On March 4th an anonymous student of color wrote "Caught in the crossfire: one student of color’s experience with the race conversation on campus". The article was responded to by a couple of Alumni and students. The article and responses can be read in at the HORIZON ARCHIVE HERE or beneath the break: Caught in the crossfire: one student of color’s experience with the race conversation on campus
by Anonymous student of color at Westmont I came to Westmont as a person of color, confused about my identity and hoping college was the place to find answers. Instead, I was confronted with an ironic tragedy at Westmont: racial equality and reconciliation cannot occur, and minorities like myself are just as much to blame as systemic racism. I have been silenced before, and will likely be discounted again, but greater fears force my anonymity. Both sides fuel the toxicity around race here, and neither will associate with me.
0 Comments
By mid-day 3/3/20 someone some signs were torn off the bridge and found in the gully beneath. Other's had been defaced and written on: By the afternoon others had responded to the defacing: By the night of the 3rd of March all the signs had been removed.
After being taken down, signs are re-placed on the GLC bridge at roughly 8pm Monday, March 2rd 2020.
See coverage written by Kiani Hildebrandt at the Horizon Archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200305194359/https://horizon.westmont.edu/1772/oped/race-memory-and-monuments-after-charlottesville-remind-us-there-is-still-must-work-to-be-done-on-race-relations-in-santa-barbara/ On Febuary 28th 2020 around 5pm a multitude of signs expressing the frustration and pain of students of color were placed on the bridge connecting the Kerr Student Center to the Global Leadership Center. They were placed in the middle of the Conversation on Liberal Arts hosted by the Gadee Institute. Signs were also placed in the Kerr Student Center outward facing windows. The signs were removed the next day, Febuary 29th, 2020.
The 2020 theme of the annual Conversation on the Liberal Arts hosted by the Gaedee Institute was "Still Dreaming: Race, Ethnicity and Liberal Arts Education." On February 28th, 2020, Dr. Nwaokelemeh faciliatated a student panel including Brendan Fong, Caitlyn Wells, and Miah Williams reflecting on Miah's paper "One Voice Among Many: A Student Perspective on the Racial Structures Present in the Liberal Arts Education System." Recording attached below:
On Wednesday Februwaroy 26th, 2020, Brendan Fong published an op-ed entitled #toxicWestmont. The full article is below and can also be access at the archive of the Horizon HERE. In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King argued the obstacle in the path of justice was not “the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”
Westmont, we are the “white moderate.” We chose “negative peace” when we reprimanded Audrey Davis, Westmont’s first black female graduate, for holding a vigil after Dr. King’s assasination. We chose “negative peace” when we accused the organizers of #westmontwhitejesus of “circumventing good conversation” and then cancelled their event designed to facilitate conversation. We continue to choose “negative peace” as we censor student sharing in chapel, label vocal students of color as divisive, and ignore the righteous anger and courageous passion of those who created the artful chapel protest. This “negative peace” is one bar in the #toxicwestmont cage of oppression. A second bar is the image of white Jesus atop North America in the prayer chapel. On Westmont’s website it reads “the only building on Westmont’s campus which clearly, in both form and function, indicates that we are a Christian college” is the prayer chapel. Therefore, the white Jesus at its heart must also “in form and function” reveal our nature, and it does. The image is problematic in its allusion to the continued use of Christianity as justification for colonialism, slavery (and its afterlife) and genocide, and also emblematic of our embrace of whiteness as a system of power. Too often we live as though the new creation is white normative by trying to become a part of the triumphalist body of the European colonialist, rather than the suffering servant body of Christ. The impact of the #toxicwestmont cage on our community is alarming. The frequency of racial microaggressions is unacceptable. The persistence of racist, misogynistic, and homophobic jokes is worrying. Tokenizing students of color for “brand” and funding is disturbing. Placing the weight of “diversity” on one office, underfunded and primarily made up of students of color, is unjust. Restructuring that same office without their input is irresponsible. The lack of accountability for racial discrimination, and the racial demographics of non-transient positions is startling. The enshrining of white-centric masculine epistemology in curriculum and chapel is pitiful. The empty promise of a “diversity” position within the campus pastor’s office is disappointing but not surprising. Too many students of color echo the fears of Audrey Davis who, in 1968, said Westmont “made me resentful and hostile.” The problem is not the attitudes nor the feelings of students of color, but a climate which rewards compliance to white dominance and punishes faithful and scholarly resistance. Our allegiance to Christ requires us to do all forms of justice, but we often act as if racial justice is an afterthought. Dr. King noted that it is us, the white moderate, “who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods’ … who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.” This same rhetoric serves today as another fierce bar in the #toxicwestmont cage. The cruel irony in the backlash to “#westmontwhitejesus” is that, in