Embracing Conflict

Abstract

Embracing Conflict Traci C. West (bio) To address the proliferation of white supremacist habits in the “white space” of Feminist Studies in Religion (FSR) through a genuinely transformative process, we need more conflict. How can we increase honest and probing conflict articulated in FSR’s publications, organizing, and leadership contexts? This seems crucial for figuring out how a “feminist institution that has a long and solid history of involvement of women of color,” as Judith Plaskow writes, can confront “what stands in the way of our creating something together that we all feel is ours” and not merely “white space” (5). No, of course, I do not mean that we need more conflict that demeans, shames, or purposefully maintains objectifying notions of one another’s social identities and religious communities. I am certainly not calling for boosting political conflicts that wage bruising competitions with each other over the degree of historical-victim status our particular groups can claim, or that engage in any form of destructive targeting and demoralization of one another. But we do need more conflict that stretches us beyond necessary revelations that only name the historically rooted habits of our racist unfreedom. We ought to intensify conflicts that also bring discomfort to the familiar patterns of white entitlement and supremacist logics embedded in our existing academic practices. We need conflicts that fuel more disruption of our tolerance for the continual reiteration of those familiar, lived patterns. A feminist and womanist gender justice approach to antiracism in religious studies intentionally promotes rupturing conflict with traditions of repression and our communal investments in them. Therefore, it ought not be surprising that deeply uncomfortable conflict arises if we, racially, ethnically, nationally, and religiously diverse gender justice scholars of religion, choose to seriously engage issues of white supremacy. Proceeding with this engagement should be understood as a deliberate commitment to immerse ourselves in tense, high-stakes struggle with one another. But many are unprepared for it or do not share this assumption. Perhaps this is partly because we disagree on the extent to which the [End Page 23] presence of racially and ethnically diverse perspectives constitutes a primary goal of antiracism. Plaskow’s essay helpfully provides detailed mapping of some of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion’s (JFSR) diversity. It allows us to consider how incongruous interpretations of the significance of an abundance of diversity can matter. The evidence of consistent racial and ethnic diversity in JFSR’s leadership and content illustrates an impressive array of feminist, womanist, and mujerista ideas about racial, ethnic, and national identities in religion scholarship and pedagogies. Yet, it is precisely such an array that can indicate not just the problem of presence without influence, as Plaskow so astutely points out, but also the sacralizing of diversity in feminist and womanist studies in religion. Respectful coexistence in separate essays or conference presentations, and even intentional affirmation of divergent perspectives and methods that are informed by critical analyses of race and racism, definitely generates intensely meaningful reflections. The presence of this dissimilar range can contribute an opening for womanist and feminist scholarly projects in religion to begin dismantling the academic practices of white dominance and intersecting hegemonies such as those related to class, sex/gender, dis/ability, and nationality. But when seen and celebrated as an end goal instead of merely an opening, the opposite may actually be achieved. Celebrations of diversity can promote avoidance of conflict that reveals the inadequacy of merely acknowledging difference and can generate too much contentment that militates against substantive disinvestment in status quo replication of white dominance. As a black Protestant Christian, I have been quite at home in the recalcitrantly Christian dominance of the JFSR context that Plaskow boldly describes. Admittedly, part of me wants to hide from confronting how my assumptions of black feminist Christian normativity and its supposed unquestionable anti-oppression stance contribute to an anti-Jewish hostile environment that can mimic well-learned white supremacist denial. I would rather leave uninterrogated the anti-Judaism relished in certain cultural and political expressions of blackness related to my Christian theology and social ethics commitments. I must choose to break out of this denial and seek a greater...