Untold America

Craig Geevarghese-Uffman

Long-form scholarly explorations of American theological mutations and historical narratives, examining how religious frameworks have shaped—and been shaped by—national identity, racial dynamics, and political formations throughout American history. www.commonlifepolitics.com

  1. 04/25/2025

    🔍 The Cotton Gospel: How Christianity Was Weaponized to Justify Exploitation in America

    The Holy Trinity: God, America, and King Cotton The story most Americans learned about cotton goes something like this: Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, the South grew a lot of cotton, and then we had a Civil War about slavery. It's a sanitized tale that glides over the most important part—how a plant became a theology that reshaped not just the American economy but American Christianity itself. Long before "In God We Trust" appeared on our currency, Americans had already perfected the art of baptizing economic interests in religious language. And nowhere was this alchemy more transformative than in the cotton fields that stretched across the American South. As cotton became the oil of the 19th century—the commodity that powered global economics and politics—the theological innovations required to justify its production would transform Christianity from a faith centered on a poor, crucified Messiah into something altogether different: a gospel perfectly tailored to economic exploitation. This isn't merely historical curiosity; it's autobiography. As a descendant of Louisiana enslavers who owned plantations in the notorious Bayou Boeuf region—an area that historian Solomon Northup described as having "no Sabbath in the slave fields"—I bear the direct inheritance of theological stories created to sanctify torture in service to agricultural productivity. The theological framework that justified my ancestors' actions wasn't just abstract doctrine; it was family inheritance passed down alongside silver and land. The Fiber That Changed the World Before we explore how cotton transformed theology, we need to understand how it transformed everything else. For most of human history, cotton clothing was a luxury. The process of removing seeds from cotton fiber (ginning) was so labor-intensive that cotton garments were reserved for the wealthy. The historian Yuval Noah Harari notes in Sapiens that before the Industrial Revolution, the average European owned perhaps two shirts in a lifetime. Not two shirts at a time—two shirts, total. All this changed with two revolutionary developments: First, Eli Whitney's cotton gin multiplied human productivity in separating seeds from fiber by a factor of fifty. Second, British innovations like the spinning jenny, water frame, and power loom created unprecedented demand for raw cotton. Suddenly, an obscure plant became the essential commodity in a new global economy. This cotton revolution created an economic opportunity of staggering proportions. American soil—particularly land seized from indigenous peoples across the Deep South—proved ideal for cotton cultivation. By 1850, American cotton production had increased over a thousandfold from pre-Revolutionary levels. Cotton exports accounted for 60% of American export value. A global industry employing millions of workers across multiple continents depended on American cotton production. The parallel to modern global commodities is striking. Cotton transformed global power structures like oil would in the 20th century and like the rare earth minerals essential for smartphones do today. British textile factories needed American cotton like modern tech companies need Congolese cobalt—desperately, non-negotiably, at any human cost. Importantly, cotton finance ultimately spawned a booming financial and manufacturing industry in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago to finance commodities trade, meaning no American region or generation is innocent of plantation capitalism. As historian Sven Beckert documents in Empire of Cotton, the entire American economy became intertwined with the cotton trade, creating wealth far beyond the plantations themselves. The First Theological Innovation: Redefining Humanity But there was a problem. Cotton was extraordinarily labor-intensive. The same gin that made cotton processing efficient made cotton cultivation profitable at scales that demanded vast labor forces. The economics only worked with access to forced labor—enslaved people who could be compelled to work under conditions of extreme brutality. Here's where theology enters the picture. Christianity, with its troublesome teachings about human equality before God and its emphasis on liberty in Christ, posed potential barriers to the cotton economy. Before cotton could transform the American economy, Christianity itself would need transformation. This transformation began long before cotton's rise. As Willie James Jennings documents in The Christian Imagination, a profound theological shift happened in the 15th century when papal bulls fundamentally altered Christian understanding of human identity. Human worth, previously grounded in relationship to place and community, was replaced with a new framework based on utility to European commerce. This theological shift created what Jennings calls a "racial scale of humanity"—a hierarchical system that categorized people according to their perceived proximity to European civilization. One's value was no longer rooted in bearing God's image but in one's usefulness to commerce. This new anthropology wasn't just a distortion of Christianity; it was a complete inversion, transforming a subversive faith founded on the radical equality of all people in Christ into a system that justified profound inequality. The theological irony is breathtaking. Christianity began with the radical claim that in Christ, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free" (Galatians 3:28). This revolutionary theological assertion appears not only in Galatians but also in similar forms in Colossians 3:11 and is practically demonstrated in Paul's letter to Philemon, where he urges a slave owner to receive his runaway slave "no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother" (Philemon 1:16). Yet by the time cotton became king, American Christianity had developed elaborate theological frameworks explaining why some image-bearers of God could be legally classified as property rather than persons. And this wasn't limited just to African Americans. As J. Kameron Carter demonstrates in Race: A Theological Account, American Christianity developed a robust hierarchy of human value that shaped views of all non-Anglo Protestants. This hierarchy affected not only Black Americans but also Indigenous peoples, Asians, Latinos, Catholics, Jews, and even certain European immigrant groups like Italians, who were sometimes subjected to the same racial violence as African Americans in the late 19th century, particularly in the South. Gods in Our Image: The Theology of Dominance What happened to Christianity in the cotton states, northern financial centers, and the West's potential cotton lands offers a perfect case study of humanity's persistent tendency to create gods that legitimate our dominative schemes. The biblical writers were keenly aware of this tendency. The prophet Isaiah mockingly describes how people would cut down a tree, use part of it to cook their food, and then "from the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships" (Isaiah 44:15-17). The psalmist observed that those who make idols "become like them" (Psalm 115:8)—a profound insight into how our gods and our social systems mirror and reinforce each other. Cotton Christianity exemplified this dynamic. Facing economic demands that contradicted Jesus's teachings, cotton-dependent Christians didn't abandon faith—they reshaped it. They created a deity who conveniently blessed their economic arrangements, who sanctified exploitation, who placed white enslavers at the top of a divinely ordained hierarchy. This pattern extends far beyond cotton fields. Political scientist Ivan Krastev offers a parallel observation about modern states: "Science was as important for the modern state as God was for the monarchical states of the past. The legitimacy of the state was coming from science." Just as cotton Christians created a deity who legitimated plantation economics, modern political ideologies create sources of legitimacy—whether scientific, religious, or cultural—that validate their power arrangements. This pattern became even more pronounced as Cotton Christianity was transformed by Darwin and theories of natural selection that reinforced the hierarchy of human value as not only God-given but empirically confirmed by Science (and here we must capitalize Science when denoting it as a secular god). The supposed scientific validation of racial hierarchies provided an additional layer of legitimacy to theological frameworks that had already been developed to justify exploitation. The insight from Cotton Evangelicalism is not merely historical. It reveals a fundamental human tendency: When our desires and practices contradict our professed values, we don't usually abandon our values—we reinterpret them. As John Calvin observed in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, "[M]an's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols." This 16th century theologian recognized what Cotton Evangelicalism would later demonstrate on American shores—we continuously manufacture gods who bless what we've already decided to do. We create sources of authority that validate our predetermined conclusions, transforming our hearts and minds into workshops that endlessly produce idols tailored to our desires. As theologian Stanley Hauerwas bluntly puts it: "The desperate need to have a god that underwrites our causes rather than a God who judges them" defines much of American religion. This explains why Christians could simultaneously proclaim a faith founded by a torture victim while theologically justifying the torture of others. It wasn't mere hypocrisy—it was the predictable outcome of creating a god in the image of economic necessity. Supersessionism as Cotton's Theological Engine This transformation required an additional theological innovation: the repurposing of supersessionism. Originally a dubious doctrine about the European c

