I only noticed the presence of the chains by their absence...I feel like a child again and this is good!
Category: Clergy Women of Color
Truth Doesn’t Always Win (A Poem)
Where truth is told, oppression begins to cease.
The Impact of American Psychology on Violence Against Black Men in North America
Living as a woman of color in America, it was not long before I realized that American Psychology was more harmful than helpful to Black people in America because it interprets the life of Black people from the perspective of how and where white America sees and places Black people and that until this was rectified by Black folks rising up to initiate the study of the psychology of Blacks contextually and then cross-culturally, the 'regular' psychology practiced in America is not helpful to non-whites and the non-white experience in America.
Does Leadership De-Womanize Women?
"Women cooked
And cleaned up after husbands and after children
But Elizabeth didn't
So she wasn't woman enough"
-Rev. Oghene'tega Swann
When Our Skin Is Our Sin
"As the black community grapples with the effects of incarceration on generations of black men, we now have to grapple with the incarceration of black women and the fact that colorism and the disdain for blackness is a contributing factor to who enters prison and how long they stay there." -Onlielove Alston
Fight Like Sisters!
"If true love means fighting fair and honestly, while maintaining value and regard for one another, then neither me, nor people of color need to reduce ourselves and our voices in order to get along with Caucasians. Neither do we need to compromise our worth or hide our pain at our boundaries being breached in order to belong in the community of God." -Rev. Oghene'tega Swann
Mutuality is Being “Seen”
"Mutuality is about being 'seen' and 'affirmed' as inherently worthy and equally equipped and imbued by God with knowledge, integrity, honor, skills, worthiness, etc., and being 'brought into' the space where one exists and functions with others in that paradigm of equality." -Rev. Oghene'tega Swann
How To Be A People/Women of Color Ally
"Being an ally means the actual practice of "mourning with those who mourn" and "rejoicing with those who rejoice." In order to mourn with those who mourn, you must go to the house of mourning! [Even Jesus did that!]" -Rev. Oghene'tega Swann
To All The Mothers In Israel!
"When women open their voices to cry out in labor that new, liberated life be allowed to come forth from places of oppression, women are engaging in motherhood." -Rev. Oghene'tega Swann
Dark & Lovely: Is God In It? A Reflection on the 2018 Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Schaff Lectures on Race, Gender and the Imago Dei
"The Shunamite woman stands in the canon and reminds us of both the age-old struggle to suppress Black women and other women of color and the righteous resistance such women must put forth: dark am I, and lovely. Our blackness is not an apology. It is a declaration that we are made in God's image." -Rev. Tega Swann
