Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening and is transcribed from Patreon version of the conversation. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Lisa Sharon Harper 0:00
I think what I realized is that identity itself has been mangled, and twisted, and covered over. And it's one of the reasons why our nation has really, kind of, given up the project of trying to figure out who we are. And we're so future oriented. We're so future focused, and it's all about “well get your stuff now.” But we're getting stuff in a state that's unanchor, it's not tethered to actual truth, to land, to people, to stories that actually happened. Instead, it's all about dreaming forward but in an untethered state. Which becomes mostly about domination. In order to succeed then you have to dominate the other. That has become our story as a nation.
Seth Price 1:05
When I turn on the news, or the radio, or shoot YouTube, or Twitter or insert media form wherever you'd like to, I am bombarded with history. A lot of that history is edited, highly. The textbooks are edited, our church history is edited, your history, your family history, the history that you put on Facebook and Twitter and the other social medias, all highly edited. That's not a problem, right? I don't think it is. But it is important that we understand that it's edited. And it's important that, somewhere, we're willing to deal with the inconvenient truths of what that edit has done to the way that we see the world.
In this week's episode, you'll hear, Lisa Sharon Harper say something that has stayed with me, she called the church, the arbiter of oppression. Now, I don't know if that's a word that you use frequently. It is not one that I use frequently. And in the midst of figuring out kind of what that word meant, I realized that it meant it was somebody that both endorses, perpetuates, and takes ownership by making it okay, that “something happens”. Like the principal is the arbiter of everything that happens at the school. You're the arbiter of what happens in your life, hopefully, etc. This is the Can I Say This at Church Podcast, and I am Seth. And this week, Lisa Sharon Harper is on the show. She wrote a book called Fortune. And it took me much time to read through her book. Because a lot of the history in her book is the history of her family. It's the history of the state that I currently live in. And it was new history. For me. It was history that both infuriated me. I felt unable to be angry in the right way. And I felt ashamed that I didn't know.
And I think that's okay, but I just like to name that. And now that I do know, I tell people, you may get offended at some of the things that in this episode, you may not. Maybe this is new information, maybe it's not. And so I hope that you enjoy just a little snip-it of a conversation that Lisa and I had about her book fortune, which is really the story of her family's history and how that impacts her. The story of how the history of our church and our country impacted her family and how that impacts you and I today let's go.
Seth Price 4:13
Lisa Sharon Harper, welcome to the show. We finally made it work. Thank you for your flexibility with the scheduling. And also I apologize for my inability to be flexible. I referenced a minute ago that I work at a bank. We're in the middle of a merger. There's just a lot going on. So apologies, but welcome. I'm glad you're here this morning.
Lisa Sharon Harper 4:31
Thank you so much. I'm actually really looking forward to this conversation.
Seth Price 4:35
Good. Well, hopefully nobody's told you anything about me it's better that way. Nothing to live up to. (Lisa laughs)
Um, well good. So I always like to begin just with with an understanding that maybe not everyone that is listening knows who you are. So just briefly, who and what are you?
Lisa Sharon Harper 4:51
Who and what am I? (through laugh)
I human being and I'm a human being who's whose alarm just went off telling me to be on this podcast. (chuckles)
So my name is Lisa Sharon Harper. I am the president and founder of Freedom Road. Freedom Road is a consulting group that specializes in shrinking the narrative gap between us. And we do that as our primary strategy for how to move justice forward in the world in ways that don't have to do two steps back and then to do one step forward every 20 years, every generation. So we believe that part of the reason why we keep coming up to moments like 2016, when when America elected Donald Trump, I don't know how your listeners feel about him. But for me as an African American woman, the election of Donald Trump literally gave shivers…I mean, I got…I got, I froze on on election night when it was announced. And I felt like I had just seen, I felt like the permission to thrive had been drained from my body. Literally. That's how I felt that night.
But we don't have to come to that moment, every 20 years, every generation, we can reconcile our narratives, and therefore because we are all on the same page about who we are and how we got here, have a common vision for what it will look like to actually move America forward to becoming a greater and greater nation.
So I am a speaker, a writer, a consultant an activist. In the time of Ferguson and Charlottesville, I was there on the front lines, pushing for the powers that be, whether they be the police or the alt right, to abide by and honor the inherent dignity of all people.
Seth Price 6:54
Yeah, yeah, definitely. (dog barks)
Lisa Sharon Harper 6:58
And theres my dog! I’m a dog owner too!
Seth Price 7:00
I remember you being…for those listening, I'm leaving the dog in. I'm not editing it out.
Lisa Sharon Harper 7:02
Oh that's great!
Seth Price 7:04
Why not? And Dasher if you would like to contribute, feel free. Dasher is our smallest one.
