“Expanding the Table” Podcast - Season 1, Episode 2
GCORR’s Award-Winning Podcast on Practicing Anti-Racism
Episode 2: Theologians Explore the Roots of Anti-Asian Racism and What the Church Should Know
Three Asian-American Christian theologians examine the history and current realities of anti-Asian racism in the United States and what every Christians should know and do.
Our guests:
The Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran, vice president for academic affairs, academic dean, and associate professor of religious education and practical theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill.,
The Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan, president and professor of Hebrew Bible at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, Calif., and
The Rev Dr. Boyung Lee, senior vice president of academic affairs, dean of the faculty, and professor of practical theology at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colo.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee
Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Amazon Music. You can watch the video podcast here.
Season 1, Episode 2 Transcript:
Opening Credits: [00:00:01] Hi everyone, welcome to Expanding the Table, the podcast on practicing antiracism where we share experiences to inform and inspire you on how to work towards racial justice.
Garlinda Burton: [00:00:18] Hello and welcome to Expanding the Table, a production of the General Commission on Religion and Race. I'm your host, Garlinda Burton. The recent increase in violence targeting people of Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Island and native Hawaiian descent has made headlines and heightened our awareness that an end to racism in the United States is still yet to be achieved. At the same time, it is important that we examine the history of anti-Asian racism in our nation and how Christians have participated in both perpetrating racial bias and how we can and should engage in truth-telling and action to dismantle it. And so, we're grateful today to have these prominent United Methodist clergy persons and theologians leading our discussion. They are the Reverend Dr. Boyung Lee, who is senior vice president for academic affairs, dean of the faculty and professor of Practical Theology at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. The Reverend Dr. Jeffrey Kuan, who is president and professor of Hebrew Bible at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. And the Reverend Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran, vice president for academic affairs and academic dean and Associate Professor of Religious Education and practical theology at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Welcome to all of you.
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan: [00:02:01] Thank you.
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [00:02:02] Thank you for having us.
Garlinda Burton: [00:02:05] So, Dr. Kuan, I'm going to start with you. So, despite this heightened awareness during the past couple of years about anti-Asian violence, I think the group Stop Asian Pacific Islander Hate has tracked more than 4000 incidents of anti-Asian violence just in the last year alone. Despite that, Asian Americans facing racism and being subject to racial violence is not new. So, what are some of the historic milestones and markers that many non-Asian people may not know?
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan: [00:02:45] Thank you so much, Ms. Burton, and I appreciate being part of this conversation. Just a quick correction. The number that Stop AAPI Hate, the number is now 6000 over 6600 just from last March to this March. And that number has gone up significantly. Stop AAPI Hate has reported that this is happening all over the country and not only in red states, but blue states as well. So, this is this has become a serious matter for the AAPI community. And the saddest thing is that these crimes are perpetuated mostly against women and the elderly. And we cannot minimize why, why, why this is so, so gender specific and targeted against the most vulnerable people in our Asian-American community, the elderly. And there have been fatalities. But as you recognize, this is not new. Asian American has the Asian Americans have experienced historic discrimination. Going back to the early years to the 18th or to the 19th century when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to 1943, preventing Chinese from coming over as laborers. And in the 20th century we are where a lot of people are still not aware about the Japanese internment, where over 100,000 people of Japanese descent were put into concentration camps. And so, and then a lot of other discrimination the in 1982 the killing of Vincent Chin. Of these events that that because of the historic amnesia in in the United States, people either are not willing to learn about all this discrimination or are so willing to suppress them as past events. But we have to pay attention to this as part of the historic discrimination against Asian, Asian Americans and people of Asian descent.
Garlinda Burton: [00:05:40] Yes. Dr. Tran, I know that you have done some research in writing specifically about the experience of Asian American immigrants and Southeast Asian immigrants and violence against them. Do you have a similar sort of sense that that other Americans, non-Asian Americans may not understand that this is a historic kind of a historic kind of phenomenon, this anti-Asian racism.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:06:14] Yes. Thank you, Garlinda. Thank you for this conversation. If I may, let me step back a little bit, and I think I'm going to do what I know my two colleagues, Drs. Lee and Kuan, would be prone to do as well is that in order to think about the historical trajectory of Asian racialization and racialized experience in the U.S., I think it's helpful, at least for me, to think about our understanding of the category of race and racialization in the United States. So, here's what I mean. I think race and racial animus in the United States and the historical trajectories of it is what we're talking about here. Right. Race has been argued by many scholars as the organizing principle for differentiating or defining affinity groups within the United States in positive, benign ways, as well as in racist ways. So, I think the scholarship helps us to understand in what ways are those racial projects racist, right? They are racist, at least in two ways, as I as I can think of it. One is that if a racial project serves to systematically and structurally disenfranchise particular groups of people, especially vis a vis the dominant or majority group right. And or the racial project systematically and structurally supports the cumulative advantage of a particular group.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:07:50] You know, typically the dominant or majority group. Right now, it's very easy to assume that racism is just individual prejudice. Right. We all know that. So, it's like white supremacist or racist or cultural conservatives or racists, but really, they are racial projects that are produced by a number of factors cultural, social, political, economic, right. And so, therefore, various Asian groups, depending on when they enter the US or the US, entered their countries trans-nationally. Right. Are therefore kind of grafted into this trajectory. Right. Or these trajectories of racial projects. Right. And so let me go back to your good framing question here. You know, the fact that you're helping us in name, the reality that many do not know, which is that Asian groups enter into U.S. consciousness in U.S. histories at different points. And so, when we talk about API, we forget the P I or oceanic communities or Southeast Asian communities or South Asian communities or the still kind of ongoing debate within scholarship about how West Asia, for instance, factor into the category of Asian as a political identity in the United States. Right. I would like to see if we can visit the Southeast Asian history of racialization a little bit later on.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:09:19] And not to say that it's chronological, but even, you know, for me as a Vietnamese American, 1.5 generation Vietnamese American, it's our own historical entanglement with the U.S. and U.S. racialization is only since the forties, right. 1940s to the seventies. And so that's why I feel like it might not be helpful to start there yet, but to understand that the trajectory of racialization for various Southeast Asian groups, I think our land here and I would stop here, the sociologist Russell Jeong has been very helpful in the various talks that he's given about providing this image. I remember him giving a presentation for that at some point where it's like to if you. You think about the X, the X, and this is not X and y axis, right? In terms of racialization between black and white. The black and white axis and the citizen and foreigner axis. Right. And so, if you kind of look at Intersect. Right. Layered them, you will see how different Asian groups. Right. Get racialized according to the black and white axis and the citizen and foreigner axis.