    21 min

  2. 04/10/2025

    🔍America Was Already Here: Indigenous Civilizations Before Columbus

    Introduction: Encounters in "Unclean" Territory "They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him." - Mark 5:1-2 When Jesus crosses to "the other side" in Mark's Gospel, he enters territory deemed unclean by Jewish religious authorities. The Gerasene region, populated by Gentiles who raised pigs (animals considered unclean under Jewish law), represented foreign territory both geographically and spiritually. Yet Jesus deliberately enters this space, challenging assumptions about clean and unclean, insider and outsider, civilized and uncivilized. This boundary-crossing pattern—Jesus consistently moving into spaces deemed "other" by religious authorities—embodies the participatory freedom at the heart of true Biblical Citizenship. Rather than maintaining rigid barriers, Christ demonstrates citizenship in God's kingdom through deliberate engagement across constructed boundaries. This example challenges both Dominative Christianism and our sanitized historical narratives. European colonizers approached indigenous North America with similar conceptual boundaries—viewing native lands as "wilderness" despite their sophisticated civilizations, indigenous spirituality as "pagan" despite its deep wisdom, and native governance as "primitive" despite its complex social organization. Like the religious authorities of Jesus's day, European settlers often maintained rigid boundaries between "civilized" European society and "savage" indigenous cultures. This chapter crosses these conceptual boundaries, examining the sophisticated indigenous civilizations that existed in North America long before European arrival. These weren't primitive societies awaiting European "civilization" but complex cultures with advanced agricultural systems, extensive trade networks, sophisticated governance structures, and rich spiritual traditions. By crossing these boundaries in our historical understanding, we develop more truthful perspective on American origins. Advanced Civilizations Before Contact Cahokia: America's First City When my father was growing up just outside St. Louis in the 1940s and 50s, his teachers barely mentioned that he lived near the ruins of what had once been North America's largest city. Cahokia, which at its peak around 1200 CE housed more residents than London at that time, was dismissed as merely a collection of "Indian mounds" rather than recognized as the sophisticated metropolis archaeological evidence has since revealed. This pattern of invisibility—grand indigenous achievements rendered unseen while European accomplishments dominate our historical gaze—mirrors the palace-manger contrast in the nativity story. Just as Herod's palace commanded attention while divine presence arrived unnoticed in a feeding trough, so too did European settlements command historical attention while sophisticated indigenous civilizations were overlooked or deliberately erased. THEOLOGICAL INSIGHT: Just as shepherds—not palace courtiers—received the divine announcement in the nativity story, perhaps the fuller truth of American history is revealed not through imperial monuments but through the marginalized histories European settlers attempted to erase. This Mississippi civilization constructed massive earthworks requiring sophisticated engineering knowledge and organized labor on unprecedented scale. Monk's Mound, the largest prehistoric earthen structure in the Americas, required an estimated 14 million baskets of soil carefully layered to create stable 100-foot-tall pyramid with multiple terraces and buildings on its summit. This construction demonstrated not only engineering skill but also centralized political authority capable of organizing massive labor projects. Cahokia featured planned urban layout with central plaza, residential neighborhoods, astronomical observatories, and elaborate burial sites indicating complex social stratification. Archaeological evidence reveals sophisticated craft production, nutritional abundance, and extensive trade networks connecting Cahokia to regions from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast. Far from primitive village, Cahokia represented urban civilization comparable to contemporaneous European cities. Walking the Mounds: My Childhood Connection to Mississippian Civilization Growing up in Baton Rouge in the 1970s, my brothers and I would regularly trek across what we called "the Indian mounds" on LSU's campus before football games at Tiger Stadium. I had no understanding then that these mounds connected to a sophisticated civilization that once dominated the Mississippi River valley. The casual way we treated these archaeological treasures—running up and down them before games, completely disconnected from their historical significance—reflected the broader cultural erasure of indigenous achievements. Just thirty miles upriver from my childhood home, at the Poverty Point World Heritage Site, stood another testament to indigenous engineering that predated European arrival by millennia. Yet these achievements remained largely invisible in my education—much like the divine presence in a Bethlehem feeding trough remained invisible to the powerful in Jerusalem's palaces. HISTORICAL INSIGHT: European settlers consistently misinterpreted North American landscapes as "wilderness" despite their careful management by indigenous peoples over millennia. What appeared to European eyes as untouched nature often represented deliberately cultivated environments—a "feeding trough" that nourished civilizations rendered invisible by imperial narrative. The Mississippian civilization, centered at Cahokia but extending to my childhood hometown, featured sophisticated agricultural practices, elaborate ceremonial traditions, and extensive trade networks. Though less "visibly imperial" than European cities with their stone cathedrals and castles, these societies achieved comparable population densities, cultural sophistication, and technological innovations adapted to their environmental contexts. Haudenosaunee: Democratic Confederation in My Finger Lakes Home The Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy—whose names grace the beautiful lakes of my current home in upstate New York—established sophisticated democratic governance system centuries before the formation of the United States. This confederation united the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and later Tuscarora nations into political alliance with representative governance, separation of powers, and balanced authority between centralized and local decision-making. Living among these lakes named for the Haudenosaunee nations has reinforced for me how indigenous presence becomes simultaneously acknowledged and erased—the names remain while the full acknowledgment of these nations' political sophistication often vanishes. The Cayuga Lake outside my window carries indigenous naming while the Cayuga people themselves were largely driven out—cultural appropriation at geographic scale. HISTORICAL INSIGHT: The democratic principles we celebrate as uniquely "American" innovations were practiced centuries earlier by the Haudenosaunee, whose political sophistication remains largely unacknowledged in mainstream historical narratives. This invisibility serves the imperial narrative that civilization arrived with European settlement rather than already flourishing here. The Great Law of Peace (Gayanashagowa) that structured this confederation specified detailed governance procedures including representative councils, mechanisms for removing leaders who violated public trust, and formalized processes for deliberative decision-making. Women held significant political power, with clan mothers selecting male representatives and maintaining authority to remove leaders who failed their duties. This democratic confederation influenced American constitutional thinking through figures like Benjamin Franklin, who explicitly referenced the Haudenosaunee model during constitutional deliberations. The confederacy's balanced distribution of authority between central government and constituent nations prefigured American federalism, while its deliberative decision-making processes established democratic principles predating European Enlightenment thought. Hohokam: Hydraulic Engineering The Hohokam civilization of the American Southwest developed sophisticated irrigation systems that transformed desert environments into productive agricultural landscapes. Between approximately 300 BCE and 1450 CE, they constructed hundreds of miles of precisely engineered canals that distributed water from the Salt and Gila rivers across the arid Phoenix basin. These canals, up to 30 feet wide and 10 feet deep, required precise mathematical calculation to maintain gentle, consistent gradient that moved water efficiently across flat desert landscape. The irrigation system included headgates to control water flow, distribution canals to deliver water to field systems, and drainage systems to manage excess water—all constructed using stone tools rather than metal implements. This hydraulic engineering transformed the Sonoran Desert into one of North America's most productive agricultural regions, supporting dense population with minimal environmental degradation. The sustainable water management practices developed by the Hohokam continue to influence southwestern water governance, with modern Phoenix canal systems often following pathways established by these indigenous engineers over a millennium ago. Three Sisters Agriculture: Sustainable Innovation Indigenous agricultural innovation created some of world history's most sustainable and productive farming systems. The "Three Sisters" method—planting corn, beans, and squash together in complementary arrangement—represented sophisticated agricultural science that maximiz

