, including her latest: Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World. Jacqui earned her Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and earned a M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in Psychology and Religion from Drew University. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she is the first African American and first woman senior minister in the Collegiate Church of New York, which was founded in 1628.

Middle Church and Jacqui have been featured in media such as The TODAY Show; Good Morning America; The Takeaway; The Brian Lehrer Show; and in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Her podcasts include Love.Period., which is produced by the Center for Action and Contemplation, and The Four—a fearsome faith foursome talking about Black Life, Love, Power and Joy, with Otis Moss III, Lisa Sharon Harper and Michael-Ray Mathews.

Rabbi Jonah Pesner

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner serves as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. He has led the Religious Action Center since 2015. Rabbi Pesner also serves as Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism, a position to which he was appointed to in 2011. Named one of the most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine, he is an inspirational leader and tireless advocate for social justice.

Rabbi Pesner’s work has focused on encouraging Jewish communities to reach across lines of race, class, and faith in campaigns for social justice. In 2006, he founded Just Congregations (now incorporated into the Religious Action Center), which engaged clergy, professional, and volunteer leaders in interfaith efforts in pursuit of social justice. Rabbi Pesner was a primary leader in the successful Massachusetts campaign for health care access that has provided health care coverage to hundreds of thousands and which became a nationwide model for reform. Over the course of his career, he has also led and supported campaigns for racial justice, economic opportunity, immigration reform, LGBTQ equality, human rights, and a variety of other causes. He is dedicated to building bridges to collectively confront anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate and bigotry.

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STOP ANTI-ASIAN RACISM & CHINA BASHING RALLY at Chinatown Archway at 7th and H Street, NW, Washington DC on Saturday afternoon, 27 March 2021 by Elvert Barnes Photography

AAPI Heritage Month Invites Reflection and Reparation

AAPI Heritage Month Invites Reflection and Reparation

Jarrett Smith
May 1, 2023

The human brain is excellent at recognizing threats. If something upsets the patterns, we associate with normal – or fits into a pattern we associate with as harm – our fight-or-flight response is triggered, and we react accordingly. Our Neanderthal cousins’ ways of processing the world live on. But this very old impulse has caused a lot of harm in recent centuries because human beings have developed a destructive tendency to see one another as a threat, even when they have no reason to believe this.

A terrible example from the last century is U.S. government’s internment of Japanese Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II. In the name of national security, entire communities were disrupted. People lost everything. And the harm is still in living memory of the young Japanese Americans who joined their families in the camps where the government forcibly relocated them.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, so it’s good to remember such chapters of U.S. history and apply their hard lessons to our world today. At NETWORK, we take from it a couple of key lessons. First, it’s sober context for the terrible border policies of recent years, including family separation, kids in cages, Title 42, and the ongoing inability or refusal to restore basic function to our immigration and asylum systems. Racist policies are sadly nothing new.

But we can also take encouragement in the fact that, in 1981, in recognition of the harm done by Japanese American internment, the U.S. government gave Japanese Americans $20,000 in reparations, along with an apology from President Ronald Reagan. This move served as one inspiration for H.R. 40, the bill that would form a commission to study the question of reparations for Black Americans. NETWORK is part of the coalition that endorses this bill, and our work on the Racial Wealth and Income Gap and Tax Justice for All demonstrates the pernicious structural and intergenerational racial inequities that would need to be addressed as part of reparations.

And sadly, we have far more recent examples of anti-Asian hate in the U.S., especially the ugly and paranoid response of many people to the COVID-19 pandemic. Facing the peril of a new and dangerous respiratory disease, many people projected their fear onto a group of people, an “other.” This too requires solidarity, repudiation, and real examination of both the harm and its causes.

I believe that human beings have the capacity to learn and grow past the sin of racism and all its ugly patterns. We shouldn’t be recognizing threats in one another. We should be recognizing humanity. Humanity brings a vibrant diversity that is gift. And in Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, that gift is so abundantly clear. Our friends and neighbors of Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan, Indian, and so many other Asian and Pacific Islander backgrounds are all gift, and the appropriate response to a gift is not fear, but gratitude.

