Is God Actually a Black Woman? Dr. Christena Cleveland on Faith, Shame, and Embracing Liberation

Dr. Christena Cleveland, a beacon of insight in the realms of social psychology, theology, and activism joins us in this episode. Our heartfelt conversation traverses the complex intersections of faith, gender, and justice, unraveling the tapestry of institutional Christianity and the exclusive 'white Jesus' narrative. Dr. Cleveland shares her raw experiences of alienation and sexism within the church and lays bare the systemic issues that have been magnified by movements like #MeToo and #ChurchToo. As we dissect the rise of Trump and the exposure of racism in Christian America, this episode is a testament to the urgency of Dr. Cleveland's mission to dismantle oppressive structures.

Have you ever felt the magnetic pull of liminal spaces, those thresholds where the known gives way to the unknown? In this episode, I recount my spiritual evolution, the courage it took to step away from the evangelical church, and how embracing the enigmatic Black Madonna led to a profound reimagining of the sacred within Black womanhood. As I deconstruct the 'white male God' image that pervades our society, I invite you to join me in reflecting on how this symbol upholds systemic inequalities and shapes our perceptions. The journey toward embracing the vibrant cultural lessons and leadership narratives that Black women offer is both a path of self-affirmation and a celebration of inherent sacredness.

Together with Dr. Cleveland, we delve into the power of confronting shame and the liberating journey towards self-healing and growth. We explore the nuances of identity, privilege, and the resilience embedded in cultural practices, spotlighting the audacious spirit of Black women. Through anecdotes and personal revelations, this conversation illuminates the importance of continually seeking out spaces that affirm our worth and the North Star that guides us toward sacredness and liberation. As you listen, may you find connection, inspiration, and encouragement on your own path of discovery and transformation.

Books and Resources mentioned in this episode are:
www.christenacleveland.com
www.theblacktransprayerbook.org

Transcript

Melissa : 1:16

Aloha everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I am thrilled about today's guest, dr Christina Cleveland. She's a social psychologist, public theologian, author and activist. She's the founder and director of the Center for Justice and Renewal, which supports a more equitable world by nurturing skillful justice, advocacy and the depth to act on it. A weaver at heart, dr Cleveland integrates psychology, theology, storytelling and art to help justice seekers sharpen their understanding of the social realities that maintain injustice, while also stimulating the soul's enormous capacity to resist and transform those realities.

Melissa : 1:55

Barbara, a BA from Dartmouth College, where she double majored in sociology and psychological and brain sciences, as well as an honorary doctorate from the Virginia Theological Seminary. An award-winning researcher and author, christina is a Ford Foundation fellow who has held faculty positions at several institutions of higher education, most recently at Duke University's Divinity School, where she was the first African-American and first female director of the Duke Center for Reconciliation and also led a research team investigating self-compassion as a buffer to racial stress. In 2022, she published her second full-length book, god is a Black Woman, which details her 400-mile walking pilgrimage across central France in search of ancient Black Madonna statues and examines the relationship among race, gender and cultural perceptions of the divine. Her work has been featured in a number of major media outlets, including the History Channel, pbs, essence Magazine, the Washington Post, npr and BBC Radio. Though Dr Cleveland loves scholarly inquiry, she is also an avid student of embodied wisdom. She recently completed the Art and Social Change Intensive Somatic Training for Millennial Leaders and is currently deepening her mind-body-spirit integration in a year-long embodied leadership cohort for Black, indigenous and people of color.

Melissa : 3:17

A bonafide tea snob, lover of Black art and Olafur Arnold superfan, christina makes her home in Minneapolis. Aloha, dr Cleveland. Welcome to the Leaving the Church to Find God podcast. I'm so happy to have you.

Dr Cleveland: 3:36

Thank you, it's an honor to be here.

Melissa : 3:39

So let's dive in. We typically start with your leaving the church story. I know that you still work as a theologian, so I'm just curious to hear where your story begins.

