Can racism be silenced? Join us as Reverend Nikia Smith Robert, PhD and Reverend Doctor Willie D Francois tackle this pressing question by exploring the concept of "white noise" from Francois’s book, "Silencing White Noise: Six Practices to Overcome Our Inaction on Race." Together, we dissect how racist speech, silence, and inaction serve to maintain white supremacy, and how even those affected by racism can unknowingly perpetuate it. From the specific vulnerabilities of Black women to the intersectionality of various forms of oppression, this episode lays bare the urgent need for comprehensive anti-racism practices.
Hear Dr. Francois and Dr. Robert as they scrutinize the theological underpinnings of punishment and incarceration, revealing how entrenched societal narratives frame Black bodies as inherently dangerous. With insights from Christian doctrines on sin and punishment, parallels are drawn between the concept of hell and the punitive nature of prisons. By weaving in perspectives from Chinese Buddhism and real-life stories, such as that of Kelly Williams Bolar, we illuminate the moral and ethical implications of a racially biased carceral system.
Finally, this episode explore actionable steps toward creating a true abolitionist sanctuary, grounded in the rhythms of reparative intercession. Dr. Francois discusses moving beyond white guilt to racial grief, emphasizing the transformative power of Jesus' ministry in fostering compassion and justice. Discover how these spiritual principles can guide us towards a society where sanctuaries of refuge and solidarity replace systems of policing and punishment. Dr. Francois challenges us to stay connected as we strive for communal flourishing and a just society, following the teachings and hope of resurrection.
Sign-up and join a social media platform for abolitionists Enroll to take courses at Abolition Academy Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
Can racism be silenced? Join us as Reverend Nikia Smith Robert, PhD and Reverend Doctor Willie D Francois tackle this pressing question by exploring the concept of "white noise" from Francois’s book, "Silencing White Noise: Six Practices to Overcome Our Inaction on Race." Together, we dissect how racist speech, silence, and inaction serve to maintain white supremacy, and how even those affected by racism can unknowingly perpetuate it. From the specific vulnerabilities of Black women to the intersectionality of various forms of oppression, this episode lays bare the urgent need for comprehensive anti-racism practices.
Hear Dr. Francois and Dr. Robert as they scrutinize the theological underpinnings of punishment and incarceration, revealing how entrenched societal narratives frame Black bodies as inherently dangerous. With insights from Christian doctrines on sin and punishment, parallels are drawn between the concept of hell and the punitive nature of prisons. By weaving in perspectives from Chinese Buddhism and real-life stories, such as that of Kelly Williams Bolar, we illuminate the moral and ethical implications of a racially biased carceral system.
Finally, this episode explore actionable steps toward creating a true abolitionist sanctuary, grounded in the rhythms of reparative intercession. Dr. Francois discusses moving beyond white guilt to racial grief, emphasizing the transformative power of Jesus' ministry in fostering compassion and justice. Discover how these spiritual principles can guide us towards a society where sanctuaries of refuge and solidarity replace systems of policing and punishment. Dr. Francois challenges us to stay connected as we strive for communal flourishing and a just society, following the teachings and hope of resurrection.
Sign-up and join a social media platform for abolitionists Enroll to take courses at Abolition Academy Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
Speaker 1:
One, two, three, four. Welcome to the Abolitionist Sanctuary podcast, where we consider critical conversations and call to actions at the intersections of faith and abolition. I am your host, reverend Dr Nakia Smith-Robert, the founder and executive director of Abolitionist Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization leading a faith-based abolitionist movement. I'm here with Dr Willie D Francois, the author of Silencing White Noise Six Practices to Overcome Our Inaction on Race. I am excited to have this conversation.
Speaker 1:
I wanted to jump in with your fabulous book Groundbreaking in fact and was wondering, as we are talking about white noise. I really like this metaphor that you're using because, as you know, I'm a mother of three and I remember we used white noise a lot for our first child when we were new, into the parent game and it was faithful. We would have a iPhone app, we would play our white noise and it would be the only way that our new infant would go to sleep. And so I can relate as you shared about white noise being a father and it's used for your son and as you describe it for our listeners, who may have not yet had the opportunity to read the book, but certainly are typing in the URL and Googling and searching for this book to purchase right now, right right, right, right, right right now. Do you have a definition that you want to share with us? What exactly is white noise?