many ways, #westmontwhitejesus was the perfect way to face systemic racism at a Christian liberal arts college. The movement invites a critical cross-disciplinary approach to unmaking unjust theology, art, science and culture. Given our most recent accreditation report, where all of the recommendations were directly or tangentially tied to diversity, the task at hand is urgent. We sit at a crossroads in the story of our college. Members of our community who have been gifted power and tasked with stewardship have chosen to keep a racist image. They have invested in ignorance, and the return is idolatrous ideology in the fabric of our institution. In this context, we cannot forget that the silence of our community silence speaks. Our apathy reinforces #toxicwestmont and prevents us from fulfilling our mission statement. To become what we must, it will take more than posturing or facilitated conversation. More than individualized reconciliation or adding “ethnic” Jesus to sit in white Jesus’ periphery. More than hiring staff, faculty, or administrators of color. Even more than the rewording of vision statements and three-year plans. It will take courageous members of our community to hold us accountable to God’s vision of justice rather than our own, and a radical restructuring of our institution so that last become first, and the first, last.
On Febuary 22nd, 2020, Brendan and Emily did a presentation entitled: Having our Say: Advocating for Racial Justice on a Christian Campus. The talk highlighted the work that was done by Brendan, Emily and Olivia in spring of 2019 and named the difficulties that racial justice advocacy work faces on Christian campuses. The slides from the presentation are attached below:
On February 11th, 2020 from around 5pm to 6:40pm a group of concerned faculty held a listening session and invited students to come and share their experiences of racism and the campus racial climate. Faculty assured that the session would lead to some sort of concrete action.
On February 10th, 2020 Emily Mata, Brendan Fong and Ben Thomas met with Edee Schulze (Vice President of Student Life) and Dan Taylor (Assistant Director of Residence Life). Possible next steps were discussed alongside the constraint of Westmont's 'brand'. It was made clear that there would be no conduct processes against the students who organized the artful protest, but the art was not allowed to be on the chapel.
On February 8th 2020, nearly a year after the initial petition, a collection of people created and posted art on the Voskul Prayer chapel in continued resistance to Westmont's White Jesus. The images were put up around 9am and were taken down by a Resident Director at around 5:15pm. Images of the artful protest are attached below:
On January 20th, 2020 at 11:45am Replying to an email sent out by Campus Pastor Scott Lisea about MLK weekend, a staff member sent out this email to all faculty, staff and students. However, due to all campus email moderation it was only sent to all faculty and staff. Read below: Scott,
Thank you for your message. How inspiring that you had a one-man protest in honor of Martin Luther King on his birthday when you were a student. As you may know, our office coordinates the Golden Warrior (50th) reunion each year. A few years ago, we hosted Westmont's first African-American female graduate, Audrey Davis '68. The late 60's were a tumultuous time, even at Westmont. When Audrey applied to Westmont in 1964, the admission decision even went to the Board of Trustees, a fact that several students and faculty pointed out to her during her time as a student. We learned at her 50th reunion that when Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, there was no mention of it in Westmont's chapel. When Audrey and several of her classmates had their own vigil or protest in front of the DC, they were disciplined. At the 50th reunion, several of Audrey's classmates apologized to Audrey for not saying anything during those years. Audrey was very graceful. The 50th reunion was a healing time for Audrey and her classmates. We have our own corporate history of racism at Westmont and we have come a long way since then, although there is always more to do. Attached is an article from the Horizon in 1968 about being Black at Westmont. On October 19th, 2019 Westmont Alumni and former Faculty member Kelsey Lahr wrote a Blog Post for the Righting America Blog entitled "Getting Educated on Faith, Race, and Power at a Christian College." The article recounts her experiences growing up, as a student and faculty at Westmont. The full article can be read at the Righting America Blog, Web Archive, and Below: Getting Educated on Faith, Race, and Power at a Christian College
by Kelsey Lahr Kelsey Lahr is a communication professor at Los Angeles Pacific University. Her scholarly interests include climate change communication and environmental rhetorics. She also works summers as a seasonal Ranger in Yosemite National Park. Her writing about life in Yosemite has appeared in The Cresset, Gold Man Review, Green Briar Review, Saint Katherine’s Review, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize as well as inclusion in America’s Best Science and Nature Writing series. You can find links to her published work at https://kelseylahr.wordpress.com/. When I started college, I was a registered Democrat, a feminist, and a Baptist. I was aware of the contradiction; I was aware that I was a contradiction. I had grown up in a Regular Baptist church, a denomination that is theologically similar to Southern Baptist, but with a greater emphasis on separation from the world. It had been an uncomfortable fit for most of my life, since I learned to read. I got my first Bible at age 7, and that’s when I had my first faith crisis. It was a