    22 min
  3. 26: Achieving Our Country

    10/24/2024

    26: Achieving Our Country

    The issue of racism has become a real hot potato and political football this year, and Dr. Douglas Campbell returns from the last episode to help us break through the fog of the bipartisan rhetoric that we are currently experiencing so that we can begin to better understand the belief systems that perpetuate our struggles to ensure equal justice and equal opportunity for all citizens. In the last episode of the podcast, we began to talk about something that both sides of the argument say that there is much too little of – that being freedom. We talked about what it is and what it is not, and, along the way, came across an interconnected question – what is justice, and what is not justice? Dr. Campbell continues to touch upon and explore these questions from a Biblical perspective. As a reminder, Dr. Campbell is a professor at Duke Divinity School where he has become, since 2003, one of the most respected and innovative New Testament scholars in the world. He specializes in the history and theology of the Apostle Paul, having published five incredibly influential books that have changed the way we Christians understand Paul's writings and large portions of the New Testament itself, and he also directs Duke's Prison Studies program. His latest book is titled Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God's Love, a truly interesting and helpful book that I can't recommend highly enough! He continues to discuss freedom and what he calls in Pauline Dogmatics quasi-freedom, or phony freedom that often masks itself as actual freedom. He also touches upon freedom in relationships such as marriage, what it means to regard someone as a neighbor and how to do so even if that person is very different from us, and why Christians should be more inclusive and accepting of differences. He also offers some insight regarding what next steps we as Americans should take to move closer toward achieving our country, a topic touched upon in the last episode, and he points toward grounds for hope. Dr. Campbell has taught us so about freedom, love, and justice and what they mean and don't mean from a Biblical perspective, and he has given us a great Biblical account of these values. In our next episode, we are going to pivot to build on this discussion of love, justice, and freedom but will be applying these values to a discussion of our criminal justice processes. Returning guest Dr. Derek Woodard-Lehman will discuss what he has learned about this topic from teaching a course about it from a Christian ethics perspective. I hope that you'll join us, and be sure to invite your friends to listen in as well!   Show Notes: [3:53] – Dr. Campbell helps us understand how some people misunderstand what real freedom is. [6:02] – Dr. Campbell gives an example of freedom in relationships. [8:52] – Dr. Campbell discusses the freedom of obedience. [10:04] – We receive an example of freedom around the world in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic and being asked to wear masks. [12:02] – Dr. Uffman and Dr. Campbell return the conversation toward marriage in connection to Biblical freedom. [15:02] – Dr. Uffman offers some summarizing insight on Dr. Campbell's discussion of freedom thus far. [17:18] – Dr. Uffman shifts the conversation toward Dr. Campbell's discussion of structures in his book, Pauline Dogmatics. [19:09] – Dr. Campbell reveals how he would respond to someone saying that they should have the freedom to choose who their neighbor is. [21:40] – We learn how to regard people who are different from us as neighbors as Dr. Campbell encourages us to stop seeing people under categories but rather networks. [24:45] – Dr. Campbell reflects on the Civil Rights Movement and how it was driven by deep friendships. [26:05] – Dr. Campbell comments on how the military understands forming bonds over shared struggle. [28:13] – Differences, Dr. Campbell asserts, create possibilities for new things to be learned. [31:22] – Dr. Uffman directs the conversation toward the hierarchies of human value and Othering and what Dr. Campbell says about these topics in Pauline Dogmatics. [32:16] – Dr. Campbell offers more insight regarding how God is at work in all of humanity. [35:12] – We hear Dr. Campbell make an analogy between substance abusers and sinners. [38:12] – Far too many people think that their problem is other people rather than themselves. [40:22] – Dr. Uffman compares our differences to playing different notes in a symphony, with God being the conductor. [41:27] – Paul wanted to foster the diversity within the communities that he founded, who were not strictly Christians. [43:40] – We learn what next steps Americans should take to achieve our country, explaining how to put peace into action rather than just theory. [45:56] – Dr. Campbell points toward grounds for hope and signs that peace is possible.   Links and Resources: Dr. Campbell’s Website Duke Divinity School - Our Faculty: Douglas Campbell Douglas Campbell – Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God's Love   Connect with Dr. Craig Uffman: The Way of Love Facebook Twitter Craig Uffman’s Messages Along the Way Get full access to The Christian Humanist at www.christianhumanistmission.org/subscribe Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com/subscribe