Speaker 2:
definition that you want to share with us. What exactly is white noise? Yeah, white noise is the racist speech, silence, inaction and misrepresentations that protect whiteness, that protect white supremacy.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and causes a slumber for everyone else right.
Speaker 2:
It causes what I borrowed from Walter Fluker. It causes this sociopolitical narcolepsy. We live in this violent slumber that has mass casualties all around us.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I like that. Sociopolitical narcolepsy, that's really good. Fluker is one of the most profound scholars of this age. How is it possible? I was reading your introduction. How is it possible? Right, the ways in which we, even in our embodiment of Blackness, can be complicit and cooperate in this white noise. So how is it possible to quote communicate white noise in Black voice and Black sacred space? End quote.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, no, and this is a very important question, and I always make sure that I'm clear that the problem of white supremacy, yeah, it's a white problem and it's a white problem that white people have created, but it is not a problem that only white people perpetuate. When you live enmeshed in a given social world, it is possible for that world to shape and form you. So I talk about white supremacy as a type of power that works beneath the consciousness. It is a type of power that is governing just below the levels that many of us are able to name and be aware of. And so, yeah, it's possible for white supremacy to inhabit black bodies.
Speaker 2:
When a young teenager, whose pants may be sagging, walks by you and walks by your car, you roll up your window and you hit the button to lock your car door and you're a black person yourself. That is a part of white noise at work, right? Latino folk, latino men or women walking behind you on an escalator and you speed up your pace. Right, that is a part of how white noise is at work. If you're a pastor and you are preaching Black pastor, you're preaching about Black-on-Black violence as if Black-on, as if intra-violence in the Black community is something unique to Black folk, and you tell us that if we want to cure racism, don back in the day.
Speaker 2:
We need to pull up our plants, take care of our children and clean our streets. That's all white noise coming in in black boys, and the problem is not the black people who do it. Problem is the actual grammar and logic that lives in our world, right, and so even when I talk about black people who have, who allow, who host black people, who host anti-Blackness and who host white, this sense of whiteness as superior to all other things, black folk are not the problem. It's racism that's the problem, and none of us are inoculated from the anti-Black, anti-latinx, anti-asian sentiment that live in the Western world, particularly that live in the American mythology.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and we're certainly going to make the pivot toward the church, but before we do, I want to hear your thoughts about white noise as an intersectional device. Right? So it seems that white noise is describing a type of racism in response to racism, right, but what about other interlocking oppressions? And how might black women in particular factor into the conversation about white noise?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, no, thank you for that question, and that is a part of the attempt in the book is to show how all of these forms of domination actually coincide, they co-mingle, they live together. I mean, you really can't talk about the history of this country that is built on stolen land and stolen people without talking about an idea of racial capitalism that has been anti-woman, a racial capitalism that is tied to patriarchy in so many ways. And so to talk about race without talking about about sexism or patriarchy, misogyny, without talking about homophobia, queerphobia, transphobia, without talking about the types of classism that extract from those who live on the underside of America's economic pyramid, is to not take race seriously at all. Right. And to be honest about the matrix of domination, this matrix of domination that non-white lives live under is to also raise a serious microscope to the ways that Black women, oppression and domination intersect and have very real lived consequences. It is no mistake that the poorest folk in our country are Black mothers. There's no mistake that the most vulnerable to incarceration in this country.
Speaker 2:
Although we love to talk about brothers and we have to do that too right, unfortunately we have to walk and chew gum at the same time, but to not name the way that black mothers are most vulnerable to the suction machine of hyper incarceration in America is to be disingenuous about the work of justice, the work of economic justice, the work of racial justice, of justice, the work of economic justice, the work of racial justice, and so, yeah, I think that that, and I know we are we're going to pivot to the church in a moment but I think that is one of the sins of church leaders, and I'm always cautious when I talk about sins of the church.