King James Bible but, somehow, was supposed to be for kids. It had the words Holy Bible written in big, bubbly font on the apple-red cover, and colorful insets with kid-friendly commentary. I read that Bible daily, struggling through a chapter or two each night before bed. It didn’t take long to find something unsettling: there were contradictions in there. In particular, I was disturbed by the description of the plagues on Egypt before the Exodus. I noticed that in some passages, the Pharaoh is said to have hardened his heart each time he refused to let the Israelites go, and in others, it is said to be God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart. This inconsistency was just a matter of a couple of words, but it challenged a central tenet of my church’s teaching: that every word of the Bible is to be taken literally, at face value. How can every word be taken literally when one passage says one thing and a different passage says another? So, at age 7, I hit on the key tension inherent in fundamentalism and its strictly literal interpretation of Scripture. Other points of conflict piled up as I got older. How could women be kept out of church leadership, when it seemed that God had made many of us to be leaders? I returned again and again to the stories of Deborah, Queen Esther, the women at the empty tomb of Jesus, and Lydia—Biblical accounts of women taking charge and doing it right—while women at my church weren’t allowed to speak from the pulpit on Sunday mornings, not even to give announcements. I wondered why we didn’t help out at local homeless shelters or soup kitchens, even though Jesus told us to take care of the people with the least. As I got older, I started to wonder why just about everyone at my church was a Republican, when it seemed like the Democrats generally cared more about the poor, people Jesus also cared a lot about. When I turned 18, I registered as a Democrat, suspecting I was the only one at my entire church. Each of these contradictions incited an explosion of panic inside me, and I turned myself inside out to make it all work, to make all those pieces come together. But my church was also my home; it was a place where I was loved and accepted, where old people I barely knew sent me birthday cards with five dollar bills inside, where my family spent every Sunday morning and evening and every Wednesday night, where my friends met up for game nights. I wanted to be a part of this church, but I didn’t understand how to swallow all the questions and all the panic and all the doubt that came along with being part of it. And just as all this panic and doubt were coming to a head, I went off to college. I had decided on Westmont College, a small Christian liberal arts school in Santa Barbara, California. “Kind of liberal, isn’t it?” sneered a girl at my church youth group, who would be attending the ultra-conservative Master’s College. “I don’t think so?” I said, recalling that Westmont didn’t allow drinking, smoking, or overnight guests of the opposite sex. But I secretly wanted her to be right. I hoped that Westmont would help me deal with the panic I continually felt reading the Bible, that it would help me figure out how to be a Democrat, a feminist, and a Baptist. It didn’t. Instead, Westmont taught me that I didn’t have to be a Baptist, but that I could be a Democrat, a feminist, and a Christian. At Westmont I took Christian doctrine classes and Bible classes, and learned that the Bible contains metaphor, poetry, hyperbole, and figures of speech—elements of literature that make it beautiful. All of a sudden, I was free from the terror that came whenever I saw inconsistencies. If the hardening of a heart was allowed to be an evocative image instead of a literal and quantifiable process, then the contradiction that had bothered me as a seven-year-old was cleared up. If the first chapters of Genesis were allowed to be beautiful, poetic accounts of creation instead of a literal timeline, I didn’t have to reject the findings of science. I learned from professors who were orthodox Christians and who believed that women could be pastors; I learned from women professors who were pastors. I learned from professors who openly discussed their progressive political orientation and connected it straight to Scripture. Learning from these professors, I found myself in the company of progressive, hyper-educated Christians who made me feel like I could stop turning myself inside out to fit within the rigid confines of Christian fundamentalism, but still be an orthodox Christian. I stopped having panic attacks. But I didn’t stop asking questions. I became increasingly aware of poverty, injustice, and environmental degradation, and the Church’s lack of concern about these problems. I became increasingly disturbed by the problem of evil as I studied human suffering through history and pondered God’s refusal to intervene. I became increasingly jaded about the hypocrisy of the “Christian” Right, which had begun to seem power hungry and corrupt. How could I be part of this Church, with all its failures? How could I continue to worship this God, with all God’s cruelty or indifference? A lot of my friends at Westmont asked many of these questions, too. By the time graduation rolled around, most of them were on their way out the door of the Church, and now, almost ten years later, they haven’t looked back. It was unsettling, of course, but I had other examples to follow. I thought again and again about those brilliant, progressive, hyper-educated professors who had seen more of the world than I had, who had probably seen more suffering than I had, and who still worshipped God. They had seen the failings of the Church and still stayed part of it. Those were the people who first made me feel