Photo from Huffington Post story
On Huffington Post, Romal Tune writes about spending a day with Richard Rohr, the famous Franciscan friar and prolific author, and shares a conversation on white privilege that he hadn’t anticipated having.
Tune, author of “God’s Graffiti: Inspiring Stories for Teens”, starts off by asking Rohr’s perspective on white privilege and his own role, before moving into action-oriented questions about how we can dismantle white privilege. Rohr uses this question to talk about the nature of evil and the sins we hide when we pretend that racism and white privilege don’t exist.
From the article:
Rohr: Evil is always incapable of critiquing itself. Evil depends upon disguise and tries to look like virtue. We have to fully cooperate in God’s constant work, spoken so clearly in Mary’s prayer (Luke 1:52) which is always “bringing down the mighty from their thrones and exalting the lowly”. It is the de facto story of history, art, and drama. And we have to get in on the story.
The article ends with Rohr admitting that he’s worried that he’s said things which will make people hate him, noting that he wants to be loved and liked, which he identifies as very close to white privilege and entitlement. Are there other faith leaders speaking about white privilege with the same level of openness and sincerity? Do you think many hold back out of fear of disapproval from other white people?