Garlinda Burton: [00:10:34] Since you threw it to Dr. Lee, I'm going to ask Dr. Lee to build on. Yeah. To build on that idea, because I think it's very helpful for again, for, for people who are non-Asian to understand about how the racism and the racial identities begin to intersect in this in this country. I think that's very important for persons to understand someone like me who is African American, whose ancestors go became came here as enslaved Africans have a different kind of trajectory and, you know, lineage in terms of racial identity. And so, I'd like to know I think we'd all like to know more. So, Dr. Lee, take it away.
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [00:11:24] Thank you again for having this conversation with us. As Mai-Anh alluded, the entry point creates a sort of like a different identity politics or narratives among even Asian-Americans. So, you know, I wrote by your request that ten things to Know About Asian-Americans for the month of May. And in it I mentioned that, you know, first Asian descent, people being in this land is 16th century, which is much earlier than many people think. But the majority, I guess, critical mass of Asian looking people being here is, you know, starting in 19th century. But to understand that in 18, 1833, the Great Britain outlawed slavery, but they need to make money elsewhere. So, what they did was a quote unquote coolie business guest workers, meaning that, you know, they were they were occupying India at that time. And also, they were in wars in different points of Chinese history for opioid and other things. So, they had access to China. You know, Hong Kong is one of them, right? They were the reason why Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1990s. So, it's a British Empire business economy. So, when the Great Britain outlawed their own slavery, 1833, they started bringing those coolies, quote unquote, guest workers from India and China. And so those Asian Americans whom we call now had a very close relationship with the enslaved African people because they were working together next to each other. And but hardly we talk you know, we talk about this history. And because racism always works in systemic level, that the people oppress the people, racialized, the people shouldn't be we shouldn't be united. Otherwise, it is people rise against the empire. So, the way that the history has been taught, you know, one of the main tactics of any empires in human history is a divide and conquer.
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [00:14:03] So and so African Americans and Asian Americans, even though we go back, way back when in the early and very exploited and abused by the same system, but we never talk about it. We don't learn that in our school’s history. Therefore, you know, we also were put against each other by a white normativity supremacy system so that we are not united. And so, because of that narrative that is going on and when, as Mai-Anh said, you know, this black and white, the racial structure and then the citizens and foreigners, when Asian Americans who are neither white nor black and always our identity was attached to citizenship, that you don't belong here, you don't belong here. And the narrative has been used that you come here to even further oppress us, enslave the people, rather than, you know, you come from the larger. Larger global, transnational oppressive system of this empire, the British Empire. And later, what people call us empire, because, you know, I'm a Korean American and not many United States people know that that US tried to invade a Korea in 19th century to we only remember, you know, the United States coming to Korea during the Korean War to quote unquote, save us. But, you know, for trade purposes, the US actually invaded Korea in late 19, you know, 19th century. So, without having any of those histories on record, that always this foreigner versus that the native us. And that doesn't include a Native Americans that is even now on constant genocide project. So as my own said, you know, this Asian-American racism that, you know, anti-Asian American racism needs to be understood, understood in this larger historical context.
Garlinda Burton: [00:16:21] Yeah, both of you have raised very interesting points. And Dr. Kuan, I've heard you talk about this as well, that there is a sense many times that people of Asian, Pacific Islander, Southeast Asian descent are perpetual foreigners. I've heard you talk about this many times where the question is always, where are you from? As if people of Asian descent are never truly Americans, you're from somewhere else. And that is something. Despite the racism that African Americans do encounter, I've never been treated like I did not belong here. And so that is that's an interesting place to be on the racial the racialized trajectory. Where do you think that comes from, Dr. Kuan? Where is that? Where's that narrative coming from? Because we've heard that, you know, the first Asian Americans were in the United States in the 1600s and then later in the 1800s. But that's still a long time. So where does this perpetual foreign idea come from, do you think?