Speaker 2:
I'm really talking about the sins of church leaders, particularly the sins of church male leaders, particularly the sins of church male leaders. The way that we make Black women's pain invisible or the way we make it subordinate to Black male pain is a part of the sin of Black Christianity that we have a serious responsibility to atone for, and particularly Black churches have a responsibility to atone for this, and particularly Black churches have a responsibility to atone for this, because there is no Black church without Black women's dollars, black women's prayers, black women's cooking, black women's ushering, black women's preaching, black women speaking in tongues, black women's service. There is no Black church without that and to be an entity that makes invisible the very real pain of Black women is to not take seriously how white noise is functioning.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I see. I see how you are bringing it all together and making this turn towards the church. So let's, let's fully go there. How do you see white noise as a theological intervention? How do we apply your analysis of white noise in the social landscape as a critique of the church and its harmful teachings and practices? Whether it's sin atonement and so forth.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for that. So, in what is chapter two right and what is chapter two in the book I start working through? I start working through a, I start working through this this definition of whiteness as sin, and I talk about these three forms of sin as the way we see whiteness manifest. Right, it is sin as segregation, it distances humans from their own core, but it also segments human communities in the sense of a hierarchy Whiteness as segregated, whiteness as idolatrous. To do this work of to live in a society where we place a premium on whiteness is also to draw from Paul Tillich is that whiteness, in a real sense, has become the ultimate concern of America and Americans, right, people in the United States, and whatever your ultimate concern is, that has become your ultimate concern of America and Americans. Right, people in the United States, and whatever your ultimate concern is, that has become your God right. And so, in that sense, many of us, particularly white evangelicals, have become acolytes of whiteness. Right that we have made whiteness the God that supplants the God of liberation, the God of the exodus, the God of freedom, the God of abolition. We've made whiteness itself the God, because it has the God of the exodus, the God of freedom, the God of abolition. We made whiteness itself God because it has become the concern, it has become the very template by which we judge the value of human life, right.
Speaker 2:
So whiteness as idolatrous, whiteness as as, as, as segregated, but also whiteness as demonic. Right, in a sense. Again drawing from a very Talikian reading of of what the demonic is. I'm not talking about something that's connected to a being that lives in the underworld, satan. But no, tillich talks about the demonic as anything that denies or anything that negates human flourishing, human creativity, human love, human beauty. So anything that is anti-human and anti-the person is demonic. It's anti-human and anti-the person is demonic. And whiteness within itself, the way it demonizes, the way it criminalizes, the way it denigrates, dehumanizes black flesh, black and brown flesh, is simply demonic. So I think about whiteness in those categories of sin.
Speaker 2:
So that's a theological intervention that I'm working through, and I'm also working through this, this, this idea of abolitionist spirituality, which which I talk about as a form of spirituality that takes seriously and I'm paraphrasing it that takes seriously the earthiness of today, that takes seriously the pain, the unprotected, takes seriously the dominations that exist in multi forms today and works to dismantle those, while also forecasting a vision for the God of freedom in the world today. So it's an earthy sort of spirituality that takes seriously a God that is always incarnate, not a God that only incarnates in Jesus, but a God that incarnates in us every single day. A God that is always incarnate, not a God that only incarnates in Jesus, but a God that incarnates in us every single day. A God that is incarnational as a rule and that God forecasting, offering dreams of what this world can be, that really leans against what this world has always been.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate the ways in which you are shaping a theological discussion about sin that problematizes whiteness through its reinforcement of segregation, the demonic. How do you connect that discussion of sin to its twin, which would be punishment? And so what does white noise tell us about church teachings around punishment that doesn't constitute whiteness as demonic but, in fact, blackness as guilty? And how does that then open up a wider discussion about church teachings and carcerality?