Lisa Sharon Harper 7:06
Her name is Babe. And she was a rescue dog. And we've just finished her training like a week ago. So she's doing pretty well.
Seth Price 7:14
Babe is now in the show notes. Also a guest! (laughs)
Um, yeah, I remember you. So I actually live right outside of Charlottesville. I work in Charlottesville.
Lisa Sharon Harper 7:25
Oh, wow.
Seth Price 7:28
Which made reading a lot of the parts of your book that you're here to discuss a bit. Like I didn't grow up in Charlottesville. I grew up in Western Texas. But yeah, I remember you being at…where were you at St. Paul's?
Lisa Sharon Harper 7:39
Yeah, St. Paul's, preaching.
Seth Price 7:41
We were actually supposed to go over there and play with the kids. There's an outside water park down in the older sections of Charlottesville that's free to get into on a hot day. And we did not go. Instead we stayed at home because I was like, I'm not very hot. I'm not going over there.
Lisa Sharon Harper 7:57
I remember the moment when we were told, you know, we were told if you go out in the street, the police have said they can't protect you, and they won't protect you. So you have to know you're taking your life into your own hands. You could die.
And I remember sitting there, literally sitting on the front pew at the church, and asking God, what should I do? Because I knew my mom was going to be going into surgery. She was going to need my help. I was supposed to be the one helping her. And what if I die? Like that literally was what went through my head. And what I heard God say was be, literally I heard this like still small voice in my head, that said, “Be present. Be present, and walk. Walk forward.” So I joined the 80 other faith leaders who locked arms and walked up to Emancipation Park. And that day is history now.
Seth Price 8:57
Yeah, yeah, I've eaten lunch at that park. That's where I started my banking career was downtown Charlottesville, right next to the courthouse. You know, a block away. Like I've never been. What's the word? Ashamed isn't the word. I don't know what the word is. I don't really have a word but it's and still being here in Charlottesville, it's still spoken about daily and is equally still argued about daily. And I’ll just stare at people be like I don't what do you…why are you even arguing about this? What is really what's wrong with you? Anyway, not why you're here. Although you wrote about it briefly in the book, but um, but yeah.
So you wrote a book that at least it was very hard for me to read. Because my history knowledge of many of the things that you write about in this book is non-existent, being that I was educated in Texas. Like a lot of the laws that you write about in Maryland, and in Virginia, and then they're like, “oh, but we wrote the law wrong. This isn't helpful. Let's rewrite it because”, you know, as a parent, I do that we had a rule you'd didn't clean your room new rule!
Lisa Sharon Harper 10:03
New rule! Exactly!
Seth Price 10:05
But this isn't parenting. So what is the book Fortune that you've wrote? Because, how long did this take to write? Because this seems heartbreak, like just reading your story. And that's not just your story. It's a story of millions of people, it's gut wrenching.
Lisa Sharon Harper 10:22
Well, well, first of all, thank you so much for the honor of reading it. Not everyone picks up a book and actually read. So I appreciate that. And I wrote it, because I really literally, I felt called to write it. I felt called to write it.
And it was my family's story (that) took 30 years to research. And I'm still researching and genealogy is the kind of thing that literally never ends, because there's just all these rabbit trails you can follow. And questions, there's a million questions that come up. The more you find out the more questions surface, right. So, but 30 years to research and about four years to write two years to write the proposal and two years to write the book. Which is very unusual for me, because all my previous books only took about a month or two to write. So this was a real labor, a real labor of love.
And the law that you're referring to that got changed was really one of the things that was like, Whoa! Like, it was kind of a game changer. When I did that. First of all, we realized that my my seven times great grandmother, Fortune McGee Game, or Game McGee, depending on what you're reading, that she was a mixed race woman. And as a result, her body absorbed the trauma of those very first race laws in Maryland. And those laws were created in order to solve a problem on the ground; as all laws are. I mean, I've learned a lot just about lawmaking. Right, and I got a Master's in human rights. But there was something about, about this process that made me realize wow! Like, okay, so that the issue they were trying to solve on the ground in Maryland is different than Virginia. In Virginia, they were the very first race laws happened they were trying to solve the problem of white masters or owners of enslaved people, raping their enslaved women, and then producing mixed race children. And by English law, because it was an English colony, British colony, the children of a British citizen could not be enslaved. And you traced British citizenship through the Father.
So this is what you're talking about. So they said, well, we'll just change where citizenship comes from. So the thing that blows my mind when I think about this is three separate sets of laws have traced their genesis to this law that passed in Virginia in 1662. Citizenship laws, gender laws, and race laws. All three come from that 1662 law because it's the first time you have any law that has anything to do with gender. Any law that identifies “this is the group that will be able to be enslaved”, and that was people, basically black people, people of African descent. And this is what citizenship means on this land.
