I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation

by Chanequa Walker-Barnes

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2019

Overview

Disrupting the racist and sexist biases in conversations on reconciliation

Chanequa Walker-Barnes offers a compelling argument that the Christian racial reconciliation movement is incapable of responding to modern-day racism. She demonstrates how reconciliation’s roots in the evangelical, male-centered Promise Keepers’ movement has resulted in a patriarchal and largely symbolic effort, focused upon improving relationships between men from various racial-ethnic groups.

Walker-Barnes argues that highlighting the voices of women of color is critical to developing any genuine efforts toward reconciliation. Drawing upon intersectionality theory and critical race studies, she demonstrates how living at the intersection of racism and sexism exposes women of color to unique experiences of gendered racism that are not about relationships, but rather are about systems of power and inequity.

Refuting the idea that race and racism are “one-size-fits-all,” I Bring the Voices of My People highlights the particular work that White Americans must do to repent of racism and to work toward racial justice and offers a constructive view of reconciliation that prioritizes eliminating racial injustice and healing the damage that it has done to African Americans and other people of color.

Key Features

Praise for I Bring the Voices of My People

Finally, someone is inviting us into reconciliation on black womxn’s terms. And who better than Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, who spectacularly shows us in I Bring the Voices of My People that a message that centers black womxn’s experiences is a universally liberating message. I have experienced anti-black oppression in faith-based ‘reconciliation’ contexts, and Dr. Chanequa’s words have invaluably supported my healing journey while also redirecting my steps toward justice practices that are not colonized by whiteness. ‘Trust black womxn’ is a phrase that often gets thrown around with little behavioral follow-up. Dr. Chanequa, a true sage, is telling us how to trust black womxn on the topic and practice of reconciliation. I’m following her lead and I hope you will too.

—— Director of the Center for Justice and Renewal

Chanequa Walker-Barnes gives us new medicine, already tested through trials, and ready to address the sick ways Christians, especially evangelical Christians, think and talk about racial reconciliation. This beautifully written, sensitively personal, and analytically precise text may be the best book we have on racial reconciliation. Walker-Barnes, a womanist thinker of the highest order, has written herself into the required reading for every class that aims to consider race and reconciliation.

—— Yale Divinity School

Walker-Barnes writes a powerful theological book which challenges common misconceptions about race, ethnicity, and discrimination and works toward a liberative theology. Her personal, soulful reflection lays bare our racially divided world. A beautiful book, I Bring the Voices of My People awakens us to the need for radical reconciliation and stirs us to create a new reality which embraces and uplifts everyone.

—— author of Embracing the Other

I Bring the Voices of My People is a trenchant and desperately needed critique of the evangelical racial reconciliation movement from an intersectional perspective. Centering a womanist analytic, Walker-Barnes demonstrates that an intersectional theology is essential for Christians of all racial and gender identities. Her in-depth analysis of the logic of white supremacy is also instructive for anyone working to further racial justice. This book should be required reading for all seminarians.

—— Coordinator, Evangelicals 4 Justice, Chair, UC Riverside Ethnic Studies

Without disruption, the American church will not be able to move beyond the rote and simplistic approaches that make racial reconciliation seem tired and worn out. For too many years, we have gone around in circles centering dominant voices that recapitulate what has already failed us. This book is the necessary disruption to what has become complacency and fatigue around this important work. Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes brings an infusion of fresh air that draws from the gripping story of her life experiences combined with an academic and intellectual curiosity that offers the potential of a powerful narrative of change. For serious students of reconciliation, this book now becomes one of the standard texts you must engage.

—— author of The Next Evangelicalism and Prophetic Lament

If the true work of a teacher is to help her students know what is at stake in the critical conversations of our time, then Chanequa Walker-Barnes can rightly be called a teacher of the church in twenty-first-century America. If you’ve seen enough to know that the legacy of white supremacy cripples Christians’ capacity to build up communities of justice and reconciliation, I Bring the Voices of My People will help you avoid false hope, ask better questions, and find the partners you need on a faithful journey toward freedom.

—— author of Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion

Chanequa Walker-Barnes achieves a rare combination of historical mastery, in-depth contemporary analysis, and personal reflection to produce a unique and necessary book for understanding the intersectionality of race and gender. In this superbly written book, readers will be exposed to a comprehensive and tightly argued work on historical racism, reconciliation movements, and the need for a robust and nuanced approach to understanding the experience of systemic oppression, engaging in truth-telling around white supremacy, and hearing and centering the voices of women of color. In some subjects, there exists the one book everyone needs to read. This is one of those books.

—— author of The Myth of Equality

There’s so much that is so good about this book. Drawing on womanist theology, Chanequa Walker-Barnes rewrites all that we thought we knew about racism and reconciliation. We learn here how reconciliation talk so often subtly reproduces racist practice; we learn why such talk often feels like we’re stuck in some ‘postracial,’ Lethal Weapon, Mel-Gibson-meets-Danny-Glover movie whose plot is to save the world of (white and black) men; and, vitally, in these pages we learn that it may be that reconciliation talk will have a future only if it becomes womanist-abolitionist practice. After this book, no one will be able to talk about racial reconciliation in the same way again.

—— Indiana University

Product Details

• Title : I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation
• Author: Walker-Barnes, Chanequa
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 2019
• ISBN: 9781467457392

About Chanequa Walker-Barnes

Chanequa Walker-Barnes is a clinical psychologist, public theologian, and minister. She is the author of Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength and has written over a dozen articles in theology and psychology. She serves as Associate Professor of Practical Theology at the Mercer University McAfee School of Theology.