Resources by Miguel A. De La Torre
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A few years ago, during a search for a New Testament professor, I asked two questions during the interview – two questions I ask of every candidate for a position with our institution regardless of rank or discipline. The first is innocent enough: “How important is racial/ethnic diversity to you when teaching?” All candidates, to a fault, enthusiastically answer in the affirmative. Then I ask my second question: “Which scholars and/or books from racial and ethnic minorities do you include in your syllabus and why?” Here is when the squirming usually begins, revealing the lack of academic rigor of the candidate under consideration. During this particular New Testament search, two separate candidates from different Ivy League schools provided problematic responses. The first responded that as much as s/he was committed to diversity, s/he could not think of any scholar of color off the top of their head who has written a credible text concerning the biblical text. Let the response of this biblical scholar sink in for a moment. The second scholar, grasping for straws, offered the name Paul Ricœur, and then proceeded to convince me why I should accept his answer. I didn’t. While these two particular individuals best illustrate the depths of the ignorance of many white scholars concerning the scholarship emanating from what will soon be – combined – the largest U.S. demographic group, others have provided slightly better answers, but no less ignorant. For example, often the names offered are of scholars whose works were well known in the last century. Although they name foundational thinkers, they lack knowledge of current contributors to the discipline. Other times Latin American liberationist scholars are mentioned as if they are representatives of the U.S. Latinx context. Or white women use the term mujerista as the Latinx equivalent to womanist revealing their total lack of knowledge concerning the rich feminist discourse occurring among Latinxs. One’s pedagogy, or scholarship for that matter, can never be cutting-edge if one is ignorant of all aspects of their discipline. As a Latino man, my teaching must not just include the thoughts and writings of eurocentric and Latinx scholars; but also those of Indigenous, Black, and Asian-American scholars, as well as Queer and Feminist voices. Not to be familiar with the contributions of all marginalized communities does a disservice to my scholarship, and more importantly, to the students in my classroom. Many white scholars fall short of academic rigor because they can succeed, be published, and thus paraded as the fattened calf due to the prevalent institutional racism which continues to support a white affirmative action which protects their job opportunities and current positions from better qualified and more knowledgeable scholars of color. As a Latino going through my Ph.D. program, not only did I have to master Eurocentric thinkers, methodologies, and theories (as I should have), but I was expected to also be fluent with the thinkers, methodologies, and theories arising from my Latinx context. And yet, it was my white colleagues who were considered among the “brightest and the best” who lacked any requirement or need to read or know anything about my context - or any other marginalized context. How can anyone ever be considered knowledgeable with such a limited understanding of a sliver of their discipline? Part of the problem is that so many of the so-called top schools promote ignorance because they lack scholars of color, especially Latinx scholars. All you need to do is count how many core Latinx faculty are present on the faculty of the so-called Ivies to prove my point. You can count them on one hand, and maybe have a free finger leftover to give. Simply stated: If the faculty fails to represent the diversity of the population, then that school – even if it claims to be among the Ivies – lacks academic excellence and rigor – regardless of how large their endowments may be. Of course, this institutionalized racism is not limited to the Ivies. Gaze upon your own religion department. How many Latinxs are among your core faculty? Our presence may be requested to demonstrate a politically correct diversity; nevertheless, our scholarship remains confined to our barrios. Latinx, who comprise the largest ethnic group in the United States, remain the least represented group of all full professors in the academy, usually relegated to the “instructor” or “lecturer” rank where we possess little if no voice on how the academic institution structures itself, or in influencing doctoral students. The voices of marginalized scholars must be prevented from fully participating in shaping the academic discipline. For if they were truly given a seat at the table, they might reveal that the discipline which has been upheld for the past centuries as universal is simply a privileged eurocentric method of theological contemplation which in reality is but a very limited form of the particular. Students sitting in classrooms of white professors are often prevented from obtaining a cutting-edge education because of the strategies employed by so-called top schools, either consciously or unconsciously, in maintaining and sustaining eurocentric academic supremacy. Speaking only from the Latinx experience (although I suspect it may resonate with other marginalized groups), when some schools seek to hire Latinxs they often search for the brownest face with whitest voice. Quotas are thus met without having to deal with the scholarship being generated by nuestra comunidad; or worse, fuse and confuse Latin American theological scholarship with Latinx scholarship. Better yet is to find an actual white professor who can teach the Latinx context. A second strategy is to hire junior scholars (or in one case I know, a senior scholar), without tenure, to teach courses about the Latinx context while continuing the historical trend of seldom granting tenure. In this way, after seven years, the