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan: [00:17:32] Well, going back to what Dr. Tran and Dr. Lee are saying about the intersection of the black, white foreigner, citizenry, trajectory, and as Dr. Tran had pointed out, we, we find ourselves in that we are not part of the black and white paradigm. We are always use as wedge in the black and white paradigm. And, and in terms of the foreignness is the citizenry. Even five, six generations. We cannot even be accepted as part of the citizenry of the United States without ever being called into question. So, there is that there is this sense that. The Second World War is an example. Japanese Americans had been here. The question of their loyalty is always questioned. And. And. The pandemic is another case in point. People of Chinese descent and people of Asian descent. Implicated by nature of our association with Asia, with homelands. That we become the problem. The rhetoric of the former of the former administration placed the burden on us that people looking at us. Immediately had the suspicion that we are the carrier of the virus. And this historic burden has not gone away. How? To the extent that somehow it is so embedded within the fabric of our society. That even younger generations. I socialize by the society, not necessarily by the family. That they are always foreigners. I remember. And an incident I was driving my kindergarten daughter. To school with her white friend. At the back of the car. Together, they begin to talk somehow about identity.
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan: [00:20:24] Six-year-olds. And. And somehow, she refers to her friend as American. But will not refer to herself as an American, but only as an Asian American. Six-year-old. They know that they are somehow embedded in that they can never be fully American. And the society will continue to inscribe in us. People of Asian descent. The kind of foreign identity that would never go away. And this is, again, going back to what Dr. Lee was saying. It is white supremacy. That has been part of the legacy of colonialism. The importing, exporting and importing of foreign labor to not only to the United States all over the world. I grew up in Malaysia. What century did the Indian South Asians Indian rubber tappers came. What century did the miners in Malaysia come from? It was the 19th century British colonial power. And it is also because of that of white supremacy that that they continue to play this race game, exporting the race game to other parts of the world. I grew up in Malaysia. The media, the media portrayal of African Americans when I was growing up was almost entirely negative. So, I came a lot of people who are who came from that part of the world came with that kind of white supremacists embedded mentality that had continued to create this kind of separation of suspicion between people of color. And white supremacists played a game on us so that they can divide and conquer the minority groups.
Garlinda Burton: [00:23:09] So with the idea that you raised about pitting racial groups against each other and furthering racial stereotypes for as you have all described in the name of white supremacy thinking, and I'd like to talk about how the church has played a role the particularly the US Christian Church. I know that there are things that the Church has done that we are very proud of, but there are also ways that we have been complicit in in in racism and racial stereotypes. Dr. Lee, what are some of the things that we as a church, particularly we as a United Methodist Church, may be needed to understand about our history and our heritage that that might help us to understand and move forward.
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [00:24:02] You know, the biggest example is that we have a central conference, you know, in the United Methodist, we have a central conference that members of different mostly minorities, the people belong to central conference and then you know, the over slavery or we Methodist were divided and then when we became United Methodist in after slavery there was no reconciliation or racial justice work was done. And I feel like we, you know, put everything under the carpet and then pretended that that business is usual. So, I don't think we haven't had any real true soul searching about our own painful history, the owning the history and then unearthing from it, you know. And so, we haven't had that process. And now, you know, we are talking about different division without having done the work. And so, I would say that we really need to own our own history and why we have, you know, that. These different jurisdictions and, you know, conferences, not necessarily geographically and all those issues. So, I would say we need to start from there.
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan: [00:25:37] Garlinda What we did in the in 1968 was to transport central jurisdiction. To the global context. Central conferences.
Garlinda Burton: [00:25:49] So you're talking about I just want to clarify, we're talking about the central jurisdiction, which was created in 1939 when the north south branches of Methodism came back together. They had split over slavery, came back together with the compromise that a central jurisdiction and it wasn't geographic, would contain most of the African American churches and leaders, particularly in the South. And then when we when the United Methodist Church became United in 1968, abolished that legal segregation of African Americans, however, the vestiges of it, Dr. Quinn, I think I hear you saying are still there. And that's an interesting that's an interesting, interesting place to be. We know more about that history of the central jurisdiction and African American marginalization, what was happening with Asian Americans during that same time of after the Civil War and until 1939 and then 1968, what was going on with Asian Americans in the church during that period?
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan: [00:27:07] During that the period before 1968? Before, before the creation of the United Methodist Church. Ethnic ministries were strong. There were provisional conferences for different ethnic groups. But with the creation of the United Methodist Church, the provisional conferences were abolished. All these different groups were integrated within the jurisdiction. But there was no system put in place to support the ministry of the ethnic churches. If you trace back to, to, to the period after 1968 and look at how many of the ethnic churches, Chinese, American churches, Japanese and American churches, Korean American churches for a period of time. And other ethnic churches. How many of those churches eventually close? It speaks to the level of inattention. In order to create a united, quote unquote, United Methodist Church. A lot of these ministries were completely sacrificed. That's part of the legacy. And it is part of the of the white supremacist structure of the United Methodist Church. To the extent that today when we talk about how white our United Methodist Church in the US. That's part of the legacy.