Dr Cleveland: 3:53

Yeah, I feel like in many ways I've left the church, but I don't really think the church is the institution. I think the church is the people, and so I'm still a member of acknowledging the heartbreak that the institutional church has caused me, and I would say no one has ever broken my heart like the church did and has. When Trayvon Martin was murdered by George Zimmerman and at the time I was in a lot of multi-ethnic evangelical spaces People who claimed to care about me claimed that we were family Certainly not the most conservative parts of the church. You know people who claim to be open-minded and like they were genuinely interested in, you know, what they called multi-ethnic church, which is, you know, not exactly the same thing as anti-racist or radical or abolitionists, but you know, I think that that started to help me awaken to the reality that there's a major limitation to that theology and it does not allow people to see the image of God in me as a Black person. Because for the first time, you know, we had social media. At the time, there were lots of opportunities for people to learn and listen. There was an actual national conversation going on about race that these folks were just willfully ignorant. They were choosing to be willfully ignorant at this point.

Dr Cleveland: 5:53

So I think that's when I first started to really interrogate you know, who is this God that we serve? Why is he explicitly and exclusively white? What does that have to say about who is sacred and who's profane? Who gets to decide what matters and what doesn't? And so I actually spent a lot of my career at the time kind of dismantling this white Jesus, and that went on for a few years and part of the reason why I never really looked at Jesus's essentialized gender, which is what I'm interested in now you know that intersection of race and gender. I never had a chance to look at Jesus's gender because, as a Black woman, I always had to choose Am I going to go with the Christian feminists who can't handle my Blackness, or am I going to go with the male multi-ethnic church folks who can't handle my blackness, or am I going to go with the male multi-ethnic church folks who can't handle my femaleness? So either way, I had to kind of choose and so I just chose I'm going to focus on race and not even think about gender. But then, once the hashtag Me Too and hashtag Church Too movements happened, I started asking a lot more of those questions, especially because I could write a whole book about my experiences of abuse in the church.

Dr Cleveland: 7:06

Just as, like a young, cute, like evangelical woman, single woman who was in all these conference stages, I mean I had people showing up in my hotel rooms, married pastors. I had people stalking me, I had people sending me unwanted gifts. I mean it was just so many levels, famous people, you know people, that if I said, hey, this is what happened, like there would be, that would be news, you know, um, and so I think I was starting to just awaken to the fact that you know I was, I was being really treated, I was treated really differently as a woman in those spaces and sexualized in ways. And that has to do with blackness as well. My, my, I'm a black woman, not just a woman.

Dr Cleveland: 7:49

But yeah, once Trump got, once Trump started being taken seriously, I just assumed, you know, he was saying all those xenophobic and racist comments and people were some people were kind of shocked that he was saying all those xenophobic and racist comments and people were some people were kind of shocked that he was saying that and getting away with it and I was like, oh no, I know these folks are racist. Like I know the Christian, I know Christian America is racist, so I'm not surprised that they're still supporting him. But when he started talking about white women and assaulting white women, I was like I mean to me, hell froze over that women. I was like, I mean to me, hell froze over that day.

Dr Cleveland: 8:21

Because I was like in these spaces, nothing is more precious than white femininity. Like nothing weaponized against me so many times. I kind of joke that it's a fruit of the spirit and you know, like it's just so valuable, right, and I'm like there's no way he's gonna get away with it. And when he he did, and they were apologetic, you know, it was like an apologetic supporting and explaining it away. I was like, ok, so now I really I really need to look at Not just Jesus's race but Jesus's gender. And that, to me, was kind of the end, because once I, just once I decided that that was what I needed to follow and embrace. I had to ask the question are there any churches that are not misogynistic or anti and and anti-black and or anti-black? And I couldn't, I couldn't find any.

Melissa : 9:15

Right yeah.

Dr Cleveland: 9:17

I couldn't find any that true, because a lot of black church spaces are really patriarchal, unfortunately, and a lot of white church spaces are super racist and patriarchal. So, um, so yes, that's kind of my like the beginning of the end, that kind of 2012 and then 2016.

Melissa : 9:35

wow, were you raised in the church?

Dr Cleveland: 9:38

absolutely, yeah, yeah. So I'm actually a fourth generation pastor's kid on both sides.

Melissa : 9:44

Wow.