So then two years later, in Maryland, they passed a similar law, but the problem they were solving for was white women coming from England and marrying enslaved black men and having mixed race children. And of course, the planters who were white men said well we can't have that. So they passed the law that ended up indenturing my ancestor.
Seth Price 13:34
Yeah, yeah. And then even not to belabor that point, but then it's like, in the middle of the book, they're like, Yeah, but then if you have a baby, that baby's indenture for 21 years, but this one 30 years, but this one, I'm just gonna make up yours, cuz honestly, I got confused. Seven years, nine years, we feel like it's Tuesday for 15 years, let's just like I literally could not I started diagramming. And then I just got confused and then realized.
Lisa Sharon Harper 13:57
It is not logical! Right? And what they saw the reason for that was because on some ways, it is right. You basically the logic was this white men were starting to feel overrun by black bodies, because Maryland started to have more and more and more people of African descent coming to be well being brought, to be enslaved, to that territory. And as they did, they started to feel threatened because well, you know, so they began to clamp down on this concept of race and more and more. Until at last finally, like by the 1740-45, I mean, it is heinous. And there's a web of like, 50 laws—50 different provisions in these race laws—where it only started with four, you know, in 1664.
Seth Price 14:41
Yeah. Yeah. At the very, very beginning, like literally in the introduction. You talk about a concept of re-membered versus dismembered. What is that? Just for those that haven't read the book yet?
Lisa Sharon Harper 14:55
Well, we think about memory, right? And I'm not the first person to think of memory in this way. But memory is bringing members together, your memory together with what happened like bringing it together. Well, in so many ways in America, we have dismembered our memory from ourselves. We have covered over history what actually happened, we have twisted it, we have repressed it. So re-membering ourselves is bringing ourselves back into right relationship with what happened and also with each other. It is remembering our ancestors going back and finding out their stories being reconnected. It's really about connection. Connection to memory, connection to our ancestors, connection to our history.
Seth Price 15:47
I can't find the page because I read this mostly in traffic jams. How often do you come down to Charlottesville just infrequently?
Lisa Sharon Harper 15:54
Infrequent, but I've been there a few times over the last few years.
Seth Price 15:57
There is a stretch of the interstate that during the time change, the sun comes up and people forget that the sun comes up and and they won't clean their windshield, I think is what happens. And so there's an accident on the interstate weekly, which I hope that no one is hurt outside of the cars. But it has given me a lot of time to read in my car. I just keep books in the car, because I'm literally sitting there for 45 minutes doing absolutely nothing, just idling. So I don't have my notes in front of me.
But there is a section in here talking about race laws. And the reason I asked that is, the reason I want to work this into the conversation, is the name of the show is can I say this at church? And there's a section here where you say, you know, a major role of the church and I believe it's in Virginia at the time.
Lisa Sharon Harper 16:00
Yes…
Seth Price 16:41
Is to institute, be a part of, administer…I believe it's a part where maybe it's Maryland or Virginia like indentured slaves were like owned by the congregant body or the church. That maybe I'm saying it wrong.
Lisa Sharon Harper 16:55
By the Parish.
Seth Price 16:57
But that is one of those things that people don't talk about at church.
Lisa Sharon Harper 17:02
(matter of factly) Oh, yeah, they don’t talk about that at church.
Seth Price 17:04
Could you please and maybe give a lot more context than my very disjointed memory of the sentence?
Lisa Sharon Harper 17:08
Well, one of the reasons why I wrote the book is because not only have we dismembered our memory, our national memory, but our church memory. And when we have to understand our own complicity in the crafting of this construct called race. And one of the ways, the principal way, that the church was a part of this design of the construct was, it's actually kind of deep. In 1664, when Maryland passed its law this happened in Maryland by the way, it also happened in Virginia but I know the Maryland history better. In 1664, when Maryland passed its law, what it said the law was that "“white women who marry black men and have children by those black men who are enslaved, shall become enslaved themselves by their husbands master until their husband's death. And their children will be enslaved in perpetuity, forever.”
So it turned out between 1664 and 1670. That's only what? Six years, the legislature looked up and realized, this Catholic legislature, by the way, looked up and said, wait a minute, we're now seeing that that planters are now forcing their Irish, indentured, servants to marry black men (and) have children by them so that they can get all the free labor. So they were like, “Oh, this is an unintended consequence, we didn't need to do this”. We're going to take the power to decide who gets indentured and who gets enslaved out of the hands of the planter, and put the keys, put the lock and key in the hands of the church. So the church then became the primary arbiter of who got enslaved and who got indentured. They kept all the court records.
I mean, the most accurate court records will be found in church parishes. But the unfortunate reality is that many of those church records are no longer in existence, because of fires are moving. They weren't very good keepers of them. But they ended up being the arbiters of oppression in Maryland, and also, eventually, also in Virginia.