Garlinda Burton: [00:29:06] Dr. Tran I see. I see you nodding. I saw you nodding. It is an interesting phenomenon that during the period of racial segregation, there was a sense that during the point of most segregation that the predominantly white United Methodist Church did support these separate ministries, maybe not to the level that they should have, but they were providing particular support, whether out of guilt or wanting to remain separate and making sure that the separate racial groups were propped up. So, they were providing this this support. But when the hand was forced and racial segregation was abolished by the church, there seems that there was some abandonment of Asian-American ministries, ministries of other people of color that were all together now. And so, you don't need that kind of support anymore. Does that does that sound like a is that a typical thing that happens in in a racist structure? Is that kind of typical? Or do you. Have you seen that before in other as you're looking at. Have you seen that before in your research? I guess I'm asking.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:30:23] Well, that's it's a big question right, Garlinda? I'm nodding. I'm like a bobble head because I feel like this is such rich conversation. I appreciate it so much. And I can't remember. I don't know whether I can count, you know, beyond one hand the number of times that I get to participate in conversations like this within our denomination. Right. So, I kind of I want to offer that comment as a way to say how important and poignant and critical this is and how and yet how rare it is. Right. So, part of my you know, Bobby, my head is just to kind of reflect on how, you know, if you're talking about the period of 1939 to 1968, the Vietnamese and the Vietnamese American scene has not entered into the United or Methodist or United Methodist experience or consciousness. Right. It's not until the eighties. Right, that the Vietnamese immigrant community is reach out within the U.S. context. Right. And so, my own family, like we didn't even know about the United Methodist Church until the nineties. Right now, it's it it's almost it goes without saying but it deserves naming here that the history of the United Methodist Church like many other mainline denominations and like what I call it, the history of global Christianity follows Western colonial trajectories, right? Imperial trajectory. And so, we need to think about that. Why isn't it why is it that it isn't until the 1980s, right? That we have kind of the beginning of a more robust understanding that what at that point many mainline denominations might understand as kind of a celebration of multiculturalism.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:32:32] Right. Is as far as what we will go to embrace and affirm the significance of ethnic diversity. Right. You know, kind of lone side in the aftermath, if you will, of universities claiming a space for ethnic studies. Right. In the aftermath of, you know, some of the wars in Asia or Southeast Asia. Right. Kind of it's almost like that woke moment, if you will, right away. Oh, we need to do something about this. And so, therefore, we have this Disneyland approach, right, to celebrating the multicultural diversity around us. But we do all of that without really, you know, the house is still ours, right? The foundations of our denominational house and our understanding of our place in the global church still remains the same. Nothing of that architecture changes right on the on the denominational scale as well as the local church level. Right. We welcome the immigrants and refugees, the boat people, right of the seventies and the adds. But, you know, they come to be part to be received and to receive the benevolence and the hospitality of our community. Right now, I would love for us to go back to the kind of the matrix of the perpetual foreigner, because the other end of it is the model minority, right? The model minority and the perpetual foreigner because the pendulum swings depending on. And then in the mix of that is also the yellow peril, right? Because then we will celebrate your diversity and give you a little bit of resources if you remain the model minority.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:34:17] The concept that arose out of the sixties. Right. And so, we're talking about the same time here, 60 to celebrate how, you know, the wonderful, hard-working immigrants and new refugees who come and show that, you know, the American myth, right? The self-made individual who if they work hard enough and you don't talk about how hard they work, right, then they can become the model non-citizen right in our midst. But if you ever subvert that or work outside of that expectation that immediately you become a threat, right. A peril on the individual level or communal level, and it reinforces the fact that you will always be a foreigner in another right within the community or the denomination. And so, I don't think that's going away. I think we are still wrestling with that, you know, in this 21st century reality, facing a new general conference. Right. I think we need to frame for our audience, our colleagues and ministry in the church there what is a stake where for our upcoming conference, a general conference, because it's easy to pin it on one or two issues when the issues may masked some of the underlying right, what do you call it, challenges of our denomination, historical and historic challenges of our denomination that we've not been able to work through.
Garlinda Burton: [00:35:54] You raise such a good point. And Dr. Lee, I'm turning to you that what I heard Dr. Tran in your conversation is about racism, continually defining people and defining their worth instead of listening and in embracing the self determination of people. So, you have the perpetual foreigner that's determined by outside forces. That's not determined by Asian American people. And then you have, you know, everybody's hard-working. As long as they keep their head down, they're fine. But then you come to, you know, World War Two and the Yellow Peril, and now all of a sudden Japanese Americans, but even other Asian-Americans are seen as a threat, again being defined from without. And then, you know, this is more my era, the model minority. I know that that was one of the stereotypes that was sort of pushed on a lot of African Americans like you would just be like these humble, quiet people and work hard. Then you, too, can make it, you know. And so that created, as you said, a dynamic where African Americans and Asian-Americans were oftentimes compared and contrasted with each other. Sorry, compare and contrast it with each other again, from without creating this these stereotypes of the lazy African American and the industrious Asian American. And instead of sometimes questioning that as two different people talking together, we're letting white folks define who we are. And I think that was the question that I had for you, Dr. Lee. So, what is it that has happened in our own denomination? Have there been things that have exacerbated this inter-ethnic tension? And are we doing any kind of a better job as a church in sort of tearing down those walls? Is this something am I just making this up or did this has this been happening in our in our church and in our society? And are we getting better in any way at dealing with our own racism?
