Excerpt from Know Your Place
My first book, Know Your Place, has been out for a few weeks now, and I want to share an excerpt that encapsulates the spirit of the full work. This book has been a deeply personal endeavor buttressed by years of academic research. Hopefully, though, it will read much more like a well-researched memoir, rather than a dissertation with anecdotes wedged into rather dry pages. So, I’m describing here from the Introduction how my racial imagination has been shaped by three, often-interlocking communities, each of which has made it difficult to conceive of an existence freed from personal and systemic racism.
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From the Introduction
Belonging addresses our deepest desires, as we are creatures designed for community. That being said, white, southern evangelicals constantly strain my desire to remain connected to them. Whether or not each community sees me as a part of them—and I think that they do—is immaterial. They have left their mark on me in both life-giving and soul-sucking ways, and I have resolved this tension with my people by making two promises: First, for better or worse, I’ll keep dancing “with the one that brung me,” so long as they keep welcoming me into their spaces. Second, I will tell the truth to those who believe their world is ending with every lost battle in the culture war. Telling the truth without devolving into hagiographies or crouching into a nostalgic, defensive posture means interrogating the good, the bad, and the ugly of my communities. And let me tell you: we have quite a bit of bad news to sort through before we can get to the good news.
This simple formula encapsulates coming to terms with being formed by white, southern evangelicals:
Disembodiment + Division = Disorientation
I have been forged in disembodiment, a fact I did not know previously but do now. I have been shaped by division, some of which I knew but simply accepted as fact. Learning about my disembodiment and division has led to my disorientation in what seems to be a rapidly changing world. Disembodiment names the idea that I am not a body or that I do not have to pay attention to physical matters. I was raised in whiteness, which promoted disembodiment. We were supposed to be “colorblind,” to literally not notice race. In other words, we were taught to not notice one of the most noticeable aspects of another person. Evangelicalism taught me to reject being “conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2) or living “according to the flesh” (8:5), awaiting the day that “I’ll fly away.”
My geography contributed to this lack of place because the South, whatever and wherever it is, imposed customs and gestures that owed more to “the way things have always been” than to their utility for the twenty-first century. Furthermore, we Southerners still cannot agree on the boundaries of this platonic ideal of supposed regional superiority. In short, denying corporeality affects the way I understand and enjoy corporate existence, which makes disembodiment a curse that separates me from others.
Historically speaking, white, southern evangelicals are who they are precisely by who they are not. Division has always been part and parcel of my life: I inherited enemies before I ever even knew they existed. I inherited not just stories of how I came to have these enemies, but an entire world already defined by the presence of these opposing forces: White against non-white; Southerners against Yankees; evangelicals against secularists, mainliners, Catholics, or potentially anything and anyone. I feel as though I’ve been pitted against someone my entire life.
If you cannot fathom the meaning of your body, to say nothing of others’ bodies, and if you inherit division, or at minimum the lingering effects of that division, what happens when you realize that neither of these realities have to be so? For me, the result has been disorientation. If all three communal identities are challenged at once, then there are two options: Either interrogate and relinquish old notions, or double-down on them and claim that the world is ending. When I realized my community loyalties—each creating blind spots—I had to revisit my world almost like a first-time traveler.
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If you find yourself still within these communities, or even if you’ve done your best to shake the dust off your feet from these past haunts, then think of Know Your Place as a diagnostic guide for why so many conversations about race seem to go sideways…especially those conversations with the the ones you love the most. The topics are numerous; the chapters are short; the guide (me) isn’t going to browbeat you into submission. I’m simply going to ask you to take the time to reflect in order to really, really know your place.
I’d love it, if you would consider taking this little book for a spin and telling me what you think.
You can find it at your favorite booksellers:
Use the discount code COPE21 for 40 % off on any version at Wipf & Stock through June 3.
As always, thanks for reading.
Justin
(© 2021, Justin Phillips)