school can find a new Latinx to use, misuse, and abuse ensuring they will never amass the power to challenge, influence, or change the discourse at the institution. And finally, the school can invite well-known Latinx scholars to serve as visiting professors. Again, while the Latinx context is momentarily explored, the institution protects itself from structural change, because, after all, once the year appointment comes to an end – the scholar returns to their institution violence. As radical as they may have been, their absence quickly helps the institution forget whatever challenges may have been raised, and of course, if the challenges hit too close to home, they can always dismiss the Latinx as angry. A pedagogical problem exists with white professors because of the continuous racism and ethnic discrimination prevalent in our schools that still relegates our voices, our thoughts, and our bodies to the margins. I leave it for you to ponder how racist your school might be. I, on the other hand, wish to close praising those white students and scholars who refuse the temptation of scholastic laziness and spend a good portion of their academic training learning about the context of their racial/ethnic Other. Although they can succeed in the academy without having to do this extra work, nevertheless, they have come to realize they can never truly possess scholastic rigor if they lack the breadth of their discipline. These are the white scholars I crave to call colleagues! Their integrity prevents them from speaking for us, or in place of us; rather, they master the contributions made on their margins so as to better inform their own thinking and become more effective in sharing our contributions in the classroom. They have come to realize they can never be good teachers if they are ignorant of the full scope of their discipline.
Remember the composition of religion departments back during the 1960s? They predominately and unapologetically consisted of white males – especially the so-called Ivies. Now imagine if one of these schools, realizing the need for different perspectives, decided that they wanted to have a feminist viewpoint taught in their department. A search committee would be formed, advertisements placed, interviews conducted, and after an academic year of deliberation, the most qualified candidate would be hired – probably a white man whose Ph.D. dissertation somewhat dealt with a few aspects concerning women’s issues. Even though several women steeped in feminist thought applied for the position, it would not be too surprising if a man would have been hired. So, allow me to rephrase my question: Can a man teach Women’s Studies? If identity does not matter as to who teaches racial/ethnic-based courses, then does gender matter? Maybe the question is not can but should. If we ask can, then the answer is obviously yes. Just like men can become proficient in feminist studies, so can whites become proficient in Latinx studies. And frankly, I cannot imagine any professor, regardless of ethnicity, race, or gender who can be considered scholastically rigorous if they fail to include these voices on a regular basis in every course they teach. For the record, in every one of my classes - except one (Formative White Male Ethicists) - I can and I do teach perspectives which focus on feminism, womanism, Black, Asian-American, Indigenous, and LGBTIQ religious thought. So if the question is can, then the answer is not only yes – but failure to do so indicates a lowering of academic standards. And yet, we face a situation where white people shamelessly apply to teach Latinx Studies simply because they can – or think they can. And like in the 60s, they are the ones who make ideal candidates in schools lacking the presence of Latinx. Latinx remains the largest ethnic/racial group in this country most underrepresented on Religion faculties. Ethnic discrimination against Latinxs is so prevalent that when a search is announced, the department hopes to find the brownest face with the whitest voice – or better yet, another white face who can appropriate our contributions to the discourse. While there are institutions who see the value of hiring a Latinx who will challenge their worldviews, and those of their predominately white students, to the core, most hope to find a Latinx who is not so damned angry. Of course, what they fail to realize is that if the teaching and views of Latinx scholars do not anger, do not challenge, do not disrupt, then they have indeed found the most assimilated brown face, which is of no use to nuestra comunidad. Such a hire is like pouring hot sauce onto a sloppy joe and calling it chili con carne. Should whites teach Latinx studies? The can question is answered in the affirmative because all scholars are responsible to include marginalized voices in their courses. But the should question is quite different. While the can question is about inclusion, the should question is about exclusion – excluding Latinx voices and bodies from white classrooms and institutions. During the 1960s, male-only teaching faculty needed the voices of women (and still do); but just as importantly, they also needed their presence as professors. Such institutions were as academically deficient then as those today lacking professors who are Latinxs (and by Latinx I mean those teaching teaching and focusing their works on the scholars from nuestra América – not the assimilated ones who teach white theology with a “spicy pepper” thrown on top). So, should whites teach Latinx Studies? No. Better yet – Hell no. There is a major difference between including the voices of Latinx scholars within everything you teach, and applying and being hired to teach exclusively in their place (regardless of whether you can or cannot). And shame on those institutions who continue to play games by making sure our radical and revolutionary voices do not, and potentially never will, sully their lily white halls by instead choosing whites, or Latinx in name only, to continue white theological hegemony in our classrooms.