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [00:38:18] I think, you know, compared to other mainline denominations, because we have an appointment system, at least in terms of a clergy makeup, we are more diverse. Right. But still, United Methodist churches in the US is part of a US racial structure that is. And also, you know, when I was an MDiv student at Claremont School of Theology, I was working at the library as a that elder Moore curriculum lab student worker there. So, they were developing that lab. And so, I remember every so often every two months or three months, every denomination was sending in their different curriculum or curricula. And I'm the one who needs to make a display and then let community know what available resources are here for their education. But it's very much based on what Mai-Anh Dr. Tran said, multicultural model. And it's like, you know, so, you know, it's feeling of feeling good about who we are, that we are expanding this multicultural circle that is still, you know, this white society is here, but there are so many little different ethnic, diverse community, which is not part of us, but we are expanding the circle. So, extending the circle. Oh, you know, so we need to celebrate, you know, this culture, that culture. And then our church is a diverse multicultural ministry. And then even now that, you know, maybe, you know, Korean churches and African American churches or white churches get together for cultural celebrations.
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [00:40:07] So, you know, not only I'm a clergy person, but my late husband was a United Methodist pastor, and he is a white American. So, you know, because I was an extension minister, I'm still, you know, is in higher education, teaching theological education that when very 100% were in ten days, the parishioners know that their new senior pastor is spouse is not white. The Korean American pastor and theologian pretty much every church and I was asked to organize like going to Korean restaurants or having exchange worship with the Korean congregations or teaching them teach them something about Korea. So as a polite person, I would say, you know, first, when those requests are first made. Yes. But that then people expect that to be like an annual thing. So, I would ask them, you know, and second request that comes in, so what is your ongoing plan to make this as an enriching experience not only for us, but for Koreans? Because we I know that we learn a lot. We, you know, are we expanding our spectrum of knowledge about Korea and Korean Methodist Church and their fervent prayer life and all different things. But what Koreans are gaining from those exchanges. So, this you know, that's the one example.
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [00:41:38] The multicultural approach is very white centered. And then, you know, white notions of cultural sensitivity are expanded, but at what cost? So, in fact, I have a published book about this. And so, I was arguing for the intercultural approach, which is based on anti-racist approach, anti-colonial approach. And because multiculturalism doesn't address the structural issue, that that still, no matter what white society and different diverse communities, and then we are expanding the circle and that we are making representations. A Korean American became DS, a Korean American Chinese American, became bishop an Indian American, became a bishop or Latina first Latina bishop my bishop. You know, we celebrate that, which is much better than nothing. But this is a very still that the multicultural very based on white racist system approach so intercultural approach is that we why do we have that structure at the at the first place if we are really celebrating God's diversity, God's kingdom on Earth and we are called to be the partner to build the God's kingdom on Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven, then there is no central margin, but every needs to be in equal footing and contributing to God's welfare together. So, I think we, you know, the churches have been really the best, the places of perpetuating their multicultural celebrations that without addressing the structural issues.
Garlinda Burton: [00:43:21] I think that's what we're finding in our work as well, that we have the United Methodist Church has done a fairly good job of having the good yearbook picture. The United Methodist Church has done had done a good job of having a great yearbook picture of diversity. We love to learn about other cultures, and we love to celebrate World Communion Sunday, where we, you know, eat different people's bread and that kind of thing. What we are challenged to do now is to bring the reality of people of other than white western thought to bring those ideas and bring that the theology and the praxis to bear on who we are so that we are no longer a predominantly white church driving the train in a in a way that is white, that is supremacist. But we are actually appreciating and embodying the people who are who are in the church, who may have a different and dare we say, better way of being church. And I think that's a challenge for I think it's a challenge for the United Methodist Church. I know that many and even for people of color, many times we've been so in. Acculturated by the larger white church that we find it hard to challenge and to know where to go forward. And particularly it's hard for people of color, but it's also, you know, you get pushback from white folks. So, the question is how do we begin as a larger church to push the envelope closer to where, as Dr. Lee said, where we are living out God's kin-dom and living, pushing beyond racism. Dr. Kuan, I'm going to start with you.
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan: [00:45:18] Garlinda. That that is that is so important. Look at the efforts of our denomination. The act of repentance. And then the addressing the massacre of Native Americans. Yet. We have. We have. Not begun to address seriously the systemic structural issues that have supported a white normativity, white supremacist paradigm of the United Methodist Church. Going back to what Dr. Tran had said earlier in in trying to define racism. Oh, how a default has still been that I'm not racist because. Individually. I love everybody. Yet the underlying. Structural issues are never dealt with. To the extent that I'm sure all of you were aware that back in June last year. A student, a graduate of Drake University in Iowa, got the Merriam-Webster dictionary to change its definition of racism to include structural and systemic. Issues. This is a quote. She pointed out that both prejudices combined with social and institutional power. It is a system of advantage based on skin color. That is a new definition that has finally, in the 21st century, got into a dictionary. So, I hope that people take seriously within our denomination. When are we going to address these structural, systemic issues? That will help to move the denomination away. We have done a lot of, as Dr. Lee say, cross-cultural ministries celebrating multicultural multiculturalism within the denomination. But those are only the tip of the iceberg. Surface issues. Underlying that are issues that we are not able and willing to, to, to, to get to because it will be very painful. For a white majority denomination to look at itself and begin to repent of its white supremacist structure that they have continued to support.