    49 min
  4. 25: Wrestling with Racism as Christians

    10/23/2024

    25: Wrestling with Racism as Christians

    Dr. Douglas Campbell joins us today to help us consider the proverbial elephant in the room whenever we talk about our struggles with racism. Whether you are White or non-White in America, it's something that we Americans claim that we want for ourselves and our neighbors even though if you listen to us talk about resolving our racial tensions, it's the thing that both sides seem to believe there is much too little of. What is that elephant in the room? Well, I am talking about freedom! Dr. Campbell is here to, amongst other things, discuss what freedom is and what it isn't from a Christian perspective. Dr. Campbell is a professor at Duke Divinity School where he has become, since 2003, one of the most respected and innovative New Testament scholars in the world. He specializes in the life and history of the Apostle Paul, having published five books that have changed the way we Christians understand Paul's writings and large portions of the New Testament itself, and he also directs Duke's Prison Studies program. His latest book is titled Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God's Love, and I highly recommend that you pick it up and read it! He is here to discuss values that we tend to take for granted - values like love, justice, and freedom – especially within the framework of racial tensions. He believes that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to think about these values that can actually contribute to and perpetuate our racial tensions. He talks about the teachings of men like Martin Luther King and James Baldwin and how their perspectives can be tied to God's love, and he addresses what love means from a Christian standpoint and how we need to unlearn what we've been told love is and relearn what it actually means, which could very well include learning from others who are practicing it. He also talks about what happens in society when there is inequality and refers to what he calls social mobility being affected as a result. Dr. Campbell has given us such a great Biblical account of values such as love, justice, and freedom. Join us next time as we continue this conversation, when Dr. Campbell will dig deeper into this issue and will explain terms such as quasi Christian freedom, a variant that masquerades as freedom but ultimately does more harm than good. He will also help us recognize some of the unhealthy ways that some of us sometimes think about freedom. This conversation has been so helpful, and I can't wait to have him back on to continue this talk! I hope that you'll join us, and be sure to tell friends who might be interested about the podcast!   Show Notes: [2:41] – Dr. Uffman opens the conversation with a quote from James Baldwin from Baldwin's book The Fire Next Time. [4:17] – People like Martin Luther King and James Baldwin, as pointed out by Dr. Uffman, believed that a lack of love was what was impeding us from achieving our country. [5:18] – Dr. Campbell explains what he means in his book Pauline Dogmatics when he argues that we need to learn how to love. [7:40] – Former President Trump, Dr. Uffman reflects, once stated that he couldn't understand why military personnel would lay down their lives in sacrifice – a form of love that is being discussed in this podcast episode. [9:25] – Dr. Campbell makes the argument that we sometimes play justice off against love even though being loving is being just. [12:20] – Dr. Campbell discusses the difference between the law and justice, using the Jim Crow laws as an example of the distinction. [15:16] – Dr. Campbell argues that the only place where we can see a perfect reflection of God's love is in Christ. [17:32] – We learn that true justice is transformational, reconciling, and restorative. [20:13] – Dr. Campbell makes the case that justice is doing the right thing even if that isn't congruent with the law. [22:34] – Dr. Campbell explains how love through sacrifice relates to our struggles here in the United States. [25:31] – Dr. Campbell believes that Christians need to help democracy strive for love. [26:40] – We discover what Dr. Campbell means by first having to unlearn love before learning it. [29:54] – Dr. Campbell reveals how he defines freedom according to his book Pauline Dogmatics. [32:10] – Dr. Campbell explains his distinction between positive freedom and negative freedom. [34:54] – People who are being harmed, Dr. Campbell shares, need to be liberated. [37:02] – Dr. Campbell makes a connection between structure and freedom. [40:22] – Dr. Uffman offers insight on Dr. Campbell's emphasis on structures, nodding toward the Civil Rights Movement of 1963. [41:27] – Dr. Campbell brings his home country of New Zealand into the conversation and refers to inequality as a zero sum game. [44:05] – It's not our laws that make us free, Dr. Uffman summarizes, because there are too many other factors that impede freedom.   Links and Resources: Dr. Campbell’s Website Duke Divinity School - Our Faculty: Douglas Campbell Douglas Campbell – Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God's Love Douglas Campbell – The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul James Baldwin – The Fire Next Time Richard Rorty – Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America Isaiah Berlin – The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas   Connect with Dr. Craig Uffman: SubStack: https://www.commonlifepolitics.com Threads: @craiguffman Facebook: @craiguffman Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com/subscribe

