Perspective

I feel that my understanding of history has primarily been taught through the political perspective.  Furthermore, I think that political education was very ethnocentric.  As an American, I feel that the education system has primarily offered material on the United States and Western Europe.  This makes me very ignorant about the histories of many people and places.  There was some effort by the schools I attended to present materials that offered perspectives of the female gender, but my education was dominated by male perspectives.  Similarly, there was effort to bring perspectives from people of color, although these were similarly minor influences among a mostly white perspective.  The further I have come in my educational career, the more effort there has been to give more equal voice to women and people of color (more in high school than grade school, undergrad than high school, etc.), and I feel that while my perspective has widened, from a political perspective, I still lack the historical context of many people.  

I feel that this makes me reluctant to speak on issues that I don’t know about (histories of many regions).  I also feel that my progression into more balanced views has made me more prone to looking for the perspectives that might be voiceless or might be hurt by our particular ways of telling a story.  I feel as though the past is mysterious and important because while I am aware of my ignorance of much of it, knowing it can help us better analyze our current situation and understand our present ways of being and our trajectory into the future.

As a white citizen of the United States, I know that my whiteness is a privilege that affects my ability to navigate my world with relative ease and in that sense, my group has been lifted up.  As the dominant voice (in that respect), my group has had the ability to shape the telling of our history and present ourselves in somewhat positive light.  As a woman, I feel often dismissed, objectified, tangential, and shamed.  I feel that my gender has been abused and put down by patriarchal systems.  This brings me to a place in which I feel called to speak out against patriarchy and misogyny, but also makes me self-doubtful, self-critical, and unheard in many ways.  I also claim Christianity.  I don’t feel that Christianity had much play in my early life because my immediate family is not religious and did not raise me to know religious or spiritual practice or information.  I came to scripture in my teens and Comparative Religious Studies in undergrad, and to church mid-college (10 years ago).  Feeling somewhat outside of the institution, since I did not grow up in it, I see the church has a dangerous and wonderful thing.  It has great potential for harm and for good.  I feel that the violence done by Christians (in more general terms) is a cause for repentance and reform.  As a person who now claims the Christian faith, I feel it is my responsibility to take part in acknowledging the ways that my tradition has abused its power and reforming the ways that the Christian message is communicated internally and externally to ensure that the church becomes a force for goodness in the world (when it is not) and to grow that goodness (when it is).