by Linda Post Bushkofsky
These words are for all who participate in Women of the ELCA. I’m specifically writing to white women like myself who are the overwhelming majority of this organization, but it’s important for the women of color in Women of the ELCA to read this too. These words are my commitment to them, and I pray they will be your commitment too.
When our organization began in 1988, our elected leaders said we needed to address racism, and the work began. In 1993 the executive board adopted a comprehensive policy that called us to create an inclusive sisterhood where white women and women of color worked together for justice and peace in our church and our society.
Over the past 27 years, we’ve been living into that policy, making progress in our flawed, human way, seeking God’s guidance and asking for forgiveness when we’ve failed. We put staff in place, developed training programs, published stories about our efforts, committed to further training, developed a network of anti-racism educators.
In 2002, at the Fifth Triennial Convention, we took a significant step forward by amending Article III of our churchwide constitution to add:
This community of women shall claim and practice an anti-racist identity and actively seek full participation and shared power in determining its mission, structure, constituency, policies, and practices.
Author and activist Blair Imani reminds us that “sometimes privilege looks like being able to ignore a crisis that others are dying from.” Despite our past anti-racist efforts and acknowledgment of our white privilege, we can no longer ignore the crisis that is killing our Black and Brown sisters and brothers. This is a time of racial reckoning unlike any before. When George Floyd was begging for his life, he wasn’t just calling for his mama; he was calling for each one of us.
Martin Luther said that “to love is not to wish one another well, but to carry one another’s burdens—that is, things that are grievous to us, and that we would not willingly bear. Therefore, Christians must have strong shoulders and mighty bones.”
My white sisters, if we are going to live out our mission and purpose as Women of the ELCA, we must be willing to carry the burdens of racism and white supremacy on our strong shoulders and in our mighty bones. We must be willing to work to overcome racism and end white supremacy.
It won’t be easy to dismantle the structural racism embedded within our institutions. Our government, educational systems and economy are all built on racist notions that run deep, going back 400 years to when enslaved Africans were first brought to our shores. But working together as women do, we will claim and practice an anti-racist identity.
Start by going to welca.org and clicking on “Ministry and Action.” Then go to the “Justice” page for resources, books and presentations. Join the Racial Justice Advocacy Network and participate in the network’s Facebook group. The Women of the ELCA purpose statement calls us to work for “healing and wholeness in the church, the society and the world.”
Linda Post Bushkofsky is executive director of Women of the ELCA.
This article is from the January/February 2021 issue of Gather magazine. To read more like it, subscribe to Gather.
I think dialog has been mentioned and this certainly is a good starting point. Next it’s important not to judge another person everyone has come from different experiences and it affects how they view different situations. I know I’m not privledged as some have determined because I happen to be born white. I came from a very poor family. Education and training and good parenting make a tremendous difference. It saddens me to hear racism is caused because of your skin color. It’s more than that and yes the way it’s being described by some is certainly dividing races rather than bringing them together. I ask you are people racist who dislike whites also, doesn’t it go both ways. I pray that open and true dialog help us to heal and understand. We all have better things to offer this world we live in together.
Marjorie, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I grew up in poverty, as well, and am white and at first was uncomfortable with being told I had privilege. But I came to understand that even though I had to work harder than some people I knew to get where I am today, racism was never a challenge I had to overcome. This is why dialogue is important. I’m grateful to those who’ve helped me come to see the way the society’s prejudices harm us all–even when we’re not aware of it.
Thank you Linda, for writing this honest and forthcoming article about the ways we can (and must, in my opinion) come together, learn, dialog, and work to end racism in all its forms.
I am very saddened and disappointed that the ELCA Women’s Executive Director feels compelled to further divide the races in our organization with these comments!
I resent being referred to as a privileged, white, supremist ( at least that’s what it feels like). My family and descendants have worked very hard over past decades for what we have and we are not privileged nor are we racists!
You mention George Floyd and his last words – his death was horrible and inexcusable, but you don’t mention David Dorn ,a black retired police officer, who was trying to protect his neighbor’s business during the riots in St. Louis ,or what may have been going through his mind as he lay there dying in the street, but he was shot by a black man, so it’s rarely mentioned.
What about all the businesses and livelihoods that were lost due to the BLM riots in some of the major cities. Those were innocent people too. Why don’t you speak up for them? That’s a justice issue!
I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist. I think a lot of the answers lie in supporting the family and building a good home life. Our country has lost it’s morals and respect of each other! That’s what the Women of the ELCA should support, not dividing us further.
Connie – I am glad to hear you acknowledge that racism exists. I’m saddened, however, by your assertion that the work to dismantle the injustice that is racism is dividing people into separate groups.
As Linda noted in the article, the call is, and always has been, to join together “to create an inclusive sisterhood where white women and women of color worked together for justice and peace in our church and our society”.
That you would feel separated by a call to work to address racism is an emotion I recognize – I’ve been there – but I would challenge you to move thru that to hear that working to dismantle racism is not work to label you, or any other white person, as evil. In fact, work to identify racist policy and ideas is not work to label people at all. It is work to create just systems.
There is not a problem on earth that has ever been solved by keeping it hidden, having no dialogue about it, or flat out ignoring it in hopes it’ll go away. Hearing that you acknowledge racism exists, and hoping you see it as an injustice, I truly pray that you’ll continue to join the dialogue, at the very least. Maybe someday you’ll even let the transformative power of the Holy Spirit allow you to join in bringing about the just world that God envisioned, Jesus taught about, and we are called to work towards.
Bravo!