Garlinda Burton: [00:48:34] That seems to be one of the hardest things for many of our white family in the church to grasp. And you named it so well, Dr. Kuan, every time we talk about racism or point out instances of racism in church and society, we inevitably hear from church folks challenging the definition of racism as something that, you know, it's only bad people who do racism, good people don't do racism. You know, it's what Robin D'Angelo calls a good, bad binary. And I remember just having people get just violently upset because the notion of racism is something that is more than just one person does to another. It's systemic, seems to be very difficult and very painful sometimes for people to, to, to swallow and to deal with. Dr. Tran, you know, that that is a real challenge for us, I think, in the church to help people understand that good people can still perpetuate racism. How do you help people understand that? As Dr. Kuan said, these are the systemic this is the systemic nature of racism that we have to address as people of faith and people who want to change society for the better.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:50:03] Thanks. We're always throwing these big questions out at us. I always feel like I get these intractable questions. You know, it's a. Just as we need to be empathetic with the kind of the sentiment of those who feel mortified that they might find themselves individually complicit in larger social and structural forces of racism. It's terrifying to recognize that the flip side of the same coin is we have to really bring to our consciousness vigilantly the fact that persons who continue to be disenfranchised by racialized experience or racist experience continue to be put in the position of having to educate others about the experience. So, on the one hand, you have to prove your worth that you are a member of the community if the society and at the same time you have to prove your hurt. Right? And in particular, we're talking about the AAPI de desi experience. It's like we have to prove that we that there are distinctive racialized experience for the Asian and Asian Pacific Islander community and that it deserves its distinctive analysis. And we have to go out of our way to show it to educate others about it. I think it's important for the church to first hear that right now, good people do bad things. Isn't that a theological statement? Isn't that what our biblical witness says? Good people we.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:51:45] People do many, many evil things. And so, gosh, there's a couple of things that I would like to say I'm going to say. Name them. So, it's not kind of going around my way to answer your question there. First of all, I think we need to build on what Dr. Kuan just said. I think we need to really learn how whiteness is, not what white people do and what white people think. Whiteness is a framework. Right. That that choreographs racism. Right. And it gets internalized as well by people of color. Right. And that's part of the structural process that keep it going. So, we need to learn whether it is so then in a sense, it does separate whiteness, white supremacy from white people do this and that. Second, I think part of the challenge, as Dr. Lee was saying, about the limits and even the danger of multiculturalism and celebrating it in the cosmetic, ornamental level right on the periphery, it isn't as long it doesn't touch the core is that it very quickly review our threshold or you say or quota system for how much we can withstand diversity and inclusion. Right. Because if right if multiplicity diversity or difference can of right exceed or threshold for what we can or it threatens to change the reality permanently, then we are going to feel threatened and we're going to run to reject that kind of diversity and difference.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:53:16] Right. So that's the limitation of it that we have to address. Thirdly, I think we have to think about race and racism as a theological problem, a theological concern that has unwittingly, unbeknownst to us, even good liberal Christians. Right. And I don't even want to use progressive Christians. Good meaning? Good intention, Christian. It might have fundamental theological, even biblical, if not also spiritual foundations, right? Kind of the racist ideology or racist perceptions of the world. Right. Or a racialized perception of the world. Why? Because. And we may not have the time right now to go into what might be some theological convictions or even biblical interpretations that might allow, you know, some good Christians to say, well, what's wrong with reality? Right. You know, I don't see right. I don't see racism. I don't see race, if you will. Right. And so, unless we have, we can name. Right. How it might the church might be unwittingly teaching the Bible, teaching theological right convictions about the world, about our place in the world, or our partnership with God in the redemption of the world. We think that we're God's primary agents, and that's an example of how we're the fixer of the world's problems. Unless we can name racism and talk about it in those terms, I think we can. We might politicize it. We might explain it away as a cultural or sociological phenomenon, and it may not impact the work of the church.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:55:00] Finally, I think in some recent writing I've tried to think about, I'm going to connect to what Dr. Lee had said about fundamentally, maybe because we're to scholars of education or religious education in theological education, it's an educational endeavor that is lifelong and life wide. And I don't just mean, you know, introducing new curriculum, right. Because and I have framed it in the kind of three, three themes for me recently, three motifs. One is inviting the church to understand its limits and its possibilities in terms of being community. And this is where my work is connected and picked up on the work of Dr. Lee. And I've even called it community ability, meaning can we really wrestle with the messiness, the painfulness of being in contact with one another in community? Because sometimes we think that just because we embrace community means everybody's going to have a Kumbaya experience. Everybody's going to love each other. No. When we're when we bump into each other through skin-to-skin contact, if you will, we hurt each other. So, can we think about how community, church communities hurt? That's one. Two, can we think about what it means to wrestle with the fact that church teachings, interpretations of Scripture have reinforced either, you know, how our understanding of who's valuable, who's not, who's in, who's out, right, who's part of us and who's other, you know, kind of our sense of the world order and the whole notion that, you know, divine revelation from God acts through us, the churches, the arms, you know, arms and feet of Christ, and therefore, right God's will God's redemptive power.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [00:57:01] Right is enacted through only the church, right. And when you have a notion of the church being a particular way, a racialized image, imagination for who and what the church is, then you think that we are the only ones who can interpret and partner with God's redemptive work in the world. Those who are outside of it are not part of that plan. What imagine subverting that? Imagine thinking that actually God has been active, has been originating redemptive plans in other communities, in racial, ethnic minorities, community in other parts of the world, that centers of Christian work, of Christianity, of God's redemptive work in broken communities actually have started out there already in places that we consider to be dangerous or out there or belonging to non-Christian, right? Non-Christian, what I call it habits and expressions and beliefs. What if we change all of that and realize that, you know, kind of recalibrate our place in God's greater map? To use the image that you've alluded to before, I think those things are what we need to. Bring together as an educational design, if you will. Right. For the church to commit to.