    47 min
  5. 24: The Pillars of Caste & Hope for Beloved Community

    10/23/2024

    24: The Pillars of Caste & Hope for Beloved Community

    In our last episode, Rt. Rev. Dr. Prince Singh joined me to share his experiences as a boy growing up in South India as well as his experiences as a young priest engaging the consequences of caste serving communities of Dalits (formerly known as Untouchables), the lowest ranking on the caste system. In this episode, we will be picking up where we left off, although this time, we will shift our focus over to Bishop Singh's experience as a priest and bishop here in the United States. As a reminder, Rt. Rev. Dr. Prince Singh is the eighth and current bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, NY. He was born in the larger state of Tamil Nadu in South India where he served many congregations as an Anglican priest before coming to the United States. While earning his PhD in New Jersey, he served multiple parishes and became such a powerful spiritual force that the people of Rochester called him to be their bishop. He has spent decades leading people to grapple with the challenges of racial reconciliation, and he is here to help us reflect on caste and to share his experiences of wrestling with racism here in the United States. Bishop Prince shares what it was like to move here to the United States as a man of color, where he was now a minority. He reminds us of two of the main components of caste – purity and pollution – and how those components also play a role in racism here in the United States as White is often socially regarded as pure. Bishop Prince also acknowledges his privilege as a man and discusses how he goes about remaining aware of that privilege, and he offers some incredibly inspirational and moving grounds for hope for the future – such as humanity's move toward beloved community (a term that he explains and exemplifies) and how the COVID-19 pandemic has made some of us realize how divided we were even before the virus made us quarantine and be literally divided. Speaking with Bishop Prince was such an uplifting experience as it always is, and I thank him for coming on the podcast to help us think about caste from the perspective of someone from India who is now living as a leader here in the United States. In our next two episodes, we will pivot from our historical descriptions of the realities of our racial tensions to do a deep dive into the habitual thoughts that cause and sustain said racial tensions. New Testament scholar Dr. Douglas Campbell of Duke will be joining us to help us think about the values that we tend to take for granted – values like love, justice, and freedom. Dr. Campbell believes that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to think about these values that can actually contribute to and perpetuate our racial tensions. Join us next time to learn more, and be sure to tell friends who might be interested in the podcast about us!   Show Notes: [4:26] – Bishop Prince reflects on what it was like moving to the United States where he was now a minority as a man of color. [5:56] – Bishop Prince frames New Jersey as more progressive than Virginia but also more complex. [7:43] – The South and the North, Bishop Prince argues, have the same iterations of racism that are just manifested differently. [10:00] – Bishop Prince reminds us of how caste involves perceived purity and impurity. [12:05] – Bishop Prince addresses his privilege as a man and how he works to become more aware of that privilege. [14:57] – Dr. Uffman offers insight on the hierarchical worldview described by Bishop Prince. [16:17] – We learn what it is like for Bishop Prince being a parent of boys of color in Rochester. [18:54] – Bishop Prince reveals what benefits resulted from one of his sons finding a school that embraced how he learned. [21:16] – Bishop Prince reflects on what he has observed and processed in Rochester regarding race. [22:38] – We learn about the antidote to internalized racism. [25:28] – The only hope to fight structural and internalized racism is to embrace community and break down the walls that separate us. [26:50] – We discover what Bishop Prince means when he refers to beloved community. [29:30] – We cannot have dreams without reparations, Bishop Prince argues. [32:35] – It's not about being colorblind, Dr. Uffman interprets, but is rather about being color-sensitive. [33:30] – Bishop Prince shares what pockets of the beloved community that he has observed.   Links and Resources: Episcopal Diocese of Rochester – About the Rt. Rev. Prince G. Singh Isabel Wilkerson – Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents Program - Dalit Solidarity Forum in the USA, inc.   Connect with Dr. Craig Uffman: SubStack: https://www.commonlifepolitics.com Threads: @craiguffman Facebook: @craiguffman Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com/subscribe

