4 Quotes by Jemar Tisby

Throughout the course of US history, when Christians had the opportunity to decisively oppose the racism in their midst, all too often, they chose silence. They chose passivity. The refusal to act in the midst of injustice is itself an act of injustice. Indifference to oppression perpetuates oppression.

Looking back on the past four hundred years, this nation's story of racism can seem almost inevitable. But it didn't have to be this way. At critical turning points throughout history, people made deliberate choices to construct and reinforce a racist America. Our generation has the opportunity to make different choices, ones that lead to greater human dignity and justice, but only if we pay heed to our history and respond with the truth and courage that confronting racism requires.

Oppressed people must either reform or reject a religion that preaches spiritual salvation but has little to say about their physical and material conditions. The hypocrisy of white Christians who said their religion condemned darker-skinned people to perpetual slavery even as they worshipped a brown-skinned Jewish man who was put to death by an imperial power could hardly be starker, both then and now.

Apparently, some slaveholders had concerns that their "charity and piety" in sharing the Christian message with enslaved children would result in the loss of unfree labor and income. Such a practice would also disrupt the ideology of white supremacy. It would be harder to maintain the social, economic, and religious superiority of white people if spiritual liberty translated into physical and material liberty for enslaved people as well.