Seth Price 19:19
Yeah, yeah, I've seen that as well. So my, um, my dad did his DNA ancestry tests a few years ago, and he passed away recently, last year of cancer. But I did a lot of his ancestry for him. And one of the last trips I took to Texas, we went all the way through it as far back as we could go. And I learned a lot about my family that I didn't know because not everything is written down in a picture or in a notebook. A lot of these things are so passed down and, you know, my grandmother on his side passed away when I was two. It's like I've none of those stories. I'm totally relying on dad's recollection, because my grandfather's also passed, you know, so yeah. But it is caused me to continue to do the ancestry stuff, and one of the things that I have found is just how surprised I've been at some of my ancestors. As you worked through some of, of your family history and as you finding your story through it? Where have you been the most surprised where you were like, this is mind altering, life shattering changes the trajectory of some of the things that you see or maybe hold?
Lisa Sharon Harper 20:26
Wow, I honestly think that that chapter, chapter one, was kind of the the chapter that truly blew my mind. First of all, that we could go back that far. And the fact that we could go back that far to 1687, is when Fortune was born, was because her mother was white, because her mother was an Irish indentured servant, actually, in Ulster Irish, she was actually a Scottish indentured servant. And so that's the privilege of whiteness. So I was blown away by the reality that underneath my black skin, I had the privilege of whiteness, because one of my lines goes back to a white woman.
The second thing that blew my mind was the second chapter, actually, Henry Lawrence and Harriet Lawrence. So looking at that part of the family that was the part of the family that always said, we were, you know, part Native American, but they actually never said it. They, unlike others, they didn't actually, you know, speak about that, because they didn't want to be accused of passing. But the stories were there. And so I tried to trace those stories. And what I found was that there is an absolute obliteration of the stories there primarily through this the systems of identity that were constructed by the colonizer, by England.
What makes someone Indian? That had a whole different, there was a whole different system in place that was constructed by native tribes and nations, then what is in place now which was constructed by the US government. And the reason why the US government constructed the construct it had is because it wanted to breed native people out of America. It wanted native people to disappear. And that is exactly what happened.
When I looked back at the Cherokee Dawes Rolls, from 1890 to last Dawes Rolls, I was blown away to see that the majority of the people on the Dawes Rolls were like 1/32 Cherokee, 1/18 Cherokee, and that was then! So what do you think they are now? Yet they are Cherokee, because they can trace their people to the Dawes Rolls. Well, we can't do that. Because in our family and our family story, they did not walk the trail, they ran up into the hills, and they hid. And the stories have been obscured. And so I think what I realized is that identity itself has been mangled and twisted and covered over. And it's one of the reasons why our nation has really kind of given up the project of trying to figure out who we are. And we're so future oriented. We're so future focused, and it's all about we'll get your stuff now. But we're getting stuff in a state that's unanchored. It's not tethered to actual truth, to land, to people, to stories that actually happened. Instead, it's all about dreaming forward but in an untethered state which becomes mostly about domination. In order to succeed, then you have to dominate the other that has become our story as a nation.
Seth Price 23:37
Yeah, you say that later on in the book, maybe like, one 161-170? I remember highlighting that anyway. Yeah. So there, I'm gonna skip around a bit, because I don't have you for as long as I would love to have you. So there, there is a chapter called Sharon, and in there, you're talking about education and inequality. And the reason I don't so…I constantly try to convince my kid that is extremely important to know, history. And I also try to ride the line of there is more history when it comes to the church, when it comes to Virginia, when it comes to the school use it in my son, like there is more history than just what is in those stupid books. Because I'm aware how much power Texas has and what the heck is in those books because I grew up in Texas. The same way that California has power over what's in the cars that are in New Jersey or whatever. You say in here,
Education inequity is violence. One might argue that it is an act of warfare against the flourishing of fellow citizens.
Lisa Sharon Harper 24:34
Yes.
Seth Price 24:36
How so? Because I like it. I'd like you to talk to my son as well. We don't need to make it that general but how so and I will say the stories about it appears that Sharon in the stories is an extremely good student and so like, oh, we need to get you out of class. This can't be…we can't have you educated. You know better than that. So how is it an act of violence? And possibly how is it still, if you felt like it is still?
Lisa Sharon Harper 24:57
Oh, it's very much.
Education is really at the heart of, or has become at the heart in the 20th century, of the struggle for racial equality with the passage of Brown Versus the Board of Education. It was that whole separate but equal thing, right. So what you saw in those old time pictures were the one room schoolhouse for the black children and this massive complex for white children. Well, that was in the south. But in the north, you had a very similar situation. And my mom's story, Sharon, I think it's chapter seven…no chapter six. Her story really illustrates this. She was in Philadelphia, it's a northern city. But she had de facto segregation, which is what we have today. In fact, schools today are more segregated than they were back in 1953. Before passage of the Brown versus Board of Education.