Speaker 2:
No, thank you for that. Thank you for that question. What is interesting is that one in the book I'm calling out whiteness as sin because of the way it projects onto black flesh, the way it maps on certain narratives around black flesh, and one of those, two of those narratives are and this is Kelly Brown, douglas, not me, but two of those narratives are black flesh as dangerous and black flesh as guilty. That is, the sin of whiteness is that it is flesh on queer flesh in ways that I would say, in ways that that create systems of social control and make social systems normal. So what white? What white noise does white noise makes a trail from a classroom to a prison cell for Black and brown people normal. What white noise does? It makes Black women's poverty normal and their fault right. What white noise does? It tells us that we must be afraid of certain flesh because that flesh does not deserve freedom. And when a flesh does not deserve freedom, we have a responsibility. It becomes an act of faith and it becomes a realization of Christian faith to make sure we make that which is dangerous disappear, that which is that which is demonic and non-human to disappear, right. So you have a carceral system that is propped up on these narratives of Black danger, these narratives of Black guilt, these narratives of Black irresponsibility, right and the need for Black control that make prison so normal in this country, no one is questioning whether or not our courts actually work or whether or not our police are designed for public safety. No one's asking the question of whether or not prisons actually work because white noise has normalized the idea that certain flesh does not deserve to be in the public square, and so we blink. When our cousins go to prison, because we're told that's where they belong, we don't say anything as a congregation when the mother comes to church, weeping and crying because maybe it's her fault that her son is in prison, because she was not a good enough mother, because they were so dependent on welfare and she was never home. To these narratives that white noise create, that are embedded in our theologies right, embedded in our theologies.
Speaker 2:
I am often I'm often, uh taken aback by the ways that we don't see the implications of a doctrine like original sin, which tells us that all humans are sinful because of the act of two human beings, and we don't see how that maps onto the ways that we're able to mass criminalize all Black people because a few Black criminals exist, right. So we map on to an entire people, but was done by a few. That is the doctrine of original sin. That, then, is the mass condemnation of the humanity based on a story about two humans, two figurative, narrative humans. That is the same way that we get to an idea that, you know, black folk are dangerous.
Speaker 2:
Black folk belong in prison. Right, the concept of hell in prison, right, the concept of hell, the idea that we can hold on to an all-loving God, an all-knowing God, an all-powerful God who has no choice but to send people to hell as punishment. You know, of course we don't have a problem with predatory prisons that don't offer high-quality, that has that pays so much in health care, but everybody in prison is sick, right? Prisons that allow for isolated confinement, of course those things don't bother us, because we love a God that loves us and to send, send us to hell for eternity.
Speaker 2:
Right, those are ways that I think that white noise comes through our doctrines and allows us to put certain narratives onto Black bodies. That allows us to control Black lives, black flesh, in ways that are so detrimental to what needs to be a motivational democracy.
Speaker 1:
Wow, that is extremely rich and we certainly need this theological framing for how we understand punishment and our participation in condemning and blaming particular individuals and scapegoating them to a larger carceral system that churches are in fact complicit because of our teachings and practices, as you have noted, through the doctrine of sin and our understanding of who is worthy and unworthy of salvation and protection and human dignity. And I'm not sure if you know this, but in Mandarin I teach religious studies and one of the faculty members in our department, in fact as the chair, is a Chinese Buddhist nun and she shared with me that in Mandarin the word hell translates in English to Earth's prison. The word hell translates in English to Earth's prison Whoa, Right. So I think you're spot on in your analysis about our theological understandings of hell. In fact, Kelly Williams Bolar is a poor black mother who was criminalized for sending her child to a better school district in Ohio and when she went into prison, as she was going in, she stopped at the prison guard and she said to the prison guard it smells like sin in here. And the prison guard said to her you aren't the first person to say that, Right.
Speaker 1:
So there are these correlations about how we are thinking about God, how we're thinking about sin, how we're thinking about consequences of hell and moral depravity that has been theologized not only through human experience but through our own ideologies and teachings passed down from the reformers. Right Of this kind of schism between the elected and the condemned. Right, the chosen and the unchosen, those who are morally depraved and those who can be saved, Right. And we carry this theology, these religious beliefs. We carry them with us as we are interacting with others and in our moral appraisals of others. And it is based on those religious beliefs that we even inherited the penitentiary right Penitence being a deeply religious word.