    38 min
  6. 23: Caste Away

    10/23/2024

    23: Caste Away

    I am so happy to have Rt. Rev. Dr. Prince Singh join me in this episode of the podcast not only because of the invaluable wisdom that he has to offer but also because he is such a dear friend. Rt. Rev. Dr. Prince Singh is the eighth and current bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, NY. He was born in the larger state of Tamil Nadu in South India where he served many congregations as an Anglican priest before coming to the United States. While earning his PhD in New Jersey, he served multiple parishes and became such a powerful spiritual force that the people of Rochester called him to be our bishop. He joins me to share his personal experiences of wrestling with racism in both South India and here in the United States. I met Prince ten years ago when I came to lead a parish here a year after he became the bishop. Bishop Prince has spent quite a long while leading people to grapple with the challenges of racial reconciliation, and he is here today to help us reflect on something that has been discussed several times in previous episodes of the podcast – caste. He reflects on his childhood and where he grew up, revealing that he grew up in a Christian family and that, as a young adult, he got his undergraduate degree in Zoology and his graduate degree in Public Administration. Interestingly, Prince grew up as a boy not seeing the world through the perspective of caste. In fact, as he narrates in detail, he didn't have a great awareness of it and didn't really learn about it until later on when he encountered it for the first time. He theorizes as to why that is and admits to having been privileged because of his family's socioeconomic status and his parents having been college educated, describing his lack of awareness of the caste system as a child as a blessing but also problematic. Prince also addresses the multifaceted nature of colonialism and how, from his perspective, it isn't all about domination and has actually had some positive impacts as well. He discusses the two components of caste and the intersectionality between caste and gender, ultimately ending here by pointing to the huge differences that he and his wife Roja Singh have helped make reality for many young girls who were otherwise victims of the caste system. In our next episode, Bishop Prince will be returning, and we will be continuing this conversation. We will follow his story to the United States and will learn how he experienced some of what we have been talking about in previous episodes of the podcast. Please join us, and be sure to tell friends who might be interested in the podcast about us!   Show Notes: [1:09] – Dr. Uffman announces Rt. Rev. Dr. Prince Singh as this episode’s guest and briefly touches upon his credentials. [3:27] – Bishop Prince helps us visualize where he grew up. [5:14] – We learn about Bishop Prince's educational background. [7:38] – Bishop Prince talks about his family's economic status while he was growing up. [8:31] – Bishop Prince describes what the weather was like where he grew up, sharing that it was very hot and humid. [11:17] – Dr. Uffman alludes to caste and recognizes it as a tool that we can use to help understand our current racial tensions. [12:49] – Bishop Prince reflects on his childhood and what his experience was like as a Christian boy in his state. [14:05] – We hear Bishop Prince recount one specific encounter when he observed caste play a role via someone's behavior. [16:12] – Bishop Prince discusses his observations of villages having two parts because of caste. [18:08] – Bishop Prince reveals that he encountered the concept of caste the most after becoming a priest, and he explains why. [20:06] – Bishop Prince posits theories as to why he didn't grow up with much awareness of caste division. [22:47] – Bishop Prince discusses colonialism and how it is a multifaceted system with many layers. [25:42] – Bishop Prince credits the missionary movement as having had positive influences within India. [28:06] – We learn a little bit about Bishop Prince's time as an Anglican priest in India. [31:00] – Bishop Prince describes his early engagement as a priest in South India as adventurous. [33:51] – Bishop Prince points out the problematic nature of state-enforced prevention of people choosing their own religion. [36:51] – We hear about the flaws within Christianity because of how caste is sometimes followed even within the Christian faith. [38:57] – Bishop Prince addresses the intersectionality between caste and gender. [40:45] – We learn what the term manual scavenger means. [43:48] – Some children would drop out of school because of being treated as manual scavengers, even by teachers. [45:23] – Dr. Uffman reflects on how the differences that Bishop Prince and his wife Roja Singh have begun to make for young girls make for grounds for hope.   Links and Resources: Episcopal Diocese of Rochester – About the Rt. Rev. Prince G. Singh Program - Dalit Solidarity Forum in the USA, inc.   Connect with Dr. Craig Uffman: SubStack: https://www.commonlifepolitics.com Threads: @craiguffman Facebook: @craiguffman Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com/subscribe