Seth Price 25:56
This would be through gentrification and other socio political things. Redlining. Yeah, yes, yeah, definitely talking my language as a banker now. Yeah, definitely 100%.
Lisa Sharon Harper 26:05
exactly. Okay. So and redlining was outlawed. And we get into that actually, in the last chapter
Seth Price 26:10
Except for we did it a couple years ago in Chicago, maybe maybe a year ago, the lady just want a court case? What is the name? Yeah, you know, what I'm referencing?
Lisa Sharon Harper 26:18
It's happening all the time! And in 2014, there were banks that were brought up on charges of redlining in New Jersey, right, so this is New Jersey, right next to New York City, by the way, like right there! So what we have is we have a situation where the structures themselves have created de facto segregation, not dejour as that which was what Brown versus the Board of Education was about as like intentional, but de facto as an oh, it just happening. But it's happening because of gentrification and the pushing out of people who have lived there for generations.
So my mom lived in South Philadelphia, she went to a black school, there was a white school two blocks away that she actually should have been able to go to, but they didn't let her go. They let her next door neighbor who was white go to that school, but she couldn't go. Somehow he was in the district and she was outside.
So one day she's sitting in the principal's office while running an errand for the teacher being pulled out a class because she was such a good student, she got pulled out of class to run an errand. And she sees a box of books sitting next to her. And she starts to thumb through these books, and they are raggedy, missing pages, missing covers. And she sees the stamp in it that says that they're from the white school, two blocks down. So those books got passed down, like 10 years later, to the black students. That teaches a lesson you are not worthy of, of new books, you're not worthy of the latest information. We are not preparing you to lead, we're preparing you to go to jail, we're preparing you to do service jobs that are going to help us actually flourish us meaning white people flourish.
So today, we have the tracking system that does exactly that within multi-ethnic school districts or a single school that has lots of different ethnicities. If you go to the votech area, you're going to see mostly people of color. If you go to the general math area, you're going to see mostly people of color. Why? Because general math is not preparing you to go to college that's preparing you for service industry jobs. If you go to college bound is me mostly white folk. And if you go to Honors and AP, almost all white folk. And some Asian folk too, because they also are going down that track that's a whole ‘nother that's a whole ‘nother podcast conversation. But that has to do with economics. And when Asian people come to America, generally speaking, especially east Asian, they're coming with means so they're not poor, they're not having to struggle. And so therefore, you know, education is…they are able to pay their way into the best schools…XYZ.
So the education system today I had a conversation with a Board of Education Director in Los Angeles, and she explained in this conversation that the best teachers are funneled into rich areas, which tend to be more white, you have emergency credential teachers that are funneled into black areas, poorer areas.
Seth Price 29:32
So what do you mean emergency credential like hey, I have a college degree and you need a teacher. I've got you?
Lisa Sharon Harper 29:37
Substitute teachers,
Seth Price 29:38
Okay.
Lisa Sharon Harper 29:40
Substitute teachers are funneled, year round! Substitute teachers are funneled into areas that are poorer.
Seth Price 29:48
So no consistency, no relationship, no mentorship, no leadership.
Lisa Sharon Harper 29:53
No training! Like no college education for education. No graduate degrees, which are in the white areas. So do you tell me and….no books (powerfully said) No books! They don't get books! My mom at least got a 10 year old book today, they're not even getting books!
Seth Price 30:15
Just the Chromebooks.
Lisa Sharon Harper 30:16
So you tell me, would you end up, you be able to go and get your college education, if you had a substitute teacher year round, and no books. And on top of that, you're poor. So your parents may not even have the money to give you breakfast in the morning. So you spend the first half of the day, unless you are fortunate enough to get a breakfast in the morning at school, you spend the first half a day being hungry, so you can't concentrate. And you know, stuff is happening at home that you have to worry about this. This! This is the inequity that currently exists in our system.
Seth Price 30:50
So you remember like last year, I had all those weird ad breaks, like it would just randomly be something, we're not doing that instead, I thought I'd do this. I need your help. If you're able to head on over to the website for the show, there are two things that you can do. One is you head over the website, you click the Patreon button or support button, I forget what I call it. And you jump in there, those people helped make the show a thing so that you can listen to it right now, to the easier one, you could just leave a rating and a review on the podcast app of choice that you currently use. Either one of those is fine. But I would love it if you would do either one, specifically the rating and reviewing it's an exponential thing that the algorithms pick it up. And that's just math. It's just compounding on top of itself. Anyway, all that to say that was it. That was the ad break. And now we're going to get back into it.
