So You Think You're White?

Contact: Nell Archer
bushwickabbey@gmail.com

MARCH 13, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

‘SO YOU THINK YOU’RE WHITE?’: BUSHWICK ABBEY’S LENT SERIES LOOKS AT SKIN PRIVILEGE THROUGH THE LENS OF FAITH

Bushwick Abbey kicks off a four-week series of programs this week that aims to engage participants in a meaningful conversation about race, privilege and repentance during the season of Lent.

Titled “So You Think You’re White?”, the series will feature screenings of two Oscar-nominated documentaries, a discussion of Michael Eric Dyson’s book “Tears We Cannot Stop,” and a conversation with Onleilove Alston, the executive director of Faith in New York.

The Episcopal parish’s programs aim to push all participants — but especially white Christians — to examine how racial privilege benefits them, and to use that knowledge to fight racism in all its forms.

“It’s my hope that people who are open to examining their own complicity in a system that is oppressive will find a way of thinking about their experience that’s helpful, so that they’re not just mired down in guilt and paralyzed by that, but find a way of looking at their own experience that changes their perspective on what needs to be done to make our society more equitable," said the Rev. Nell Archer, vicar at Bushwick Abbey.

“So You Think You’re White?” begins on Wednesday, March 15 with a screening and discussion of “13th,” Ava DuVernay’s critically acclaimed documentary detailing how modern mass incarceration reflects the legacy of slavery in America.

The following event on Wednesday, March 22 will feature a screening of Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro,” which traces the history of racism in the United States using an unfinished manuscript by James Baldwin as a narrative thread. Time and location are to be determined.

At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, participants will discuss “Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America,” a groundbreaking book by Georgetown University sociologist Michael Eric Dyson that’s structured as a plea from the pulpit to white Americans.

The series will close on Sunday, April 2 with a guest sermon at Bushwick Abbey from Onleilove Alston, an East New York native who serves as the executive director of Faith in New York, an interfaith coalition of more than 70 congregations in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx. Alston also serves on the Board of Directors for Sojourners and on the New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Clergy Advisory Council.

“So You Think You’re White?” comes amid an effort to confront racism and skin privilege throughout the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Long Island.

At its last convention in November, the Diocese encouraged all individual parishes to organize programming around racial justice issues in 2017 and gave clergy a curriculum for understanding racism as a systemic problem.

“The stain of injustice that exists in our country because of skin privilege is something that we are called to address as Christians, as well as our personal complicity in a system that is oppressive,” Archer said.

“SO YOU THINK YOU’RE WHITE?” EVENTS:

“13th” film screening and discussion — 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 15 at Bushwick Abbey, 179 St. Nicholas Ave.
“I Am Not Your Negro” film screening — time and location TBD
“Tears We Cannot Stop” book discussion — 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 29 at Bushwick Abbey
Guest sermon by Onleilove Alston — noon on Sunday, April 2 at Bushwick Abbey

About Bushwick Abbey
Bushwick Abbey is an Episcopal congregation in Brooklyn that is committed to learning, sharing and celebrating the stories of Bushwick, as we work with those creating new stories. We are partnering with artists, performers, eco-justice advocates, writers, community organizers, readers, lawyers and musicians. We are learning each other’s languages and dreaming together.
The spiritual heart of Bushwick Abbey is worship. We come together to question, to practice and to explore incarnational inclusive love. We bring our whole creative selves to ancient Christian practices and discover them again for the first time.

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