This Asian American and Pacific Islander month is a call to reflection on the actions, past and present, of the society in which we live, and an invitation to repair the harms, to break the patterns and cycles of racism. Breaking those habits and finding areas to collaborate with marginalized groups seeking reparatory justice would truly put us in a place to celebrate the future we want.

Jarrett Smith is a NETWORK Government Relations Advocate.

We Have Power to Use

We Have Power to Use

Positive Change is Not Inevitable; Nor is it Beyond Our Grasp

Min. Christian Watkins
April 4, 2023

In a world that is moving and changing seemingly at an uneasy pace, feelings of hopelessness and helplessness are quite pervasive. With social media hyperstimulation, news cycle fatigue, and electronics exhaustion, it can be paralyzing to do anything other than what is necessary just to exist. When billionaires can financially influence elections, nominations to the Supreme Court, and entire media platforms in hopes of steering events according to their will, the power of the individual can be easily neglected. But regardless, one thing the sacred texts and my mother constantly remind me of is that we have more power than we think.

The system of democracy has been credited to the ancient Greeks. Demos kratos literally translates to “people power.” I constantly see the power that one person’s voice can have in the halls of power. Every time I engage Congress and the Administration, whether through meetings or direct public actions, when people show up, when people use their presence and voice for good, good things happen. This greatly informs how NETWORK approaches all of our key policy areas like criminal legal reform, voting rights, and reparatory justice. It’s all about what we decide to do with the power of the voice and the presence we possess.

April 4 marks the 55th anniversary of the martyrdom of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. An assassin’s bullet may have killed the man, but it couldn’t kill the dreams, prayers, and work of righteous people. One aspect of his legacy that still resonates is how a young Baptist minister from meager beginnings was able to be such a catalyzing force in the movement for good in U.S. politics. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ‘60s culminated in the passage of civil rights, voting rights, and fair housing for Black and impoverished people all throughout our country. Dr. King knew how to build power, through and with people, on and for purpose.

Gains made back then are still active struggles today. As my mother says, it’s an unbearable reality that the rights she marched and voted for in the ‘60s are still in question today. But it is soul-settling to know that Dr. King’s advocacy and pastoral legacy through Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church is alive and well through the life and witness of Rev. Senator Raphael G. Warnock.

It is a blessing that Senator Warnock does not stand alone as a high-profile person of faith engaging with U.S. politics. Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO), Jeanné Lewis of Faith in Public Life, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, Rev. Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner, and Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Haynes, III are just a few examples of people I believe embody Dr. King’s legacy of faithful public witness and leadership.

Their witness matters especially because we see today too many bad examples that confine Christian political belief to be represented by a small but extremist segment. Most of them fall under the heading of Christian nationalism — the belief that the U.S. is meant to be ruled by white Christians to serve white Christians. That belief system is contrary to the lofty principles and unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness enshrined in our country’s founding documents.

A tragic consequence of this – in addition to the exclusion, oppression, and loss of life that are the natural consequences of nationalist policy — is that religious faith in the public square becomes synonymous with intolerance and hatred, hostile to other belief systems expressed throughout the nation’s citizenry. It is unfortunate that the faith-filled justice-seeker is a strange, unknown construction to many people in the U.S., especially among younger generations.

As a Black man from the South and minister of the Gospel, I find hope and strength in the model of Dr. King. He reminds us: “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” It is a sin — a deadly one — to assume the cause is lost and not take any action at all. It is a virtue to keep showing up. It is a virtue to honor your God-given gifts through presence and witness. This is how we ultimately push past hopelessness and helplessness in our lives. May your power compel you to keep on showing up for justice, peace, and equity.

Min. Christian Watkins is a NETWORK Government Relations Advocate and minister of The United Methodist Church.

This column will be published in our upcoming Quarter 2 2023 issue of Connection.

“Every time I engage Congress and the Administration, whether through meetings or direct public actions, when people show up, when people use their presence and voice for good, good things happen.”

Your Advocacy for Reparations is Appreciated!

Your Advocacy for Reparations is Appreciated!

Thank You for Writing a Letter to President Biden for Reparations

NETWORK Justice-seekers recently came together to fill President Biden’s mailbox at the White House with requests for a reparations commission. Specifically, for an executive order for a federal reparations commission to study reparations like the one proposed in H.R.40. Below, Jarrett Smith, NETWORK’s Government Relations Advocate who lobbies on behalf of reparatory justice issues, offers appreciation for this faith-filled advocacy.