I am convinced that all eurocentric philosophical thought and movements – yes all – are oppressive to those who come from colonized spaces. When I contemplate every philosophical contribution made by the so-called Age of Enlightenment, it becomes obvious that the French Revolution’s battle cry for Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité was never meant for her future colonies in Vietnam or Algiers. Hegel’s entire endeavor for a historical truths rests on the presupposition of the superiority of the Europeans and the inferiority of non-whites. In his 1824 book, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, Northern Europe - specifically the German Spirit - is the Spirit of the new World whose aim becomes the realization of absolute Truth as the unlimited self-determination of Freedom, a Freedom which has as its own absolute form itself as its purport (341). Such a Freedom was never meant for the “inferior” in need of civilization and Christianization. Even the U.S. rhetorical end to our daily oath of “liberty and justice for all” was never meant to include those from African descent, nor their neighbors south of the border. The “all” in eurocentric philosophical thought just meant whites, definitely not her colonies or those among the colonized who followed their stolen raw material and cheap labor to the center of Empires. Abstract philosophical thought must be constructed to reconcile the quest for liberty and equality among whites with their purposeful exclusion of those whom they colonized. The issue is not so much hypocrisy on the part of the colonizer spewing rhetoric about liberty; but rather, philosophically justifying oppression through freedom-based language. The move to the abstract serves the crucial purpose of obscuring the economic need of dispossessing and disenfranchising the colonized and their descendants. Universal eurocentric celestial concepts of rights blinds the oppressed to the concrete feet-on-the-ground reality of oppression at the hands of such freedom loving whites. Over 125 years ago, José Martí saw the danger of adopting a eurocentric worldview detrimental to the existential intellectual space occupied by the colonized. He called the oppressed of the world to create a new way of thinking based on our indigeneity. To make our wine out of bananas (“Nuestro vino de plátano”) means such a wine would naturally be sweet. But if we instead make our wine out of the fruits of Europe and it becomes sour (“y si es agrio”), then we are stuck with it (“es nuestro vino”). Eurocentric philosophical thought not only sours our wine but also our teaching. To build liberative edifices on eurocentric philosophical foundations reproduces the same consequences as pouring new wines into old skins. Even our beloved liberation theological movements have, more often than not, looked toward their oppressors for means of expression. How much richer would our liberative thinking have been if we looked to our own original thinkers like Martí rather than the European liberal thinkers of the time? When those of us seeking a liberative pedagogical methodology rest upon eurocentric philosophical paradigms, we construct resistance on shifting sand, contributing to our own oppression. And worse, when we teach in our classrooms our resistance to eurocentric thought, regardless of how loud, fearless, and passionate we may be, we are undermining our students’ ability to bring about subsistent change. The difficult task before us who call ourselves liberative scholar-activists is how do we think new thoughts that are less a response, and more an indigenous radical worldview different from the normative philosophies which have historically justified our subservient place within society. True, we must learn the Eurocentric canon if we hope to obtain PhDs and be considered learned, even though our white colleagues need not bother with the discourses occurring on their margins. But rather than looking at the esteemed eurocentric thinkers who have historically written philosophies to remove us from humanity and the fruits of liberation, what would happen if we possessed the dexterity to teach what the children of the colonizers legitimized and normalized as well as a different worldview based on lo cotidiano - the every day of those purposely written off Hegel’s metaphysical dialectical history. To teach from the margins disabuses the regurgitation of foreign and deadly philosophical paradigms in favor of those which resonates with the least of these. Not solely to understand the world – as important as this may be, but also for its transformation.
