One Book One Diocese Lenten Study
The Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis is reading the same book together for Lent. Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God by Kelly Brown Douglas. We’re gathering in local communities to discuss the book or reading independently.
As part of my own discipline of reading the book and preparing for discussion, I’m summarizing each chapter in fewer than 300 words.
1: America’s Exceptionalism
In Stand Your Ground, Douglas seeks to trace the background of our racial division and answer the simple question: “Could Trayvon have stood his ground on that sidewalk?”
In chapter 1, Douglas establishes that it isn’t about a singular Florida law that should concern us, but the culture which creates it: a Stand Your Ground Culture she calls it.
She starts all the way back in the woods of Germany and the creation of Anglo-Saxon culture as preeminent with the writings of Tacitus—not only as the precursor to Hilter’s master
Douglas argues that this connection between the blood and later, the color of skin, would serve as a justifying argument for cultural greatness (as in, the Anglo-Saxons were so awesome, so it must be about their DNA) as far back as the 18th Century.
Related factors, including evangelicalism, preference for “whiter” then “swarthy” complexions among Europeans, and in the form of Supreme Court decisions in the early 20th Century which treat the very concept of “whiteness” as cherished property. This sense of cherished property is essential to understanding how pernicious our exceptional racism is.
Determining whether the color of skin affects one’s ability to stand their ground is determined not in the courtroom, but by whether or not we consider their appearance to be cherished property. For much of the black community, the answer to the original question is easy. No.
In chapter 2, we’ll explore the related move: from whiteness as cherished property to blackness as chattel.