Your Advocacy for Reparations is Appreciated!

Our Values Root Our Call for Reparations

All of us want the freedom to live where we want and to have the resources we need to care for the people we love. For too long, law makers in D.C., state politicians, and businesses, have created inequity in home ownership, the job market, safe police tactics, and more — harming Black economic progress. Some blame and shame Black people for the negative outcomes that flow from this inequitable treatment.

But we know that this is wrong. By divine right and according to our Constitution, all of us are to live free, equitable, and thriving lives. To do this, we must reckon with the original sin of slavery–as it is at the root of racist policy, abuse, and violence that we see in our politics, churches, and economy today. The time is now for a federal reparations study commission.

Thank you for your Spirit-filled photos

Thank you, your words mattered!

Beloved Field,
Thank you for participating in the President’s Day Letter Writing Campaign to the White House. Your advocacy for reparations is appreciated — especially at this moment when the creation of an H.R.40-style reparations commission is up against a tight deadline. The Network team and I are  honored that you significantly bolstered our efforts to mobilize the Biden Administration to sign an executive order to create an H.R.40-style reparations commission.

Many justice-seekers shared selfies and candid photos featuring letters, mailboxes, and post offices. It was wonderful to see your Spirit-filled posts on social media and in our NETWORK email inbox. I am delighted to share the images here.

Your actions during Black History Month came shortly after Representative Shelia Jackson Lee (D-TX) reintroduced H.R.40 in January 2023 in the 118th Congress. This year marks 34 years since Representative John Conyers (D-MI) first introduced the bill. Mr. Conyers and several advocates, like the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, based the proposal on the President Reagan-signed legislation that gave Japanese interned during World War II reparations from the United States Federal Government.

Since last year, NETWORK Lobby has co-sponsored and led numerous direct actions for a reparations commission. We believe that this work is sacred. The Reconstruction effort of 1865-1877 gave our country an opportunity to find a path to equality, however, politics were chosen over humanity. White supremacy defeated repair. While redress is long-overdue, H.R.40 offers another opportunity to finally begin to repair our country’s original sin.

I would be remiss if I didn’t thank you for praying for reparations during Black History Month, Together as well as sending letters to President Biden. Your prayers are still needed! I kindly suggest re-watching Faith in Reparations to guide your prayers and reflections. This fantastic  event featured Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic faith leaders — and the presentation of a Sister Letter signed by Women Religious — calling for President to implement a federal reparations commission.

I’m thrilled with what we’ve accomplished together, and I know we will do so much more!

In solidarity,

Jarrett

Jarrett Smith, Government Relations Advocate

Join the Campaign!

Let us know you will send a letter to President Biden.

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President's Day Letter Writing Campaign to President Biden

President’s Day Letter Writing Campaign to President Biden

President's Day Letter Writing Campaign to President Biden

This campaign has ended. Please read here to see pictures from our advocates and to view a special message from Jarrett Smith, Government Relations Advocate.

For over a year, NETWORK supporters have attended educational webinars, prayer vigils, and other reparations-related events to learn about, and advocate for, an executive order for a federal reparations commission to study reparations like the one proposed in H.R.40. And now, justice-seekers are coming together to fill the White House’s MAILBOX with a President’s Day Letter Writing Campaign to President Biden.

President's Day Letter Writing Campaign to President Biden

FEB. 17 to MAR. 3

Justice-seekers are filling the MAILBOX at the White House during NETWORK’s President’s Day Letter Writing Campaign to President Biden to urge him to create a federal reparations study commission by April. Will you join the campaign?

This campaign has ended. Please read here to see pictures from our advocates and to view a special message from Jarrett Smith, Government Relations Advocate.

Here’s what to include in your letter to President Biden (written by hand or printed from your computer):

  • Introduce yourself. Be sure to include your religious order, career title, or any involvement in your community. Also share your city and state.
  • Choose a few reasons why it is time to establish a Commission to Study Reparations. Scroll below to download H.R.40 Talking Points.
  • Highlight why you support establishing an H.R.40-style reparations commission and detail any anti-racism work you’ve done.
  • If you have a story to share that would let the President know how a reparations study would benefit you, your family, or your community, share it!