Garlinda Burton: [00:58:33] I think that's very interesting. Dr. Kuan, what about you? You're also in theological education. What is it that you think the church can do in terms of educating clergy specifically? I'm going to push you on clergy to help us confront and address racism in our church and to make our church better to push beyond what are some things that that maybe you think are happening in theological education right now or things that you'd like to see?
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan: [00:59:09] Well, to pick up on what Dr. Tran had had state in theological education. The curriculum is going to be very key. All three of us have been talking about this for as long as we have been in theological education, challenging the white paradigm of theological education. And I've been I've been I've talked to 2 to 2 faculty when we were all together at Pacific School of Religion. We were trying to push the curriculum in new ways to. Yet, that is.
Garlinda Burton: [00:59:57] Let me interrupt. So, you are all at Pacific School of Religion at the same time. Oh, wonderful. Oh, my gosh. Wonderful.
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [01:00:04] To the same conference now.
Garlinda Burton: [01:00:06] Oh, that's right. That's right. That's right. So, you all so you as you said, Dr. Kuan, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I just found that fascinating. You all have been talking about this and talking about curriculum. Wow.
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan: [01:00:19] And remember what Dr. Lee was saying earlier, the of the old white paradigm and all the all the others are on the margin. That's what theological education is still today. The teaching of a scholars of color oftentimes are still at the margins. How do we reshape the center of theological education? Making it more multiple centers rather than a white center with all the rest. That is a curriculum issue. Secondly, as a biblical scholar. We need to rethink and re-educate. Continue to educate. Local churches. Starting from the pastors and how they need to teach the local congregations. We have to come to a point where we need to confront our own textual tradition. Why? Historically, why has there been so many problems within our Christian tradition? The crystal centric tradition is itself. A problem. In the global context. But more than that, where did where did sexism in the church come about? Is supported by textual interpretation slavery, racism that supported by textual interpretation. The sense of what the train was talking about. We as the as a transmitter of God's reign. This is part of the chosen US identity that we have bought into uncritically taking it out of the contextual reality of, of the ancient Israelites and early Christianity and, and transmitting it continually through Christian history. The kind of perpetuation against other people. In the US terrorists during the time of the Pilgrims. They saw the Native Americans as the Canaanites to be destroyed so that they can possess the land. That is part of the problematic of biblical interpretation. Unless we are willing to confront that. And find a better hermeneutic. And talk about that grounded in some of the prophetic traditions of justice or of the New Testament tradition of love that transcend. All this isms. We are going to continue to be stuck with a white paradigm, a white supremacist church that will not be able to transcend. All these structures, structures and systems that that that created the church and has continued to be perpetuated by the church.
Garlinda Burton: [01:04:03] Powerful. Powerful. Dr. Lee. What about with you? What do you see as critical in in theological education but also in in Christian education? For us to really begin to confront racism as perpetuated by the church and if you want to get more specific, the anti-Asian and Pacific Islander kind of racism that we're seeing, what is it that we need to do in theological and Christian education?
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [01:04:37] You know, we don't talk about racism because it makes everyone so uncomfortable. You know, and therefore, we don't talk about it as a good Christian people because we are educated to be polite to each other, even though due to our behavior. So, we are showing very, you know, fine and behaviors sometimes. When I was co-hosting that just, you know, holding a space for Asian-American women in theology and ministry right after Atlanta shooting in March. That was Sunday afternoon. And many of the participants were sharing how profoundly betrayed that they felt by their own pastors because the shooting happened and many of them are very liberal social justice in the community. The pastors didn't even mention that in their sermon or only during church and concerns. So, when that happened, you know, especially in a people who are attending like a racial, racially and ethnically diverse churches that when their pastors do not even mention or just in passing, that there is a profound sense of a betrayal by their pastor. So, I think that that's one example that I think the Christian education, that the clergy formation in theological education that is also related to Christian education in local congregations, that because many clergy educated and very black and minority, black and white binary theological education do not even see it when it's only happening when even they have a congregation. Members are sitting there and, you know, torn, but they don't see it. And until we have to point that out.
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [01:06:39] So I think one is we need to learn how to talk about race and we need to get, you know, endure quote, unquote that is discomfort that brings to everyone as someone of a person of color, a woman of color to like to talk about race all the time. No, I don't. But because it really diminishes us, my sense of who I am itself, I have to bring it up. And I learned how to speak it up. But many people don't do not even feel like they can speak it out. Right. So, we need to teach our clergy theology, theological students, how to talk about even race in connection to a larger system that is a part of their identity. So, like in I Live, we changed the curriculum several years ago that used to be like a two credit one quarter long class on identity power and difference. But in two quarters and to credit our class, how much can you cover? That is, it's all about identity and power and a structure in your identity and racism and homophobia and sexism and classism, all that. So, faculty voted to make the classes. Six created l long class, without which students cannot move on. But is it enough? No. Because even if a student goes through that, if our colleagues are not teaching the Bible the way that the Jeffrey mentions or theology or religious education practice they were preaching, if we if that formation is not happening, we just cannot change the culture.