Since the start of the twentieth century, Christian religion scholars from the dominant culture - specifically ethicists – shifted their focus on how to live the Christian life via praxis toward the nature of ethics, wrestling more with abstract questions concerned with what is the common good and/or which virtues to cultivate. An attempt is made to understand the world, but lacking the ability to differentiate within disenfranchised communities between a “blink and a wink,” à la Geertz, their final analysis lacks gravitas. Teaching religion has become a process which [de]liberates not liberates. While abstract deliberations at times might prove sympathetic to the plight of the oppressed, the first casualty of abstract thought is rigorous academic discussions concerned with how to construct a more just social structure based on faith claims. A move to the abstract has, as my dissertation chair John Raines constantly reminded me, made the [class]room an appropriate name which signifies what occurs. This “room of class” becomes a space where students learn the class to which they belong, and how to assume the responsibilities associated with that class. During a visit to Yale, a student reminded me that while most seminaries train ministers for churches, Yale trains future bishops and superintendents. I doubt if such an attitude is limited to just one of the Ivies. Those with sufficient capital or connections to attend certain “rooms of class” on prestigious campuses are afforded opportunities normally denied to others (predominately students of color) who attend rooms at less prestigious locations. To occupy [class]rooms attached to power and privilege means that what is taught focuses more on the abstract as opposed to praxis designed to subvert power and privilege. To some degree, most eurocentric approaches to pedagogy at prestigious [class]rooms, more often than not, focus on explaining what is religious. But for those rooted in (or in solidarity with) disenfranchised communities relegated to the underside of prestigious [class]rooms, the question is not so much to determine some abstract understanding of religion, but rather, in the face of dehumanizing oppressive structures, to determine how people of faith adapt their actions to serve the least among us. Some professors who embrace a more liberative approach to pedagogy recognize there is no such thing as a neutral education system. Rather, students, depending on the [class]room they attend, are either conditioned to domesticate or be domesticated. A theological education serves to normalize and legitimize existing power structures within the faith community and society. A liberative pedagogy instead seeks to cultivate the student’s ability to find their own voice by creating an environment where collective and individual consciousness can be raised. The starting point is not some truth based on church doctrine or rational deliberation. Instead, the starting point is analyzing the situation faced by the dispossessed of our world and then reflecting with them theoretically, theologically, and hermeneutically to draw pastoral conclusion for actions to be taken. To function in the [class]room as a scholar-activist is usually to be dismissed, especially if one chooses not to engage in the methodologies acceptable to eurocentric thought. A division, unfortunately, exists where those concerned with the importance of maintaining their privileged space in [class]rooms oozing with power insist on lessons revolving around the thoughts and ideas of mainly dead white scholars (and those soon to join them) dismissing scholar-activist and the scholars from marginalized communities who inform their own thoughts. Simply peruse the reading lists on syllabi at prestigious [class]rooms to notice how scholars from disenfranchised communities are ignored – except, of course for that one elective class offered to check off the political correctness box. The [class]room space is protected with a call not to engage in the politics of our society, but instead to limit our thoughts to the polity that is the church, usually a homogenous church which more often than not misses the mark. The calling to be a scholar-activist is a recognition that by seeking solidarity with the stone rejected by stale builders regurgitating dead thoughts incapable of saving anyone, one finds themselves among the cornerstone of relevant, cutting-edge scholarship capable of revolutionizing society, literally turning the world upside-down.
Miguel A. De La Torre, Ph.D. Professor of Social Ethics and Latino/a Studies Iliff School of Theology While teaching at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, I was traveling with a local colleague to an engagement. Along the way, I ribbed him concerning some native cultural idiosyncrasy; at which point he turned to me in jest calling me “just another imperial gringo.” Although a humorous retort in our banter, I confess that I was taken aback. Of all the things I have been called throughout my life, this was the very first time I was ever called a gringo.... Read