Speaker 1:
Right, we look at, the architecture of the early prisons were deeply religious. If you look at the crucifixion in the prisons, that you know, that is deeply religious. If you look at the crucifixion in the prisons, that is deeply religious. If you look at the priest who is holding a Bible in one hand and walking a person down to the death penalty, is deeply religious. Right, the idea that someone has to go to prison to reflect on their sins is deeply religious. The fact that we think about punishment as an indicator, earthly indicator, of divine punishment, of the punishment we'll receive after we die is deeply religious Right. So how does white noise now, having described the problem, how does it prescribe the solution? How does white noise not only critique the church and its harmful teachings, but what does abolitionist spirituality? How does that give us a constructive way forward for churches to apply in their teachings and practices and the larger society?
Speaker 2:
Good. Thank you for that. So you know. Yes, I know we spent a lot of time wrestling with the problem here, but the book is actually organized in a way that solutions are what I talk about as processes. I know the title says practices. You know publishers are they like to. They want to sell things.
Speaker 2:
But, really these practices are too thick to call practices.
Speaker 2:
They're really processes that we undertake that do the work of internal freedom and external freedom fight. The book is designed to help us see how do we fit ourselves inwardly as we are doing this work of saving the soul of America, as we do the work of making this democracy up to what it says. It is on paper, so the book is framed, yes, around white noise and these types of white noise, but really the bulk of the book is is dedicated to what I call rhythms of reparative intercession. This, this idea of reparative intercession, says one that the work that we're supposed to be doing is to repair harm that has been done. This is not the work of reconciliation, this is not the work of kufa'iyah, but this is literally the work of repair. This is the work where we're talking about the redistribution of power, we're talking about sacrificing our power and privilege on behalf of the most othered and the most underprotected, and so it's about repair, but it's also about this, this, this work of standing in the tragic gap.
Speaker 2:
You know, and it draws this idea from from Christian traditions of intercessory prayer. But I pray our intercession needs to be political and prayer that we are supposed to speak up and act up on behalf of those who don't have as much power and don't have as much privilege as we, as we have. And so I frame this book around these six rhythms of reparative intercession. Cues to color what does it mean to take color and race seriously, the pulse to risk? What does it mean to sacrifice power and privilege? Pattern recognition how do I begin to see and honor the interdependence of human life across these narratives of difference? A syncopated identity how do I explore the fullness of my identity I like to think about that is yes, I am a Black man and as a Black person, there's something about my identity that is marginalized and is oppressed. But I'm also a man, right, and there's male privilege that I have. There's class privilege that I have. I'm a citizen of the United States. There's citizenship privilege that I have. There's class privilege that I have, I'm a citizen of the United States. There's citizenship privilege that I carry I am a Christian minister. That's the kind of religious privilege in the West that I also bring to life. So that syncopated identity allows me to see myself.
Speaker 2:
The momentum to encounter means that I want to take history seriously and not as something that is in the past. But actually there is a history to every single moment we live in. Right now, dr Nakia, you and I are living in a moment that was produced by history. Something got us to a moment where a January 6th could happen, right. And then downbeat truth. How do I tell on myself? Those are the rhythms that I think about Cues to color, repulsorists, pattern recognition, syncopated identity, momentum to encounter and downbeat truth. You'll see that they're leaning into that rhythm, motif, rhythm, language, because the work of being a reparative intercessor, the work of doing anti-racist work, the work of abolitionist spirituality is not a science, it is an art, it is rhythmic. It requires us to experiment, it requires us to try again, it requires us to continue to use life, as what I say in the conclusion, as a laboratory of hope every single day. So that's how the book is framed around these processes, these practices, these rhythms of reparative intersection.
Speaker 1:
Wow, I have so many questions. I know we are strapped for time. Wow, I have so many questions, I know we are strapped for time. So, as you know, I am the executive director of Abolitionist Sanctuary and we are indeed honored to have to train the church to apply their beliefs to abolitionist principles that really resonate with the practices or processes that you're outlining.