like I could be a Christian and be myself, and they were the people who made me feel like I could stay a Christian. Today I have about as much doubt as I did as a panicky seven-year-old, but I’ve come to accept it as simply part of the contours of my own faith, a faith I practice even when I don’t know if I really believe it. I attribute this to the fact that I learned at Westmont that Christian orthodoxy is actually a pretty big tent, and that I could be myself, and ask hard questions, and still be a Christian. I had seen my professors do it. I will be forever grateful to the Westmont faculty who provided this template for a thoughtful, grace-filled Christian life. I wish that could be the end; just gratitude and a steady personal faith. If I had graduated from Westmont and never looked back, maybe it would have been. But alas, five years after I finished undergrad, I went to grad school and then I started looking for teaching jobs. Around the same time I went on the job market, I got a call from a Westmont professor whom I greatly admire. She had been my academic advisor while I was a student and I had taken a number of classes with her. We had stayed in sporadic contact after I graduated. She was going on sabbatical for the coming year, she told me, and Westmont needed someone who could take over her classes for her. If I wanted the job, it would be mine. I had spent my entire grad school career hearing about the brutality of the academic job market, and now, before I had seriously applied to a single position, a job was dropped into my lap. Sure, it was just a year-long gig, and I would be an adjunct making far less than a livable wage in one of America’s most expensive towns. But I had only a master’s degree, so even an adjunct job at a four-year school was a great opportunity. I didn’t have to think too long before I accepted. That’s when my education really began. As a student, I had been only vaguely aware of the workings of the administration. Now, as faculty, I saw it in staggering detail at each monthly faculty meeting. I was first unsettled by the college’s economic orientation. They funneled in who knows what massive sums of money, naming various institutes and programs after wealthy donors, institutes and programs that mostly had no benefit to students. And of course, it struck me in a rather personal way that I was living in a 200-square-foot-studio, barely making it on the meager salary Westmont was paying, while a newly-created position, the Vice President for Marketing, was making six figures. At the same time, a search for a new campus pastor was underway to replace the one who was retiring. This process ended with the selection of a generally unpopular candidate – who had connections to donors – over the candidate favored by students and faculty alike, a candidate with a record of speaking out on issues like racial inequality. This was the first real red flag that something was seriously amiss. And it just kept getting worse. After my first year as a sabbatical-fill, Westmont offered me another year-long contract. They said they couldn’t offer me benefits this year, so I was on my own for health insurance. I considered a little longer this time, but again decided that a job was a job, and I was lucky to have it. I picked up additional teaching gigs at two other colleges and took on a weekend job in order to scrape by. This time, in addition to the classes I would be teaching, Westmont also gave me the role of faculty adviser to the student newspaper, The Horizon. This role gave me even deeper insight into the workings of the administration. It also gave me a greater sense of the conversations that were happening among students. I already knew administration wasn’t really working for me, as an adjunct. Now it became excruciatingly clear that administration wasn’t working for students, either, and especially not students of color. Students, and to some degree, faculty, were deep into an ongoing conversation about race. Students were aware that Westmont desperately lacked diversity in its student body; it came up often both in my classes and in the pages of The Horizon. It was a conversation that administration really didn’t want to have. Just before Halloween, the humor section of the paper ran a piece of satire called “How to Spook White People.” The piece poked fun at Westmont’s lack of diversity and highlighted issues of white privilege. (Some options for spooking White people included telling them that they have white privilege, suggesting that some Halloween costumes are racially insensitive, and taking away their almond milk lattes.) The piece was written by a white student, who acknowledged her race and her privilege within the article. Over a decade since the advent of the widely-read blog Stuff White People Like, this piece of satire struck me as utterly tame and uncontroversial. Yet it earned me an appointment with the provost, and it earned the student editor-in-chief a stern talking-to from the Vice President of Student Life. The provost told me the piece “ruffled some feathers,” and the rumor I later heard was that those ruffled feathers belonged to a couple of alumni. Nowhere in the paper’s charter is there any mention of alumni; The Horizon exists for the benefit of students. Yet students weren’t the ones complaining about the piece of satire. It began to dawn on me that alums and donors are the audience Westmont’s administration cared the most about. If this tendency to cater to donors instead of students were limited to a silly piece of satire in a mediocre student newspaper, I could get over it. But it goes much deeper than that, and has been on display in many other ways. For example, last spring, The Horizon was once again part of a racially-charged controversy, one that