I’m pleased to announce that my article ‘”Why do you call me good?”: Whiteness and Quaker theological fragility’ has been published today in the Friends Quarterly (Issue 3, 2021). You can buy a copy of this edition here: https://thefriend.org/magazine/tfq.
In this article, I suggest that the ways white British Quakers talk about goodness can make us susceptible to of ‘white exceptionalism’, where we are unable to admit the ways we are implicated in systemic racism. I offer a way out of this dilemma, reflecting on what Jesus meant when he said ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God.’
This article forms the groundwork for a session on whiteness and responsibility I’m running at Britain Yearly Meeting Gathering in July and August 2021.
On Wednesday 11th August at 7pm BST I will be in conversation online with the editors of the Friends Quarterly, Olivia Sewell Risley and Gill Sewell, discussing questions raised by the article. You can book your place here.
[Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash]
Jolly Quaker 
Very happy that you started this conversation, Mark, and that many Friends will be able to read it through the magazine. Thanks for keeping the ball rolling on these topics of Quakers, whiteness, and institutional/systemic racism. 🙂
Thanks Lena! I can’t claim credit for starting the conversation, but I’m excited to be part of keeping it going. 😀
I really appreciate your video as shown at YMG. Is there a way to use it (with acknowledgements, and perhaps the accompanying text) as part of the Canadian Yearly Meeting Gathering?
Both seem to be outside the conference tool, but without obvious contact info…Hence this question!
Hi Adrian, thanks for getting in touch. 🙂 I’m really glad you found the video useful! Because the video is produced on behalf of Woodbrooke, I recommend you get in touch with a member of our team there – https://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/contact/ – It may well be that Woodbrooke can make this material available to Canadian YMG in return for a fee/donation.
[…] At the 2021 Britain Yearly Meeting Gathering, I gave a talk and workshop on behalf of Woodbrooke called ‘“Why do you call me good?”: Talking about whiteness and responsibility’. This in turn was based on an article I wrote for Friends Quarterly. […]