Seth Price 32:08
Yeah, we're just even here in Virginia, Governor Younkin, or Governor-elect Younkin, ran on a propaganda of critical race theory in the schools, which is funny because it's not even taught in schools.
Lisa Sharon Harper 32:16
Oh! But it’s not!!!!
Seth Price 32:18
And I won't even try to speak to critical race theory because I don't know enough. But I know that it's not taught to my children in schools. I also know that it is, I talked about this with my brother, it actually makes sense. Like, it makes sense. Regardless of the country, Rome makes rules for Rome to work. Babylon makes rules for Babylon to work. Pharaoh makes rules for Pharaoh to prosper. That's just the way civilizations are done. I make the rules to benefit me.
Lisa Sharon Harper 32:42
That is the way empires are done.
Seth Price 32:43
Yeah, even in my house, I make the rules to benefit me. You are 12 years old mow the grass! And I'm gonna watch you do it while I drink hot coffee. (Lisa laughs)
You know, that's it's an overgeneralization. But that's just ridiculous. But they'll say there's like a war on education or war on our kids minds, or whatever. And I use that word intentionally. Because later on you say,
in a war there are no humans only allies and enemies.
And so the question I have is, Is the goal to re humanize or is the goal to all be allies? Because obviously (not) enemies is not the goal.
Lisa Sharon Harper 33:16
Yeah, that's a really profound question. I would say that the goal is to re-humanize everyone, so that everyone gets to be fully and simply human. Everyone gets to live fully into the image of God that is within them. And everyone must bow to the reality that they are not God. They are made in the likeness of God, but they are not God. And I think that people of color, basically everybody who ain't a white man in America, has had laws that have been crafted to basically keep them in their place so that white men can flourish. And that's the thing! You know, critical…this is what Critical Race Theory says, I know, you don't want to get into it fully.
Seth Price 33:55
I'm just ignorant of it. And so I don't want to speak poorly. (Lisa laughs) Like, I refuse to talk to you until I finished your book. Like, I won't talk to a person unless I've read the text because I find that disrespectful.
Lisa Sharon Harper 34:05
I really appreciate that, by the way, because a lot of people are kind of disrespectful.
Seth Price 34:09
It's easy to fake it. But it's hard to ask real questions if you didn't actually read it.
Lisa Sharon Harper 34:13
Yeah. Well, what I found when I did the research for my book was that I mean, these laws and these policies, actually, there were laws and policies that shaped the course of my ancestors lives. That is the theory of critical race theory! And I didn't set out to prove critical race theory. I didn't even know what it was till a couple of years ago. I had never read anything about it.
Seth Price 34:34
It’s just the way laws work.
Lisa Sharon Harper 34:35
It's just the way it works! Laws create systems. Laws create a flow of life. That's what they're meant to do. They're meant to solve problems on the ground, perceived problems on the ground, or real ones, and create a flow of life. Now, unfortunately, because of who made those laws in the very beginning, from 1662, all the way to 1971, I believe or 1967 was when Loving versus Virginia happened. And that was one of the last overturning of those first race laws happened with the Loving versus Virginia ruling. Because it was the reversal of the 1662 law. So from 1662, all the way to 19, whatever it was, I think it was 67 actually. Virginia at least, and definitely the nation was living under the oppression of these laws. And black bodies then had to live around and twist themselves to fit into the boxes and the streams of life that were carved for them. That's the theory. And it's not theory for anybody who lived it. It's reality. And what I found is that that was exactly the reality for my own family, and in education, and housing, and in jobs. One thing that also blew my mind, really literally like boom, like mind blown. In Charleston, South Carolina, in the state of South Carolina after the Civil War, they passed laws after the end of Reconstruction, they pass laws that outlawed people of African descent from working in any industry that was not the fields, or domestic service. They could not! If you had the brain of a scientist, you had to be a maid, or a field worker in South Carolina, because of the law.
So you wonder why people streamed north in the Great Migration, they were getting away from those laws. But that also changed the course of life. Because that disconnected us, again, from our families. I have a whole, like DNA set, a family down in South Carolina and also Virginia, that I've never met and will likely never know because of the great migration. Because terror and laws caused our families to figure out how to survive and survival meant disconnection from family.
Seth Price 36:59
Yeah. Well, not only that, but treating people in that way robs everyone. I say this often to people that live around me because I live there. I mean, my neighbors are African American, I have the neighbors and like, my neighbors across the street are Asian American, like, I live in a place that is very diverse, though the schools not all that diverse. I'm not sure how to reconcile that. Because I don't know where these kids go to school, though their kids one, so it's not fair. I always tell people, the kids around me, I need them all to be well educated, because I don't plan on not living here…and I live here. And I will need you to not…I will need you to know what the heck is happening when you become an adult. And so it makes me wonder like, we've robbed, like how much knowledge or progression of just technology and science and faith and humanities have we rob ourselves of out of half of a millennia of just saying you're not allowed to be smart? You're not allowed to contribute!
