I Bring the Voices of My People
A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation
Author Chanequa Walker-Barnes ISBN 9780802877208 Binding Trade Paper Publisher WM B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Publication Date October 01, 2019 Size 140 x 216 mm
Disrupting the racist and sexist biases in conversations on reconciliationChanequa Walker-Barnes offers a compelling argument that the Christian racial reconciliation movement is incapable of respondi
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.
Brenda Salter McNeil
— author of Roadmap to Reconciliation
“Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes is one of the most courageous and prophetic voices I know! For far too long, theology and narratives that shape reconciliation have been coopted by whiteness and used from an individualistic lens. But there is hope! In I Bring the Voices of My People, Dr. Walker-Barnes gives us a new theological lens birthed from the margins that provides a more holistic approach to justice and racial healing. This is a must read for anyone serious about reconciliation. I highly recommend it!”
Christena Cleveland
— Director of the Center for Justice and Renewal
“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.”
Phillis Isabella Sheppard
— Vanderbilt Divinity School
“Chanequa Walker-Barnes constructs a courageous womanist theology of racial reconciliation, drawing on a wide range of figures including womanist scholars, Alice Walker and her critical race theory, and Howard Thurman. What is so hopeful here, on a subject that has more often than not produced hopelessness and despair, is that Walker-Barnes puts forward a path that can lead to racial reconciliation, if not in my lifetime, then in the near, possible future. Walker-Barnes has offered us a challenge and an invitation; we should take them up by first reading I Bring the Voices of My People.”
Willie James Jennings
— Yale Divinity School
“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.”
Angela D. Sims
— President of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School
“Chanequa Walker-Barnes uses racialized gendered tropes and socially constructed methods of behavioral control to inform her deep analysis of racialized gendered commodification. Walker-Barnes’s ‘confrontational truth-telling’ is a timely reminder of the role of context in determining not only when and where we enter but whose voices are missing from the work of repentance, a necessary component of reconciliation. In this Trumpian era, I Bring the Voices of My People is a must-read for anyone committed to naming, confronting, and dismantling White supremacy.”
Grace Ji-Sun Kim
— author of Embracing the Other
“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.”
Jennifer Harvey
— author of Dear White Christians
"With brilliant and unflinching commitment to black women, Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes tells the truth and writes a vision. We who truly long for racial reconciliation can only leave this womanist work of liberation and love newly challenged and charged to take up our asymmetrical and particular work. Walker-Barnes rejoins black women, black people, women of color in mapping the journey of healing and salvation through confrontational truth-telling, breaking chains, leaving sometimes, and the life-nurturing relationships among women of color. She calls the white among us to repentance and conversion, as well as to the salvific recognition that our moral injury will be repaired only
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— author of Roadmap to Reconciliation
“Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes is one of the most courageous and prophetic voices I know! For far too long, theology and narratives that shape reconciliation have been coopted by whiteness and used from an individualistic lens. But there is hope! In I Bring the Voices of My People, Dr. Walker-Barnes gives us a new theological lens birthed from the margins that provides a more holistic approach to justice and racial healing. This is a must read for anyone serious about reconciliation. I highly recommend it!”
Christena Cleveland
— Director of the Center for Justice and Renewal
“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.”
Phillis Isabella Sheppard
— Vanderbilt Divinity School
“Chanequa Walker-Barnes constructs a courageous womanist theology of racial reconciliation, drawing on a wide range of figures including womanist scholars, Alice Walker and her critical race theory, and Howard Thurman. What is so hopeful here, on a subject that has more often than not produced hopelessness and despair, is that Walker-Barnes puts forward a path that can lead to racial reconciliation, if not in my lifetime, then in the near, possible future. Walker-Barnes has offered us a challenge and an invitation; we should take them up by first reading I Bring the Voices of My People.”
Willie James Jennings
— Yale Divinity School
“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.”
Angela D. Sims
— President of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School
“Chanequa Walker-Barnes uses racialized gendered tropes and socially constructed methods of behavioral control to inform her deep analysis of racialized gendered commodification. Walker-Barnes’s ‘confrontational truth-telling’ is a timely reminder of the role of context in determining not only when and where we enter but whose voices are missing from the work of repentance, a necessary component of reconciliation. In this Trumpian era, I Bring the Voices of My People is a must-read for anyone committed to naming, confronting, and dismantling White supremacy.”
Grace Ji-Sun Kim
— author of Embracing the Other
“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.”
Jennifer Harvey
— author of Dear White Christians
"With brilliant and unflinching commitment to black women, Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes tells the truth and writes a vision. We who truly long for racial reconciliation can only leave this womanist work of liberation and love newly challenged and charged to take up our asymmetrical and particular work. Walker-Barnes rejoins black women, black people, women of color in mapping the journey of healing and salvation through confrontational truth-telling, breaking chains, leaving sometimes, and the life-nurturing relationships among women of color. She calls the white among us to repentance and conversion, as well as to the salvific recognition that our moral injury will be repaired only
Chanequa Walker-Barnes is professor of practical theology and pastoral counseling at Columbia Theological Seminary. 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.