Speaker 2:
How would you apply these practices as a training mechanism that churches can use to no longer rely on white noise and practice this abolitionist spirituality. Much of what I, of what I'm theorizing in the book, rolls out of my own experiences as an anti-racism trainer, and so I try to draw some of the best lessons from curricula, curricula that I developed as I was working on on on my own doctoral journey, working on my own doctoral work, on my own doctoral journey, working for my own doctoral work. And you know, like in that, in that first chapter, when I talk about moving from white guilt or racial guilt to to white grief or racial grief, there are actual practices that you can undertake. When you say that, when you're confronted with your own bigotry, when you say that when you're confronted with your own bigotry, confronted with your own complicity with racism, is like that is not a time to just be guilty, that's a time to grieve. And in this grieving process, right and I walk through these five stages of grief in the book, which I think is a part of what it means to outlive whiteness right Is to honor the fact that we're doing white grief is to name the fact that something has to die. Right, we have to do the work of dying. We have to do the work of allowing whiteness to die to us so that we no longer die to whiteness right. And so, even like in that first chapter, I think about ways that we can teach this kind of grief, walking people through what it means to offer deference to those who are marginalized and unprotected.
Speaker 2:
What does it mean to track your own racial awareness, what is the old? And one of the things I do in training and I talk about in that chapter is what is the oldest, what is the first racialized memory that you had? And then ask yourself where did you get that idea from and what caused you to do that kind of action? I think in the book I talk about when I was in elementary school and I'm sitting at a table with a group of my friends a group of my friends, many of them are Latinx, and the lunch lady who gives us extra food is also Latinx and I refer to her as Mexican at the table and my Honduran brother says, no, she's El Salvadorian. Right, and I go. Well, what's the difference? Right, child saying something so dismissive of the uniqueness and particularity and diversity within Latinx communities. But somewhere along the line I picked up.
Speaker 2:
You know they all must be Mexican Somewhere along the line, I thought it was appropriate to say well, what's the difference between being from this country and being from that country? And going back to that moment and reliving the pain of what it meant to hurt a friend is a part of what it means to grieve racially in some way, so that's just one example of how this book lends itself to a type of training for churches, a training for multiracial groups to think about the ways that we uphold individually what's happening institutionally.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah. And do you see people using the practices or processes in a linear way? Do you see them referencing them as they are experiencing and needing these steps? How do you envision people using them?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I don't think of it linearly at all, because there's sometimes that I need to tell myself something about the history of this country, the history of Black evangelicals, which we don't talk about enough.
Speaker 2:
But sometimes I need to pause and tell myself about the history of Black evangelical religion and how I may be related to that. There are some other times I may need to remind myself of the intersections that make my identities what they are, and reminding myself like, willie, no, you have a significant amount of class privilege. You know, you went to Morehouse Harbor, right, you have graduate degrees. You actually aren't profiled by police on a regular basis. In fact, willie, when was the last time you actually felt profiled by a police officer? I have to do that work Right, and so there's no linear way there. But these practices, different moments, may demand differently. It may demand a different, a different engagement with, with a different rhythm, with a different practice, with a different rhythm, with a different practice. That's important. So I see folk trying to find ways to develop a command of what these processes, practices, rhythms are and then innovating them. You know it's not cookie cutter, because I don't know what it means to be a black man in Appalachia.
Speaker 1:
I don't know what it means to be a Black woman. Period right.
Speaker 2:
And so there are ways that my own gaps in consciousness may not be able to offer the fullness of what it means to practice students of color right. I don't work in corporate America. I work for Black folk at a Black church and I work for Black folk at a predominantly non-white seminary in New York City. I don't work in corporate America. I don't know what it means to hold my coworker, who is a white woman, accountable for my Black flesh, Like no, don't say you don't see me, you do see me, you see my Blackness and that matters that. You see my, so it is my. It is my hope that people will develop a command, a facility and a facility for what's here, but then innovate them innovate on them, improvise on them in ways that make sense for their context and their experience.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and Willie, Dr Willie. Who is this book for? Who's your audience? Who do you want to really benefit from from this book? Who are you speaking to?