Here’s what to do after you’ve written your letter:

  • Take a selfie (photo) with your letter at the mailbox or post office to share with NETWORK
  • Share your selfie with us: On your social media accounts, share with #HR40NOW or #ReparationsNow; or email us at info@networklobby.org.
  • Stamp your correspondence and mail it to the White House

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Join the Campaign!

This campaign has ended. Please read here to see pictures from our advocates and to view a special message from Jarrett Smith, Government Relations Advocate.

Our Values Root Our Call for Reparations

All of us want the freedom to live where we want and to have the resources we need to care for the people we love. For too long, law makers in D.C., state politicians, and businesses, have created inequity in home ownership, the job market, safe police tactics, and more — harming Black economic progress. Some blame and shame Black people for the negative outcomes that flow from this inequitable treatment.

But we know that this is wrong. By divine right and according to our Constitution, all of us are to live free, equitable, and thriving lives. To do this, we must reckon with the original sin of slavery–as it is at the root of racist policy, abuse, and violence that we see in our politics, churches, and economy today. The time is now for a federal reparations study commission.

Talking Points

When writing your letter, consider using these talking points:

What Would Establishing an H.R.40-Style Commission Do?

  • H.R.40 sets a framework that would establish a 15-member commission to study the effects of chattel slavery on African slaves and their African American descendants. This panel cannot grant money directly.

 Why NETWORK Supports H.R.40 Commission

  • Reparations is where we must start in order to chart a pathway to a just future
  • Slavery didn’t end, it merely evolved (a quote from Reparations For Slavery)
  • President Biden promised during his presidential campaign to support a study of reparations
  • H.R.40 embodies cornerstones of our political advocacy: dismantling systemic racism and cultivating inclusive community
  • President Biden must act on their commitment to dismantling racist laws, policies and frameworks, and to advance racial equity
  • The Catholic Church played a major role in the Atlantic slave trade and supported slavery in the States, Jim Crow, and other forms of discrimination. The Catholic Church gave slave ownership moral absolution, and helped it propagate.
  • Catholic teaching demands confession, penance and restitution when a sin has been committed
  • Catholic Social Justice advocates must stand up to diminish the impact of historical and contemporary racism in today’s political, social and economic systems, frameworks, and institutions
  • The sinful legacy of white supremacy and the enduring racial wealth gap must no longer be allowed to deny Black people good health, educational, and economic outcomes.
Pledge to Pray for Reparations

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Pray for Reparations during Black History Month 2023

Pray for Reparations during Black History Month 2023

Pledge to pray for reparations NOW!

Pray for Reparations

During Black History Month, we invite you to pray that President Biden establishes a Commission to Study Reparations. The H.R. 40 commission is a research study that will be the development of a report and a set of data that will quantify and assess the damage systemic racism has inflicted on the descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States. The study will also make recommendations on the path to repair this damage.

For the past year, you have attended Vigils for Reparation and educated yourselves about H.R. 40 (Commission to Study Reparations).

NETWORK partners in faith, let’s join together and pray that the path to reparations begins this month.

See the prayer here!

Pledge to Pray for Reparations

Joining our prayers, we can urge President Biden to sign the executive order for a reparations commission.

Watch Faith in Reparations Again...and Share it with Friends and Family

Faith leaders led a Spirit-filled call for reparations in November 2022. Watch, re-watch, and share!

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Racism, Reconciliation, and Repair

Racism, Reconciliation, and Repair

Racial Justice is Central to Renewing Society, Politics, and Church

February 1, 2023
On June 15, 2022, NETWORK advocates organized a prayer vigil for reparations at St. Aloysius-St. Agatha Parish in Cleveland, Ohio.
On June 15, 2022, NETWORK advocates organized a prayer vigil for reparations at St. Aloysius-St. Agatha Parish in Cleveland, Ohio.

After a consequential election year, the re-election of Senator Rev. Raphael Warnock of Georgia finalized the composition of the 118th Congress. His election, in many ways, symbolizes how the U.S. struggle toward progress is bound up in how the country deals with racism, white supremacy, and reparatory justice. The election of a Black man in a former Confederate state, while certainly symbolically powerful, doesn’t capture the work undone in securing racial justice in U.S. politics, including in elections themselves.