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [01:08:28] So I think, you know, not only student formation but also theological educator formation. So, I am one of the lucky and, you know, academic dean that my faculty agreed to go through mandatory training, and we just finished the two-year training and then we are still moving on. But these are colleagues who wrote about racism, who wrote it or who are familiar with white supremacy theories. But we were focusing on to we embody that in our own relationships, in our own. Institutions of culture. So, I think not only we need to talk about, you know, what racism means, but how do we embody that? Because the racism is experienced, you know, into human relations within the structure that some people just were brought up in, the way that, you know, it's that that's taken for granted a normality, but they have no idea that of some other people. That is really the racist experience. Right. So, we need to create a culture not only through curriculum, you know, what we require, but how would we embody that in institutional cultures and faculty relationships and student formation? And therefore, you know, our good, intended colleagues, when they see what's happening, they need to be able to see that as a, you know, oh my God, there is such injustice happening against the Asian people, Asian women, not just, you know, another shooting.
Rev Dr. Boyung Lee: [01:10:04] So, so, so I think those some of those really basic things need to be done. Yeah. If. And if I may add, can I add just a two more things? You know, so whenever we have this anti-racism conversation, one of the stumbling blocks that I always experience is that our good intended white colleagues take it personally when we talk about systematic systems issues, but they take it personally. Then when someone takes the system that perpetuates, you know, we're giving them more benefits at the cost of somebody else's, but they take when someone is taking it personally, we can never move beyond that level. So, we, you know, so I encourage our white pastors and colleagues and, you know, try not to take it personally. But this is a system, issues that we need to work on together. And also, as the earlier you know, both of my colleagues said that the internalized racism is also prevailing among many people of color. So then because we were formed in this racially hierarchical society at the cost of somebody else's right, that the model minority was one of the factors that created that, that pitting people against each other, that then we tend to do oppression Olympics the who is more oppressed. I can only my community can talk about racism. No, you are not you need to be quiet. That doesn't help either.
Garlinda Burton: [01:12:14] So instead of having a contest to determine who's experienced the most oppression, we need to be working together to stamp out racism. And we get distracted when we do that comparison. My story is worse than your story, Dr. Tran.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [01:12:35] That's exactly what I wanted to name. Thank you, Dr. Lee, for setting it up, because I think where I'm landing is that I think we need to invest in global or transnational interracial interfaith coalition building to do this work. Right. Anti-racist education, unlearning and relearning right. How to build community based on new theological foundations and multi-faith foundations. And I can we can tease out more of that. But unless that happens, we're going to be competing, you know, to see which issues, which forms of oppression do we address first and then, you know, so we come up with this both additive curriculum as well as sequential curriculum. If we can address this, then we'll get to that and then we'll get together and then we'll never get to these things, right? Why I say inter multi faith and multi-interracial pen, ethnic coalition building is that that's what we have been learning from young activists, young movement leaders. Right. Because every time there is some sort of global racialized violence, event of violence, we see groups across racial ethnic identities and affinities and religious affinity coming together to connect the issues. Right. And to name the recommendations that would impact structures in different levels. And that's what we need. The church needs to learn to do more of that.
Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran: [01:14:07] Otherwise we're stuck with we'll deal with sexism first and then racism, and then for racism, we deal with this group first and then that. Right. That's really not helpful. And why the multi faith piece is important, especially for AAPI folk, is that that's the world's out of which our people came multi faith worlds, right multi-religious and multicultural. And that's also been the history of Asian-American activism in the United States. In the United States as well. You know, there's been yellow power right alongside white, black power. And so, you know, the farmworkers movement, right? You've got Asian farmworkers alongside with Latinx. And so, we need to we need to go we need to do that. That's the only possible model, grassroots and coalitional. But I think I want to underscore the fact that if we think of racism as just a political or cultural or social problem and ignore the spiritual and the theological root will not hit it right. There's something to being paralyzed, the church being psychologically, spiritually paralyzed by its own sense of being embroiled, complicit in racism that expresses itself in either fragility, self-deprecation, anger, even. Right. And just paralysis. But none of that leads to constructive action. Redemptive action. Right. So, we need to name that and sit with that together.
Garlinda Burton: [01:15:41] Yes. Thank you all so much. This. Has been very rich and very rich. And we hope that you will share with us some of the books. I got some of your writings, but we want to share your books and other resources to speak with people who want to learn more, want to be in touch with you, want to consider your seminaries because they're awesome and you all are there. This has been the Expanding the Table podcast from the General Commission on Religion and Race, and our topic has been racism targeting Asian Americans. Theologians Speak. I want to thank especially our guest, Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran. of Garrett-Evangelical school of theology in Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Boyung Lee of Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and Dr. Jeffrey Kuan of Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. We love hearing from our listeners. So, tell us how we're doing and offer your ideas for upcoming topics and guests by emailing us at podcast@gcorr.org. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe and share this podcast with others. Follow the General Commission on Religion and Race on social media and please rate and review us. Every five-star review sends a message that podcasts like ours are valuable and appreciated. Until next time. This is Garlinda Burton reminding us all that God is calling us higher peace.