    47 min
  7. 22: The Arc of History

    10/23/2024

    22: The Arc of History

    Hello, folks! In the last episode, Dr. Kurt Culbertson joined us to help us understand some jargon from his life as a landscape architect – words and terms such as vacant land, habitat, and spatial justice. He also began to help us understand how historic government policies as well as local traditions have combined to limit the habitat choices especially of non-Whites and have constrained the flow of resources to the low income neighborhoods in which they have been allowed to live. We concluded with a brief discussion of how land use and habitat choice are great examples that denote what we mean when we use phrases such as structural racism. We therefore finally dug into defining what structural racism means with some evidence and examples that are really hard to deny. We will be picking up where we left off in this episode, digging even more deeply into some persistent racial inequities in the domain of spatial justice. As a reminder, Dr. Kurt Culbertson is a scholar and a practitioner in the field of urban renewal where he uses his expertise as a landscape architect to help cities imagine how to design landscapes that consider environmental, social, and economic factors so that they can best optimize spatial justice in the urban renewal efforts. Dr. Culbertson is chair and C.E.O. of Design Workshop, an international design studio out of Aspen, Colorado but with offices all over the world. They are most famous for their twelve projects that were selected as performance based case studies by the Landscape Architecture Foundation. In 2016, Kurt was awarded the American Society of Landscape Architects Medal which is the highest possible honor in his profession, and he is also the pastor of the ASLA Council of Fellows and The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Kurt returns today to continue discussing inequities in the design of our communities today. Dr. Culbertson provides us with countless examples throughout history of Blacks and non-Whites being displaced and relocated out of their habitats to make room for architecture, interstates and highways, and so on – examples of egregious disturbances within the world of spatial justice. He touches upon pollution and health and safety hazards and their links to spatial justice and also offers some hope for the future, pointing toward an eminent quote from Theodore Parker as inspiration. He even offers some tips on what actions that we as average citizens can take to help equity progress and continue to arc forward. These past two episodes with Kurt have been such a blessing because they have made it very clear what some folks mean when they refer to structural racism, a reality that we still need to wrestle with today. He has given us concrete examples as someone who is actually observing things on the ground, examples that point toward how historic policies and practices continue to shape our present. We covered so much ground, and I thank Kurt for joining us. In our next episode, we will pivot from this practical deep dive into spatial justice in order to hear the personal experience and wisdom of Bishop Prince Singh, a man who has wrestled with racism as a person of color both in India and here in the United States. Prince spent a long time leading people to grapple with the challenges of racial reconciliation, and he will be joining us to help us reflect on phrases like caste and hierarchies of value. Until next time, thanks for tuning in, and be sure to invite your friends to listen as well!   Questions for Clergy and Other Group Leaders How does exposure to toxic pollution correlate with class and race? Why? How did St. Louis realtors in the 1960s and 1970s use blockbusting to generate profits and transformed entire neighborhoods they knew had environmental time bombs from white to black in a matter of years? How did the East Bank/West Bank vote on taxes to support flood insurance in the New Orleans metro area impact non-whites after the floods of 1980? Why do hurricanes impact non-whites disproportionately more than whites?    Show Notes: [3:48] – Dr. Culbertson offers some egregious examples of disturbances in the domain of spatial justice. [5:02] – Dr. Culbertson provides examples of population displacements and slum clearances in cities. [8:02] – Dr. Uffman and Dr. Culbertson discuss Robert Moses and his move to intentionally design projects to exclude non-Whites and the poor. [10:20] – Dr. Culbertson expands on how extensive the impact of the interstate highway system relocating Blacks and non-Whites has been. [12:40] – Dr. Culbertson comments on how urban renewal legislation through the 1970s negatively impacted non-Whites. [15:28] – Air quality and water quality affect public health which is another disturbance. [18:25] – The projects in New Orleans leading to de facto segregation around the same time as Civil Rights legislation, Dr. Culbertson explains, was an unintended consequence. [20:43] – Exposure to toxic pollution is correlated with class and race, and Dr. Culbertson elaborates upon that correlation. [24:07] – Dr. Uffman and Dr. Culbertson discuss the phenomenon of flooding in cities and how it disproportionately affects non-Whites. [26:30] – Dr. Culbertson expounds upon why natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina tend to disproportionately impact non-Whites. [29:25] – Dr. Culbertson reflects upon management decisions made to address shrinking cities and what that portends for non-Whites. [31:47] – Dr. Culbertson points to a parks and open space plan that he just finished in Vancouver. [34:23] – We discover how fragmented metropolitan governance has negatively impacted our ability to deal with spatial equity. [37:33] – Dr. Culbertson points to some locations as grounds for hope. [40:22] – Dr. Culbertson explains why taking formerly polluted lands and converting them into open space gives him hope and offers more examples of reasons for hope. [42:40] – We learn how we can get involved in moving equity forward. [44:23] – Dr. Culbertson analyzes the meaning behind a famous quote by Theodore Parker.   Links and Resources: Design Workshop - Website Landscape Architecture Foundation - Website ASLA Council of Fellows - Website The Cultural Landscape Foundation – Website Robert A. Caro - The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York Environmental Protection Agency - EJSCREEN: Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool NPR – “Theodore Parker and the 'Moral Universe'”   Connect with Dr. Craig Uffman: SubStack: https://www.commonlifepolitics.com Threads: @craiguffman Facebook: @craiguffman Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com/subscribe