showcased the administration’s concern for donors and alumni over those of students, particularly students of color. The Horizon published an open letter to the campus community from three students (none of them on the paper’s staff) asking for the removal of a high-profile depiction of Jesus as a white-appearing man. As I wrote for Adam Laats’ blog I Love You But You’re Going to Hell, at the center of Westmont’s spiritual life is a prayer chapel in the middle of campus. The chapel is always open, and is the only overtly “religious” building on the campus. At the front of the chapel is a stained-glass window that depicts Jesus as white, standing on a globe that is positioned so that he is right on top of North America. In the past couple of years, students have begun to recognize this depiction as problematic, colonial, and inappropriately conflating Christianity with whiteness. Many students of color expressed that the centrality of this depiction on campus made them feel even more marginalized than they otherwise would, in a school where white students and faculty far outnumber students and faculty of color. At the same time a group of students wrote this open letter in The Horizon, they also started a petition asking the administration to take the window out of the prayer chapel and put it somewhere less visible and less central to the community’s spiritual life. (You can read more about the window issue here and here.) As a faculty member, it was my impression that most students either supported this proposal or didn’t really care about the window one way or the other. Yet the administration balked, and their responses always revolved around the importance of the window to Westmont’s history. (The chapel and the window were both installed in 1961 as a memorial to the daughter of the college’s president at the time, who died in a car accident as a young woman.) The prioritization of “history” over the concerns of current students of color seems typical of the administration. And of course, older donors are the ones who care about that particular phase of Westmont’s history. Today the window remains in place. Westmont remains a campus lacking in diversity. Some of the few faculty members of color who were at Westmont when I was a student have since left, and one of them told me flat out that it was due to the racial climate on campus, primarily coming from administration. All of these things together—the lack of diversity among students and faculty, the prioritization of donors and alumni over current students, the administration’s unwillingness to take a clear stand for racial inclusion—all of these paint a picture of a college that fails to live up to the Biblical imperatives of seeking justice and loving our neighbors as ourselves. I, too, have left Westmont since the White Jesus controversy brought into focus the white supremacy that permeates the college. I wish I could say I left Westmont because I could no longer be part of that white supremacy. The truth is that I left mainly because they didn’t pay me a living wage and I was simply exhausted from working so many jobs just to be able to afford health insurance. But when I learned last month about Westmont’s final decision to leave the White Jesus window in place, I contacted the alumni office: “I would like to be removed from Westmont’s mailing list due to the handling of the recent White Jesus situation,” I wrote. “In light of the administration’s shameful disregard for the needs and feelings of students of color in this situation, I no longer wish to be associated with Westmont.” Then I took to social media to let my network know what step I had taken and why. I asked my fellow alumni to consider taking a similar stand. It’s a small step, to be sure, and probably a trivial one. But the administration isn’t going to listen to the students or faculty asking for a more inclusive community. And if their past track record is any indication, they might just listen to alumni. When I take a step back and reflect on the role Westmont has played in my life and faith, I ultimately have to be grateful. I am still part of the Christian community in part because I saw progressive, loving Christianity modeled by faculty members at Westmont. And it was there that I really learned to think critically, to examine issues of race and privilege. My ultimate disillusionment with the college is largely due to the values that very college instilled in me as a student: the importance of justice and inclusion, the critical necessity of examining privilege, the skills to assess and begin to dismantle unjust power structures. I can only hope these values will one day percolate back up to Westmont’s administration. Maybe one day Westmont will be the kind of place that truly models what it means to love the Lord our God and love our neighbors—all of them—as we love ourselves. During the President's Q & A during student leader training, an Asian American student leader asked about the white Jesus in the Voskuyl Prayer Chapel. The following is an unabridged transcription of the exchange: Student: As you know last semester, there was a lot of discussion between students, faculty, and administration regarding the chapel stained glass window of a White Jesus and the implications it has on campus that it has on the Westmont community. I was wondering if you could offer your thoughts on the window dialogue that took place, the deeper dialogue surrounding racial diversity at Westmont and the colleges decision to ultimately keep the window. Dr. Beebe: Yeah. Well it's a memorial chapel and so I wanted it kept whole, and uh I certainly believe that it should be kept whole. Theres a variety of opinions on it, but my discipline, my Phd is in Philosphy, Religion and Historical Theology, and