Lisa Sharon Harper 37:57
It is kind of economically stupid, isn't it? I mean, think about that. It really is kind of economically stupid. What we have done is we have suppressed the earning power and the buying power of America by pushing like two thirds of its people, not only people of color, but also poor white people, into an economic status where they don't have enough to buy what they need.
Seth Price 38:18
Yeah, to get what they need to get done. Yeah. Yeah. Um, do you have time for three more questions? I think three…maybe two.
Lisa Sharon Harper 38:28
Sure, this is fun!
Seth Price 38:30
Well, I had another one and I've lost it now. And maybe it'll come back to me? Oh, no, I do remember the questions. So the first question is, so I am a white man. That happens, it's on a website.
Lisa Sharon Harper 38:36
I see that! (laughs)
Seth Price 38:38
I don't think that our nation, or really people for that matter, have been trained in a way to deal with the trauma. And so to re-humanize people to re-member people will feel painful. And probably painful for everyone you talk about in the book a bit that, you know, not like, I think you say in the book, like white people when there's trauma, they tend to come together as community, which is the inverse of what happens for people that aren't white. They fragment and disenfranchise, and go off and do things on their own, which isn't good for humans that we're not good to be on our own. They talk about that in Genesis actually…
Lisa Sharon Harper 39:16
Hello! Yes.
Seth Price 39:18
What, where, should, how do people begin to prepare themselves to face that trauma and I say prepared to face that trauma because I am very hopeful that my kids will be much better at this than you were I am and then my grandfather's were so the traumas coming?
(Lisa’s dog starts barking)
Lisa Sharon Harper 39:32
Hold on, hold on one second.
(No need no need. Down. Good girl. Down. Yeah. Okay)
Seth Price 39:46
Poor dog.
So the trauma is coming. I hopefully find it. I'm hopeful that it is inevitable. So how do we begin to prepare for that?
Lisa Sharon Harper 39:54
I think that what we have to do is we have to build up our resilience of capacity. And a lot of it has to do with making sure that we are not only re-membering in our minds, but also re-membering our bodies. Our bodies hold that trauma. There are several really great books about this, My Grandmother's Hands is one that has been really a big one for me. And then also The Body Keeps the Score is another another book that came out recently.
But these books have been instrumental for me in the last one year helping me to understand that my body really does hold the stories. It holds it in the tension in my back and holds it in some ailments that are coming because the stress has actually created ailments in my body because I'm not moving that energy through. And for people of African descent, and people of color in general, Native people, new immigrants, especially with all the trauma that has happened over the last several years under the last administration, there is all kinds of…The stories are being held in our bodies if we're not working it out.
And for people of European descent I think that…I would move more to the language of moral injury than use trauma. There is a certain trauma that, actually in My Grandmother's Hands that Resmaa Menakem, the author of that book talks about “white bodied pain” right, so people who are white bodied, and the the trauma of encounter of the of the evil that has been done on your behalf, right? There is something to be said for that. I would recommend you read that book, that book really does have I think, answers for people who are white bodied, as you are engaging in the stories and seeing for maybe for the first time, what actually happened on your behalf. There is something dehumanizing about encountering evil. When we encounter evil something of the image of God in us gets twisted, gets crushed, gets suppressed. And it is the work then…our work is actually to blow life back into the image of God within us; that within us that actually is able to breathe, and flourish, and believe, and hope, and dream, and partner with God in the stewardship of the world.
So for people who are white bodied it's really going to be a question of going back and looking into your family stories and forgiving your ancestors and allowing yourselves to be forgiven for inaction now. I think that mostly what people are trying to escape in not looking into the stories is shame. But shame tells a lie. Shame tells the lie that you are the worst thing you've ever done. I don't say that. You are not the worst thing you've ever done, and you are not the worst thing your ancestors have ever done. Instead, there are wrongs that actually happened, and actually did change the course of life for whole people groups, what we need to do now is simply fix it. Like there's a difference between shame and guilt. Shame tells you you are the worst thing you've ever done. Guilt says, okay, you did something. Now make it right.
Seth Price 43:41
Yeah. Yeah, I like that, now make it right. Last two questions. So what do you feel like as a congregation of a faith body, I don't really care even what the faith body is…should be some things that people in the pews should be talking about, that pastors ministers should be listening to. And if we don't begin to speak about these things, the church as we know it is a lost cause that it will become a nationwide, this is gonna sound bad. Like my, my fear for the church is that somehow we're all ostracized in the same way the Amish are like, “look at those people over there. They used to be…they used to do things.” You know what I mean? And I don't say that poorly against Amish. I have some Amish friends. You know what I mean? But what do you feel like we should be speaking about in our church, and I use it as a as a play on words again, the name of the show?