Speaker 2:
When I was writing the book, the profile I had in mind was Moderate Christians black white brown Asian period. Black white brown Asian period. People who live in the middle and know that there's something off, know that there's something wrong and wish they could do something. But they don't have the language, they don't want to out themselves, they're not comfortable naming where they are most impacted or how they are most impacting in other people's lived experiences. That moderate Christian, which is what I think most of American Christians live, in spite of how loud the white evangelicals tend to be like, they can even storm a Capitol and, you know, barely go to jail. And their pope can sit in Mar-a-Lago and take government documents that belong to the people as if they are his right. You know, my hope is that those folk who live in purple space, those folk who even who live in, and even white progressives, can take this book and start to do the self-work that manifests into the institutional and systems-wide work as necessary.
Speaker 1:
Well, thank you so much, Dr Willie. That is a phenomenal engagement with your book. Silencing White Noise Six Practices to Overcome Our Inaction on Race. This is groundbreaking. I love the imagery and the symbolism and the metaphor of white noise and how widely it is adaptable across social landscapes and within our church. So thank you for both your critique but also your constructive work in pointing us toward an abolitionist spirituality as we conclude our podcast for today. Where can we purchase your book?
Speaker 2:
Right. So you can purchase the book on Amazon, and that's available in print, it's available in digital book and it's also available in audio book. So you could do that via Amazon. But you are surely encouraged to go to the publisher, which is Baker Publishing Group, and you can find the book there as well. But it's sold everywhere. Books are sold digitally, I'm told, and there's a few places you can also find this.
Speaker 1:
Wonderful, and I also want to put a plug in for some independent Black bookstores. If you can find it there, please feel free to patronize and pick up one or two or several for your friends and colleagues. And then finally, dr Willie, where can people contact you? How can people find you?
Speaker 2:
Sure. So you can find me on Facebook Willie Dwayne Francois III Type that in it's right to me Also Twitter and IG at Willie Francois.
Speaker 1:
Thank you, it was so great having you. I wish you all the best with your book and look forward to how it will make a transformative impact in our world.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, Dr Nakia, for all you do making our world better.
Speaker 1:
Again, I am your host, reverend Dr Nakia Smith-Robert, and the Executive Director of Abolitionist Sanctuary. Find us on Twitter, facebook and Instagram and join our mailing list at wwwabolitionistsanctuaryorg. As we conclude this episode, remember that abolition is not only a practice, but it is a religion, and here is what we believe. We believe in God of the oppressed. We believe that Black women share divinity with God and salvific qualities that are a source of wholeness and liberation, as demonstrated by Hagar, harriet, sojourner, fanny, carol and countless others who make a way out of no way. We believe in a brown Palestinian Jew, the black Messiah Jesus, who was profiled, policed and persecuted by the state on trumped-up charges. We believe that Jesus died a criminal but did not wake up one. He transcended criminality on the cross and no one ever needs to die again for us to be saved. We believe that Jesus'. Life and ministry teaches us to apply these abolitionist virtues compassion, care, creativity, courage and community to transform social structures where the last become first and the captives are set free. We believe in spirit as advocate who draws people of all gender and sexual identities, conviction, status and other particularities together in a beloved community. We believe in a resurrection, hope that we can realize in the here and now and that calls us into right relationship by restoring the human dignity of individuals who are criminalized, caged and cast out. We affirm discipleship as a call to advance a faith-based abolitionist movement to create spiritual, legal and economic sanctuaries where the vulnerable can find refuge, deep solidarity and flourishing. Beyond policing, prisons and punishment, we are abolitionist sanctuaries, leading a coalition to repair, restore and rebuild a more just and equitable society of communal flourishing. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1:
Stay tuned for the next episode of Abolitionist Sanctuary Podcast. You can find us on Twitter, instagram, facebook or visit us at wwwabolitionistsanctuaryorg you.