The first cornerstone of NETWORK’s Build Anew agenda is “Dismantle Systemic Racism,” and its placement rightly suggests that racism must be confronted at every level of our social structures for economic injustices and other wrongs to be fully addressed. The many in-person and online actions taken by NETWORK in 2022 also reflected the central prioritization of racial justice in Catholic Social Justice.

Talk About White Supremacy

Fr. Bryan Massingale

In the second installment of NETWORK’s  White Supremacy and American Christianity event in October, Fr. Bryan Massingale of Fordham University, author of “Racial Justice and the Catholic Church,” dialogued with Dr. Robert P. Jones, founder and CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute. They discussed data gathered by Jones that showed almost half of white evangelicals and almost four in 10 white Catholics in the U.S. believe that their country should be a place that privileges people of European descent and that God intends this.

“That attitude has become hardened and more dangerous,” said Massingale. “What we’re seeing now is a willingness among those who hold that ideology to use any means necessary to achieve that end… a country that says only white Americans are true Americans and all others are Americans only by exception or toleration or not really at all.”

Massingale referenced the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, with a growing number of people questioning the legitimacy of elections themselves and adopting the position of “If my candidate loses, then by defi­nition it was an illegitimate election.” This, coupled with very open use of voter restrictions and voter suppression, as well as the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, made clear to Massingale that “any means necessary” includes political violence.

Concerned that the normalization of political violence is the next stage after voter suppression and election denial, Massingale cited the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, drawing a connection to the rhetoric of Christian nationalist rallies across the country in the weeks preceding the attack.

“God’s angel of death is coming,” Massingale noted one rally speaker proclaiming in reference to their political opponents. “Let’s connect the dots here. … One needs to understand that even though people don’t necessarily call for overt political violence, if you say enough about divinely inspired victory and gun rights and God’s angel of death, then we can’t be surprised when people take violent means.”

Massingale also cited the “failure of religious leaders to connect the dots,” noting that Catholic bishops offered only cursory statements in response to the Pelosi attack.

Dr. Ansel Augustine

Massingale’s observations also reflect a Black Catholic doing the work of educating a white, predominately Catholic audience, about the pernicious implications of racism. This is an unfair burden placed on Black people, says Dr. Ansel Augustine — to educate colleagues on racism, while continuing to endure its effects.

Author of the new book, “Leveling the Praying Field: Can the Church We Love, Love Us Back?,” Augustine told Connection, “Ministering in the church, which at times perpetuates this ‘original  sin,’ constantly has us questioning and renewing our commitment to the faith,” Augustine told Connection. “It is tough having to be an ‘expert’ on something that is trying to destroy your dignity as a human being, especially within an institution that is supposed to empower you and be your safe space to simply ‘exist.’”

James Conway, a cradle Catholic in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, notes that the last two years have been different for Black Catholics.

“People no longer seem to be afraid to show any racist tendencies that they may have secretly harbored for years,” he told Connection. “Now it’s just blatant and in your face under the guise of being cultural ignorance.”

He also sees “an uptick in instances of racial aggression and microaggressions against minorities in the church.” He was told by a now former member of his parish that, because they sing gospel music, she would be taking her money and her family elsewhere, and that the parish would be closed within six months without her fi­nancial support. Two years later, the parish is still open.

Focus on Reparations

Sr. Patricia Rogers, OP

The church not living up to its own teaching on human dignity when it comes to race is a problem that goes back centuries, Sr. Patricia Rogers, OP shared in a conversation on NETWORK’s “Just Politics” podcast in November.

She asked, “Why is it that Black Catholic children were denied a Catholic education before the Civil Rights Movement? I never saw a Black nun, and then I learned that the first Black nuns had to establish their own congregations because they were not welcome. And it still makes me wonder, what happened to the dignity of all humans? You just don’t know what to do with that sometimes.”

This raises the question of reparatory justice for harm inflicted over generations and the need for reparations in the U.S. today. In that area, NETWORK has hosted and participated in numerous events, including a June action near the White House calling on President Biden to take executive action to set up a commission on reparations, as called for in H.R. 40, a bill first introduced in Congress in 1989.

Cleo and Yvonne Nettles speak at the June 15 prayer vigil for reparations at St.
Aloysius-St. Agatha Parish in Cleveland.