Dr Cleveland: 9:44

And so, yeah, I'm actually officially Pentecostal. Black Pentecostal royalty, like my great-grandfather, was one of the most prominent bishops in the largest Black Pentecostal denomination. My mom's dad, my grandfather on the other side, also is a bishop. I have so many bishops in the family in that denomination, it's actually bananas. So I grew up in kind of straddling Black Pentecostalism, so holiness tradition, and then white evangelicalism, because I was raised in the suburbs in California and so, interestingly, even though the spaces look different and in some ways felt different culturally music, preaching style, of course, race theologically they're very similar because it's that holiness tradition of like you know, being in the world, but not of the world world.

Dr Cleveland: 10:35

I don't even know what that means anymore, but like a lot of, a lot of rules, a lot of purity culture, a lot of um, god wants to use you. At best you're a tool, at best you know um, you're not a human, you're not someone, you're not a child of god. You know like you're. There's nothing warm and fuzzy. It's very much like um. If you want God to not hate you, you better make yourself useful and be pure, according to this very white patriarchal model of purity though. So it was fascinating to me to start to dismantle the white male God and realize the white male God's alive and well in my family's kitchen, you know it's not like and I and I have a line in my book where I say you know, white male God is a shapeshifter and like, at times I've been white male God in blackface. I've been someone who has taken on the energy, the perspective of that white patriarchal religion and it doesn't just exist in white men, unfortunately, you know yeah.

Melissa : 11:41

I was raised in the Pentecostal church.

Dr Cleveland: 11:43

Oh, you were Okay, what denomination?

Melissa : 11:47

What's that?

Dr Cleveland: 11:48

What denomination were you?

Melissa : 11:49

Apostolic United Pentecostal Church.

Dr Cleveland: 11:52

Yeah, yeah, I know that like oneness. Yeah, jesus, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Melissa : 11:57

I forget there's these little things that separate I.

Melissa : 11:59

I left the church I guess around 2002, 2003 so okay I've been kind of hiding out on maui for the last 18 years. Okay, only recently, um, you know, I just kind of in my mind it was like, oh, that's my past and it's a really deep therapy realizing, no, it's very much my present and I'm doing this indoctrination even though I don't have those beliefs anymore. They're kind of in my neural pathways and so here I am in this space, which I find really entertaining how long I tried to stay away from it.

Dr Cleveland: 12:40

But yeah, you know, it's so interesting, um, speaking of neural pathways, um, in 20, I want to say 2015, I did a year of therapy with um Dr Tina Shermer Sellers, who is a, is a psychologist, a clinical psychologist, who spent her whole career studying evangelical purity culture and its effects, and one of the conclusions she's made is that particularly millennial women who grew up in evangelical purity culture, who have not been physically sexually abused, show all the same symptoms of people who have been physically sexually abused the shame that it's my fault, that I'm not worthy. I mean all of that, um, and so I actually was lucky enough to know her. So when I was working through some of my deeper you know, those like deeper purity culture, neural pathways, I asked her if she could, if she would, you know, walk alongside me. So we did.

Dr Cleveland: 13:40

We worked together for about a year and one of the things that she helped me understand was that you know when my little brain was forming, when I was indoctrinated, and so you know, I'm three years old and my mom is teaching me Jeremiah 17, nine the hardest, deceitful, above all, things are desperately wicked.

Dr Cleveland: 13:59

Who can know it? And so like to to think about, like I didn't just learn this verse as an adult, like some people, right. But it's like I learned this when, like, my brain was as plastic it was as plastic as possible, right, in terms of plasticity, and it was forming and it was like creating these like neural highways, like not even pathways, right, like very significant highways, and so it's going to take you know. So she was helping me see like it's going to take time for you to not only disentangle that, but also for that to impact your behaviors, your emotions and your thoughts at day to day. But I was, I was like, yeah, like this is this? I mean, when you think about it, it's child abuse, right? She was like when you were a little three year old, you were learning that you can't trust yourself.

Melissa : 14:50

Absolutely.

Dr Cleveland: 14:50

And that the moral of the, the moral center, exists outside of you. Like that is a very hard, you know. It's just interesting that it's like these little, it's like you're just a little one when you're learning that.

Melissa : 15:04

Yeah, and you don't realize, because that's just the way you think, that's just Exactly. And even when I took the church out of it, that was still the way that I was thinking.

Dr Cleveland: 15:13

Exactly.

Melissa : 15:14

Perfectionistic. If I'm not getting it right, my life is going to be a disaster, that kind of thing. But yeah, you're putting it into words really well. I appreciate that. Yeah, so when you left, the church is?

