#81. John Dear with scholar, author and international leader in racial healing Dr. Catherine Meeks: "The culture in the US reinforces the notion that people of color are inferior to white people."
About this episode
Fr. John Dear interviews Dr. Catherine Meeks about racial healing and the impact of systemic racism in the United States.
On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with my friend Dr. Catherine Meeks, a nationally recognized leader in racial healing and founder of the Turquoise & Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing. Her latest book is .Bridging the Rivers of Difference: A Proclamation of Unity in Resistance Her other books include The Night Is Long but Light Comes in the Morning: Meditations on Racial Healing , and The Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper’s Daughter . She spent 25 years as chair of the African American Studies program at Mercer University. “I grew up poor and black in Arkansas, and my way in the world is to connect to the spiritual and God and the way people should be treated right ,” she says . This country was founded on the notion that some humans were worth more than others, included black people and women. The Constitution wasn't talking about us. The Heritage Foundation has been working militantly with Project 2025, but we have to be willing to stop having a hierarchy of human value. “Racism has injured us all ,” she continues . “Everyone has been wounded by it. The culture in the US reinforces the notion that people of color are…
People in this episode
Host: Fr. John Dear
Guest: Dr. Catherine Meeks
Topics covered
- racial healing
- spirituality
- nonviolence
- social justice
- equality
Keywords
- racial inequality
- spiritual connection
- human value
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Turquoise & Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing, Heritage Foundation
Books & works: Bridging the Rivers of Difference: A Proclamation of Unity in Resistance, The Night Is Long but Light Comes in the Morning: Meditations on Racial Healing, The Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper’s Daughter
Places: United States, Arkansas
More episodes of The Nonviolent Jesus
- #80. John Dear in conversation with author and theologian Fr. Ron Rolheiser: " In my lifetime I've never lived through darker days."
- #79. John Dear in conversation with scripture scholar and author Wes Howard-Brook: "We're faced with the choice between the religion of empire or the religion of creation."
- #78. John Dear with theologian/author/activist Lisa Sharon Harper: "We were three floors below ground, it was hot and the walls and floor were covered with roaches."
- #77 John Dear in conversation with Zoughbi Zoughbi of Bethlehem, Palestine: "The West Bank is a prison, Gaza is a concentration camp."
- #76 John Dear with Mel Duncan, co-founder of Nonviolent Peaceforce about his work all over the world, more recently in Palestine and St. Paul, MN: "Organized nonviolence led to ICE leaving Minneapolis."
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