This is a conversation about the experience of race. Writer, broadcaster, and Head of Community Fundraising and Public Engagement at Christian Aid Chine McDonald and writer and Church of England Priest Azariah France Wiliams discuss their understanding and experience of blackness and how that has shaped their identity, their place in society and the way they relate to God and Church.
We have made this conversation public domain, so you are free to turn it into an episode on your own podcast. We ask that you don’t edit the conversation, but please do feel free to add your own introduction and reflections. We also ask that you acknowledge Nomad Podcast, and the producers Tim Nash and David Benjamin Blower.
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BOOKS
A. D. A France Williams – Ghost Ship: Institutional Racism and the Church of England
Chine McDonald – God Is Not a White Man: And Other Revelations
QUOTES
“I spent a month on the island of Nevis working with the Anglican church and all the priests are Black. And so…when you’re the majority group, you just think of yourself as you. You’re just free to be a human. I was just free to be Azariah then with my other priestly colleagues. Whereas here, I do feel like I’m ‘Azariah the Black priest.’ And I’ve got to work against things.”
“People talk about ‘code switching’…how we adjust our language, our postures to who we think is the dominant in the setting. And so I’m just aware of how often I’ve been shifting myself in order to accommodate what I perceive to be the cultural norms of a setting instead of feeling at ease and free to bring my whole self.”
