God and my whiteness: a personal theo-biography. Issue 1 (2nd January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rooms, Nigel
• Is Part Of: Practical theology. Volume 15:Issue 1/2(2022)
• Page Start: 137
• Page End: 147
• Publication Date: 2022-01-02
• Subjects: Whiteness -- white privilege -- autoethnography -- theo-biography; Theology, Practical -- Periodicals; Pastoral care -- Periodicals; Pastoral theology -- Periodicals; Pastoral counseling -- Periodicals; 253.05
• DOI: 10.1080/1756073X.2021.2023951
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1756-073X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: An autoethnographic reflection is presented as an inquiry into the author's whiteness and the effect of God's presence and activity in relation to that whiteness throughout the author's life. The article is written as an example of white work that foregrounds the hidden privilege, power and entitlement that structural racism offers to white people. After naming both himself and his various identities and ordering them from central to peripheral, the author admits his own racism. Via the performance of evocative stories told from life situations every 10 years, in relationship with literature on whiteness, a picture is built up of the author's entanglement with whiteness and what God, seemed to be doing about it, if anything. Several questions the author brought to the reflection are resolved, while no-end point is reached. There is a concluding resolution to stay with a continuing conscientisation about personal whiteness and take appropriate, costly action.