I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation by Chanequa Walker-Barnes

Abstract

Reviewed by: I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation by Chanequa Walker-Barnes Yvonne D. Hawkins (bio) Chanequa Walker-Barnes. 2019. I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. 280 Pp. $24.99. In I Bring the Voices of My People, Chanequa Walker-Barnes presents a textured argument that U.S. society needs to envision a new model of racial reconciliation if we intend to respond to our nation's original sin of racism. Walker-Barnes argues that this charge is particularly relevant for the Christian church. "That is, we are held captive by the understanding that reconciliation is core to the gospel, that it reflects God's intention for humanity, and that it is central to our identity as Christians." In presenting her model, Walker-Barnes, a professor of practical theology and pastoral counseling at Columbia Theological Seminary, combines the precision of her training as a clinical psychologist with the insights of womanist theology to demonstrate the waywardness of current models. The result is an unflinching exposé of prevailing distortions of race, gender, and racism that lead to faulty understandings of racial reconciliation and, ultimately, disappointing outcomes. Walker-Barnes argues that a womanist vision for reconciling work facilitates more holistic healing and liberation. The womanist vision centers the voices and lived experiences of women of color. As a womanist, Walker-Barnes largely focuses on Black women's voices. This approach indeed highlights gaps in prevailing paradigms of racial reconciliation that ignore gendered aspects of racism. Meanwhile, Walker-Barnes stays faithful to womanism's commitment to including other voices beyond those of Black women; she brings the experiences of Asian, Latina, and Native American women regarding racism into view. Indeed, Walker-Barnes's primary goal is to challenge the predominance of White, male experiences that currently inform most racial reconciliation models. Walker-Barnes begins with a historical overview of the major players in the 1990s racial reconciliation movements, turning her focus to Promise [End Page 317] Keepers (PK). She notes that in the nineties, evangelical organizations played a prominent role in the racial reconciliation movement as they sought to make racial reconciliation central to their missions. For example, she notes that PK's sixth primary commitment asked men to reach beyond racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate biblical unity. Such movements, Walker-Barnes argues, failed to consider how race and racism are gendered. Walker-Barnes explores three forms of gendered racism: colorism, mammification, and hypersexualization. She deploys an intersectional framework developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw that acknowledges that gender- and race-based inequalities interact in unique ways to impact the lives of women of color. She argues that considering the ways in which women of color experience racism provides a more comprehensive understanding of how racism operates. For Walker-Barnes, racism is about White supremacy, which is transmitted in gendered ways. She defines White supremacy as "an evil ideology that relies on brute power to enforce and maintain itself." Meanwhile, she rejects the popular definition of racism as "prejudice plus power"—the occurrence of individuals having the power to act on negative feelings toward those with different racial identities. Instead, Walker-Barnes offers a definition that underscores racism's link to White supremacy: Racism is an interlocking system of oppression that is designed to promote and maintain White supremacy, the notion that White people—including their bodies, aesthetics, beliefs, values, customs, and culture—are inherently superior to all other races and therefore should wield dominion over the rest of creation, including other people groups, the animal kingdom, and the earth itself. She further dismantles the racial reconciliation approach of facilitating good feelings toward others who hold different racial identities and developing cross-racial friendships. Walker-Barnes argues that these models fail to reckon with the fault lines that emerge from whiteness, a racial identity that "was created as a way of determining who got to partake of the benefits of White supremacy." Walker-Barnes's writing is strongest and most cogent when she again deploys an interdisciplinary approach in explicating the connection between whiteness and White supremacy. This is perhaps where Walker-Barnes is...