Striving Toward Racial Solidarity in a Culture of White Christianity: Multi-Race + Multi-Faith Organizing in Texas

Critical Whiteness scholar George Yancy argues that the condition of whiteness is not natural, but rather, a social construct that can be de-constructed, and from which Whites (through great effort) can “un-suture” themselves. This un-suturing can only be achieved through deep interrogation of, and resistance to, the personal and social benefits of whiteness. While a growing amount of scholarship is focused on the problem of White Christian Nationalism, this dissertation argues that the problem of whiteness persists even among justice-seeking White Christians who engage in the work of organizing for racial justice, but often continue to center whiteness even as they understand it to be the core problem they are seeking to dismantle. A central claim is that while it may be impossible for White people to ever become wholly un-sutured from the condition of whiteness, the essential labor for Whites in reclaiming the human condition is a lifelong commitment to this practice of un-suturing from whiteness; and for White Christians, this must also include the work of un-suturing Christianity from whiteness, as it has been portrayed through the dominant U.S. national religious identity. The project proposes that one potentially transformational way White Christians can engage in this un-suturing process is through multi-race and multi-faith organizing efforts for racial justice, which can lead to deep interrogations of whiteness and solidarity-building processes with people of various racial, economic, and religious identities. Examining the lived experiences of community organizers in Texas who are working toward incarceration and immigration reform and/or abolition, this study employs qualitative ethnography and Critical Whiteness Studies as frameworks for building a theo-ethical, praxis-centered analysis primarily based in womanist, Latin American feminist, and Indigenous scholarship. The purpose is twofold: to better understand how White Christians engage in and are impacted by organizing in multi-race and multi-faith movements for racial justice (do these movements have the potential to “un-suture” White Christians/Christianity from whiteness?); and to better understand how the presence of White Christians impacts the work of such organizations and movements (what are the benefits, as well as the costs, of allowing White Christians into power-building spaces/movements for BIPOC communities?).