In June, NETWORK also helped organize an in-person event Repair and Redress: A Vigil for Reparations at St. Aloysius-St. Agatha Parish in Cleveland.  The parish and school community, Sisters, the Cleveland NETWORK Advocates Team, justice-seekers, and NETWORK staff together made a stand for reparations for Black Americans and called for a reparations commission by Juneteenth.

Rev. Traci Blackmon of The United Church of Christ spoke to the theological call to repair a society broken by the sin of chattel slavery and the racism that has followed in its wake, as well as of the need to atone and provide redress.

Rev. Traci Blackmon, Associate General
Minister of Justice & Local Church Ministries
for The United Church of Christ, speaks at
NETWORK‘s reparations vigil in Cleveland.

“The reason we have not reckoned with racism in this country,” she said, is that “decision-makers have decided that God cannot be Black, that God cannot be Brown, that God indeed must be white. And therefore we have created a fractured… society.”

NETWORK continued the push to set up a reparations commission by executive action following the November elections with the event Faith in Reparations.”

“I’m so sick of living in a nation that treats white rage as a sacrament and black grief as a threat,” Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church, said at that event.

“White rage is why we had Jim Crow. White rage is why we had redlining. All of the structures in our nation are built around white rage’s disdain for Black people’s beauty and body and joy,” she continued. “I’m so tired of the permanent pernicious nature of white supremacy in this nation that is now in a wicked dance with Christianity, blessing with Jesus’s name and in the name of God this vile hatred that is always directed to my people.”

Sr. Anita Baird, DHM

Sr. Anita Baird, DHM, founding director of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office for Racial Justice, said:

“Reparations are…about America fulfilling her promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice for all. And until this injustice is acknowledged and rectified, there can be no healing and no moving forward. The Biden administration must uphold its promise to African Americans. It is a matter of justice. It is a matter of life. Now is time.”

The NETWORK community will continue calling on Congress and President Biden to act on their commitments to dismantle racist laws, policies and frameworks, and advance racial equity.

Leticia Ochoa Adams and Elissa Hackerson contributed to this feature.

This story was originally published in the 1st Quarter issue of Connection. Download the full issue here.

H.R.40 Re-Introduced in the 118th Congress

H.R.40 Re-Introduced in the 118th Congress

Update:

On January 24, 2023, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey introduced S.40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, legislation that would establish a commission to consider proposals for reparations for African American descendants of slavery. The legislation is the Senate companion to H.R. 40, introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18).

Jarrett Smith
January 11, 2023

On the first day of the 118th Congress, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) reintroduced H.R.40 with a speech on the House floor. In her speech, Rep. Lee noted, “H.R.40  is a crucial piece of legislation because it goes beyond exploring the economic implications of slavery and segregation. It is a holistic bill in the sense that it seeks to establish a commission to also examine the moral and social implications of slavery.

H.R.40 was first introduced in 1989 by former Representative John Conyers (D-MI) and has been introduced in every Congress since. In the last Congress, H.R.40 passed out of the House Judiciary Committee for the first time in its history, however, it failed to receive a vote on the House floor.

NETWORK, and our multi-faith coalition partners, strongly support the passage of H.R.40, however, given the reality of the divided Congress, we also call on President Biden to establish a commission on reparations via Executive Order.

A table in front of the White House holds a large letter with signatures at the bottom and candlesLast year, more than 2,000 Catholic Sisters and Associates sent a letter to President Biden, urging him to fulfil his campaign promise to support reparations. The letter followed a months-long campaign to build support for reparations with vigils organized by NETWORK advocates to pray and act for reparations. The vigils were held across the country in-person and online with local and national faith leaders.

Creating a commission to study and develop reparations proposals, as outlined in H.R.40, is the only policy that will lead to concrete proposals for repairing the damage that the United States government has inflicted on Black people. Its passage will allow us to move towards dismantling white supremacy and towards repair so that we can build anew together.

Catholic Social Teaching is clear: racism is a sin. Our faith teaches us to reject the immoral system of white supremacy and to work for truth-telling and repair. We can no longer deny the sins of the past and its ongoing implications Black people experience every day. NETWORK urges Congress to support and pass H.R.40 in the 118th Congress.