one of my favorite books is Jaroslav Pelikan's Jesus Through the Centuries. What the book teaches you is that throughout the 2,000 year history of the church there have been multiple ways in which Christ has been depicted depending on which culture [one is from]. And what you see in that book, and Edee (The Vice President of Student Life) ended up locating and giving me [this book] on my birthday a pictoral rendering of it. You see that wherever Christianity takes root, Christ is actually represented in the form of the race in that area. So you go through the book and you look at Jesus in Africa, Jesus is depicted as an African, an Asian, a European, South American, North American. And this is something that I think is lost in the conversation is, what is the righter way in which Jesus has been depicted in theology. He hasn't been depicted as a, uh, White North American in Africa, the culture takes on certain embodiments. I think that helps understand that there is a timeless component to the message, and there is a time bound component. There is a theological piece, and a cultural piece. What I really hope we can push into this year, is, not taking one away, but adding multiple embodiment's, thats part of our global engagement. We actually show how Jesus has been depicted around the world. And I don't know if you have entered at our home, or were in chapel when they presented us with this gift of the Saint Agustin Painting. Have you seen this hanging in our home now? Student: No. Dr. Beebe: You haven't seen it? Well the, uh, the artist's, who is a tremendous artist, his first rendering of it, was of a, of an image of a Northern European, White, Balding Male, as Saint Augustine. and I sat down, I said "you know, Saint Augustine was from North Africa, I have always imagined he looked as if he was from Algeria, or from Ethiopia. So would you be willing to use the 40 year old face of one of my friends from seminary(?)" who eventually became the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. And the artist who is wonderful in that he'll take input, so if you see the rendering of Saint Augustine in the picture that was painted as a gift from the board to us, and it was to thank me for the start of the Augustinian scholars program, but it is a picture of my friend, where the face of Saint Augustine is an Ethiopian, and it's a beautiful rendering, and I think it's very accurate to how we should imagine Saint Augustine. And I want to see us do more to contextualize these images, rather than just expropriate them. And in that I'm glad that we fixed the window, I'm glad we put it back in, and in this coming year I really hope that we can add images of Christ on Campus that are reflective of the university in our community and in our world. Student: Can I ask a follow up? Dr. Beebe: Yeah, please. Student: I guess, like, in the depictions of the Christ in Asia where the majority of the population is Asian, versus depictions in America, where it's almost, you know, 50% People of Color and 50% White, and also given the historical context of White institutions that are in the pathology of America: Do you think that this specific history of America and the depiction of Christ being White, has, I don't know, Do you think those two are connected? and what that portrays to People of Color [on campus]... Dr. Beebe: I am not sure, if I, come at your question from a different angle ok? (undicernable from recording) (Pause) Student: I guess.. Dr. Beebe: Do I think Jesus can be depicted White? and without it offending others? or non-whites? or... Student: Well l guess like, I heard you talk a lot about how, um, I guess, how Jesus is depicted depending on the culture or... Dr. Beebe: Yeah. Student: ...or the context, so in America we often depict Jesus as being White, um... Dr. Beebe: Well we depict him in a variety of ways. Student: Right, but like the majority of the way I think he is seen... Dr. Beebe: Well the chapel was built in honor of Nancy Voskuyl who died in the 60's. During that time the college was easily over 90% White. And so I think it would probably fit the college at that time. Part of what I think we have to do moving forward, is how do we add to the images of Christ from around the world, that are actually more accurate to where the college is going and where the world community is going. And I'd like to see us to that. But I think it can include, uh, it can include a depiction of Christ as White, but I think it should do more than just have a, a stained glass window where Jesus is White. We were in South Africa at the Micheal House where we have one of our programs, and we went to this area down in Capetown. Or on the way to Capetown, and it actually was a depiction of Arabian missionaries coming to Capetown and it was almost the same exact rendering as you see in the Chapel. Only it was a French, Arabian Christian standing on France, looking towards South Africa. And I didn't look to see the period of the piece, but often these types of renderings are from similar periods. And I haven't researched, uh where the original architect got the painting, but it would have come of age during a time where the college was predominantly White, and we just need to move beyond that. (silence) Facilitator: Do we have one more question? On May 28th, 2019 a student captured this image of the interior of the chapel while the window was out for cleaning:
Following the submission of the 'Lines of Inquiry' to the Faculty Council, Brendan Fong, Emily Mata and Olivia Stowell discuss the document with the Faculty Council. It is revealed that the stained glass window depicting white Jesus is scheduled for maintenance over the summer which will require it's removal. White normativity in classroom climate and syllabi are discussed.