    48 min
  8. 21: “This Land Was Made for You and Me”

    10/23/2024

    21: “This Land Was Made for You and Me”

    We have a real treat for you today in this episode! Joining us is Dr. Kurt Culbertson, a scholar and a practitioner in the field of urban renewal where he uses his expertise as a landscape architect to help cities imagine how to design landscapes that consider environmental, social, and economic factors so that they can best optimize something that he refers to as spatial justice (which we're going to learn more about in this episode) in the urban renewal efforts. Dr. Culbertson is chair and C.E.O. of Design Workshop, an international design studio out of Aspen, Colorado but with offices all over the world. They are most famous for their twelve projects that were selected as performance based case studies by the Landscape Architecture Foundation. In 2016, Kurt was awarded the American Society of Landscape Architects Medal which is the highest possible honor in his profession, and he is also the pastor of the ASLA Council of Fellows and The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Kurt was awarded a PhD in Landscape Architecture from Edinburgh College of Art for his research that helps us in thinking about how we ought to use - as a society - our vacant lands. Kurt is here on the podcast to help us understand the inequities that we see in the design of our communities today. The Great Recession of 2008 led to Dr. Culbertson moving a bit away from commercial work and balancing a bit with public renewal projects. The argument that structural and systemic racism is a myth is an argument that is not new; it has been being made for years, but Dr. Culbertson presents us with physical evidence of its reality – how human value has a hierarchy culturally attached to it is literally manifested in physical structures such as buildings and bridges. He touches upon various topics such as redlining and how physical evidence can be presented that proves that systemic racism and spatial injustice are still major problems even today. We cover so much ground in terms of management decisions and the economic impact on issues of inequity. In our next episode, Dr. Culbertson will return to talk about what he refers to as disturbances and how we have actually taken actions that have made some things worse. He will share with us what approaches that have been taken that appear to be working to help mitigate this problem. Thanks for listening, and be sure to invite your friends to tune in as well!   Questions for Clergy and Other Group Leaders What is ‘vacant land’ and what does Dr. Culbertson denote when he speaks of spatial justice? To what extent have non-whites been limited in the choices and range of actions for the choice of habitat? Where did most non-whites live in our cities prior to the 1920s, and what habitat choices did they have during and after that period? How did  government policy in the forms of SCOTUS decisions and legislative actions contributed to our current reality of ‘hollowed out cities’? How do we see the residual impact of redlining on our communities today?  How has the fact that the average net worth for Black is a small fraction of that for Whites historically impacted Blacks’ ability to buy homes in safer neighborhoods, provide education for children, and withstand hardships?   Show Notes: [3:40] – Dr. Uffman opens the conversation by talking about structural racism and points to the recent massacre of Asian women in Atlanta. [5:12] – Dr. Culbertson defines the terms vacant land and spatial justice. [8:18] – Dr. Culbertson explains why we are concerned about vacant land. [10:30] – Dr. Culbertson describes what he is able to influence and change in his field. [12:35] – Dr. Culbertson provides us with a potential reason why non Whites don't have the same choices as to where to live as Whites do. [15:11] – Cities began to implement racial zoning, which Dr. Culbertson defines and explains. [17:16] – Dr. Uffman shifts the conversation toward management decisions made by the executive branch and refers specifically to Herbert Hoover as an example. [19:24] – Dr. Culbertson describes what life might have been like for non Whites in cities and what habitat choices that they had following the Emancipation Proclamation. [22:27] – Dr. Uffman provides insight about his own observations in his hometown in Baton Rouge. [24:27] – Dr. Culbertson expounds upon mortgage lending and suburbanization, returning to the subject of Herbert Hoover. [26:55] – The process of redlining, Dr. Culbertson details, excluded the flow of resources especially for low income neighborhoods where a lot of people of color resided. [29:08] – Dr. Culbertson asserts that redlining caused impacts that still linger today, almost a century later. [31:39] – Dr. Uffman and Dr. Culbertson discuss the inequities around wealth creation. [34:23] – Dr. Culbertson touches further upon management decisions and executive decisions impacting spatial justice. [36:25] – Dr. Culbertson reflects upon how he would respond to someone who would argue that structural racism isn't real or is no longer a problem.   Links and Resources: Design Workshop - Website Landscape Architecture Foundation - Website ASLA Council of Fellows - Website The Cultural Landscape Foundation - Website Edward W. Soja - Seeking Spatial Justice (Volume 16) (Globalization and Community) Conversations: Race on the Rocks - “How and Why We Birthed Jim Crow” Conversations: Race on the Rocks - “Jim Crow: The Yankee Variant” Conversations: Race on the Rocks - “Redline Reasoning: Why We Built Segregated Cities”   Connect with Dr. Craig Uffman: SubStack: https://www.commonlifepolitics.com Threads: @craiguffman Facebook: @craiguffman Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com Get full access to Common Life Politics at www.commonlifepolitics.com/subscribe

    41 min
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About

Long-form scholarly explorations of American theological mutations and historical narratives, examining how religious frameworks have shaped—and been shaped by—national identity, racial dynamics, and political formations throughout American history. www.commonlifepolitics.com

Information

  • Creator
    Craig Geevarghese-Uffman
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    29
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Craig Geevarghese-Uffman
  • Show Website
    Untold America