Lisa Sharon Harper 44:27
Yeah, I understand.
I think that if the last 500 years were about the reformation of the church. Then the next 500 years, starting now has to be about the decolonization of the church. Meaning that this brown faith, this faith that rises from Afro Asian people, literally Africa is all over the Bible and so are parts of Asia all over the Bible. There's only one person in the entire Bible that hasn't asked speaking role, who is actually from Europe? And that's Pilate. (Seth laughs)
Sorry, I just gotta say it because it’s true. (chuckles)
Seth Price 45:06
This is not news to me.
Lisa Sharon Harper 45:12
This is the only European! I mean, well, I mean, I was kind of blown away when I thought about that. Because think of where the power to determine orthodoxy lies in the church. It's in Europe. It's in the halls of empire. That's who has determined what this text means, who this person of Jesus is. And it's been “whiteified” as I like to say it's been Europeanized, but it's didn't come from there. So I think what we're realizing now what we are seeing as the church is the church is declining and declining everywhere. Except, interestingly, in communities of color and in oppressed communities around the world. That is where the church is growing. The church is now located principally in the Southern hemisphere, not in the north, and not in the West.
And why is that? I think it's because when we pick up that text it's the same reason that the Second Great Awakening was actually triggered by the black church, the creation of the black church. It's because when we pick up that text we see ourselves. We see a brown people oppressed by Empire…
Seth Price 46:23
Repeatedly.
Lisa Sharon Harper 46:24
(exactly) ….be colonized and serially enslaved, and struggling to flourish, struggling to understand its relationship to the world and God that is what that text is about. But it is not how it's taught at all. It's not taught like that in white churches pretty much anywhere! Why? Because it's not the social location that the reader is coming from. So what does it take? It's gonna take the decolonization of our read of the text. It's going to take them churches of European descent coming together with churches in communities of color and reading that text together, so that they can begin to understand things they haven't seen, things they haven't seen before.
Seth Price 47:03
Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Matter of face Barrett if you're listening, let's do that. There's a there's a nice church across the street that would…Yeah, I would love that. Oh, yeah. Barrett happens to be my pastor, I have no idea if he's listening, probably isn't. It's okay.
So when you, Lisa, try to wrap words around whatever God is, whatever the Divine is, what is that?
Lisa Sharon Harper 47:26
God is love. God is love! And I've really come to understand, it literally, is all about love. (speaking this last part through a whisper).
The call of our lives, the purpose of our lives. The purpose of our lives, is to be deeply and radically connected to all things, including God. God, each other, the rest of creation, the systems that govern us, that's the goal of life. That's what God cared about. When God looked around this is from my previous book, The Very Good Gospel, when God looked around at the end of the sixth day and said, This is very good. What God was talking about was not saying there was a really good walrus that God just made, you know, or a great cloud over there. But no, what God was saying was, the goodness existed between things, not inside the thing. So the relationships between things were very good. And it's the relationships between things that were broken in the fall, that all fell down, when we grabbed at peace in our own way, at the expense of the peace of all else. So the goal is to be reconnected. And the most radical connection we can have is love. And isn't it John who says, God is love?
Seth Price 48:59
Plug the places that people should be doing the things after they listen to this? They should engage in the work that you're doing or partner in the work that you're doing? Probably actually, yeah, partner in the work that Lisa is doing. Would you point people to?
Lisa Sharon Harper 49:11
Thank you! That is really great! Well, I would say definitely check out our website and sign up for the newsletter, and take a check out my website, at LisaSharonharper.com, sign up for the newsletter, read the books. But you know, the very good gospel came out in 2016. I still highly recommend that but definitely preorder Fortune. Fortunes coming up February 8, fortune is going to tell you 10 generations of my family story as a window into American history. And then in last three chapters, essays on how to repair it all. And the work that we do is consulting we also have an institute so if you want to go deeper on any of these concepts on race and gender, and healing the world, then log on to our institute and take some of our downloadable courses. And also, of course, our podcast, Freedom Road podcast. Check us out once a month. Anywhere you get your good podcast podcasts.
Seth Price 50:06
It is once a month. Okay, I looked at it. I'm like, this seems to be infrequent once a month seems to be a lot more manageable than weekly. I can tell you that right now! Um, anyway, thank you for the extra time. I know we went over. I've genuinely enjoyed speaking to you and Babe as well. Why not? (Lisa laughs) Yeah. Welcome to the show, Babe. But um, thank you again, Lisa, for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Lisa Sharon Harper 50:27
Thank you Seth, it's really great to meet you. And this was an awesome conversation.
Seth Price 50:31
Thank you.
Ending 50:49
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Now for you. I pray that you are blessed, and you know that you're cherished and beloved. We'll talk soon.