On April 23rd, 2019, Brendan Fong, Emily Mata and Olivia Stowell met with Edee Shulze (Vice President of Student Life), Stu Cleek (Dean of Students), Scott Lisea (Campus Pastor) and Jason Cha (Director of Intercultural Programs).
In an Op-Ed published in the Horizon, Izzi Mata ('18) responds to the op-ed written by Robert Gundry and the petition.
Mata writes: "Westmont cannot, with clean conscience, continue to pride itself in its diversity and global engagement if it ignores the hypocrisy posed by its most central symbol of worship and community." Read the full article here. On April 12th, 2019, the following was sent to Westmont's Administration and Faculty Council:
To whom it may concern, Nearly two months ago we organized a student petition to address a stained glass window depicting a White Jesus at the forefront of a central spiritual location on campus... On April 10th, 2019, the student paper featured an article entitled A window into the "Westmont White Jesus" controversy The article by Kate Overton includes an interview with Fong, Mata and Stowell and a timeline of events.
Click to read at the Horizon website. On March 30th, 2019, a blog post entitled White Jesus at Westmont College: The Controversy was posted to the Righting America blog by William Trollinger. Trollinger is the Director at the Core Integrated Studies Program at the University of Dayton.
Read the blog post at Righting America. On March 27th, Will Walker - editor-in-chief of the Horizon newspaper - wrote an op-ed requesting the removal of white Jesus. Alluding to Ta-Neihisi Coats' case for reperations and its endorsement by David Brooks, Walker argues that "Westmont must make a gesture to respect the voices of those who hurt under an image of Jesus... If Westmont wishes to enact the radical love embodied in the New Testament, it will replace White Jesus with a creative and inclusive piece of art which better represents our community, both in terms of its values and its actual demographics." Walker also responds to common objections to the removal of the image and explains the image's spiritual importance. Read the full article at the Horizon website. In March 2019, the Westmont Initiative for Public Dialogue and Deliberation held a conversation about Art and Depictions of Christ on Campus. The summary of their report is attached below.
On March 8th, five Westmont professors author three articles published in the Horizon. [UPDATE 7/28/2019] Unfortunately due to the Westmont Horizon changing it's website, the links to the articles are no longer available. Instead images of the articles as they appeared in the paper are attached below. We have reached out to the Horizon to get these articles back up with little success. In the future we are committed to backing up all webpages of the Horizon at the Internet Archive so they remain accessible. Imagining Jesus Lisa DeBoer - Professor of Art Caryn Reeder - Associate Professor of New Testament Religious Studies and Co-coordinator of Gender Studies Program Click here to read at the Horizon (link broken see above) A Westmont to Belong To Alister Chapman - Professor of History Felicia Song - Associate Professor of Sociology Click here to read at the Horizon (link broken see above) Why Objections to white Jesus are only skin deep
Robert Gundry - Professor emeritus and Scholar-in-residence Click Here to read at the Horizon (link broken see above) On Wednesday, March 6th, Westmont Faculty Council hosted a faculty panel discussion in the Global Leadership Center. The event was attended by more than 230 students, staff, faculty and alumni. The event was opened by Brendan Fong, Emily Mata and Olivia Stowell who re-stated their case for the removal of white Jesus from the Voskul Prayer Chapel. Their introduction was followed by opening statements from the faculty panel. The panel featured Dr.Lisa DeBoer — Professor of Art, Dr. Telford Work — Professor of Theology, Dr. Alister Chapman — Professor of History, and Dr. Felicia Song — Associate Professor of Sociology. After the opening statements, the floor was open for questions from the attendants for the faculty panel. |