Dr Cleveland: 15:28

this when you went on your pilgrimage? No, I'd left the church before then. I was like kind of in the desert space for several years, I think I. I think I left the church kind of officially in 2013 or 14, from the outside looking in people might not have known that because I was still at that point. I was such a. I was such a um, uh evangelical mascot is one of the terms that I use or a house nigger on the plantation, on the evangelical plantation that I was booking like 18 to 24 months out. So I'm having this like internal, you know, transformation, but I'm still. I still have these commitments and I'm still showing up at these, like you know, super conservative spaces trying to like meet the need that I had committed to. So I think I left the church around 2013 or ish, um, and then literally, like I mean, I didn't go on my pilgrimage till 2018.

Melissa : 16:25

So I I encountered.

Dr Cleveland: 16:27

I encountered the black Madonna in 20, 2016, um or or early late 2016, early 2017.

Dr Cleveland: 16:34

But I had a long period of time where I was just like at first it was like am I going to hell, you know, like those questions because salvation's on the line. Then it was just, you know, kind of less extreme, like is God going to still bless my week if I don't go to church on Sunday? I mean, I grew up going to church every Sunday and fasting all day for our future spouses, so like I was like going to church, yeah, so going to church and having a regimen and, like you know, connecting that to, like you know, this very algebraic faith If I do this and I do that, then God will do this Very fear based. So I was kind of dealing with that, like you know, just the guilt and shame of being home on a Sunday morning after after I had tried a bunch of churches, because you know just the guilt and shame of being home on a Sunday morning after I had tried a bunch of churches, because of course you know you do that.

Dr Cleveland: 17:23

Then I kind of dabbled in Buddhism and I was like, oh, there's just more white male God here. I mean I'm picking up some practices. But you know, I kind of did the typical like post-evangelical thing where you kind of try some contemplative spiritualities and then I just had to settle into the loneliness. It felt very desolate. You know, I can, I can I do some like coaching now for people who are kind of moving from captivity to liberation, whatever that looks like in their life, whether it's capitalism or, you know, internalized white supremacy, and there's a lot of just like letting people know you're okay, even though it's a desert space, like you're okay.

Melissa : 18:04

Like cause I didn't have anybody to tell me To believe that that, like when you're alone, it's because you're wrong and doing something bad and ostracized Right. So, yeah, it makes sense that that's kind of where your brain would default to. I think I kind of snuck out of that. Like I said, I went to Hawaii and it's just a whole new environment.

Dr Cleveland: 18:21

Yeah, totally.

Melissa : 18:22

Yeah, you know nobody.

Dr Cleveland: 18:26

Yeah, exactly, I mean I think that's the challenging part. Right Is like I mean I love that you were able to like you know it sounds. Yeah, I mean it sounds like it was. It was a beautiful part of your story to be able to just sort of like pick up and leave. Beautiful part of your story to be able to just sort of like pick up and leave, um cause that process of um letting go of friendships. I mean I've had, I had so many friends. I mean you know, like that world it's your, it's your whole world. I worked in that world, I made my money in that world. I had all my friends in that world.

Dr Cleveland: 18:51

Discipleship I didn't even know what discipleship or like faith meant looked like spirituality, looked like outside of that world, whole social world, especially as an unmarried woman. You know it's like well, who's going to do the meal train if I have a hospital visit? You know just even the practicals In the United States. If you are not part of a spiritual community, good luck having a community like a real community, unless you marry, unless you build it in a nuclear family, in the capitalistic sort of nuclear family sense. Um, so it was.

Dr Cleveland: 19:24

It was really hard to let go of some of the, a lot of those friendships. I did a few mass firings of friends, um, and in some friends I just said you're still in that world and I just need space. Maybe we'll circle back and some of us, some of them we have because they've left those spaces and, you know, are now safe to me. But it was really lonely for several years, yeah, and then I found the Black Madonna, but I'm actually glad that I didn't go straight from one belief system to another because I think I and this is what I think is so sacred about that liminal space is that you start to release some of these white patriarchal attachments that you didn't even know you had.

Dr Cleveland: 20:05

Like, why do I have to have certainty, right? Why do I have to have a tradition? Why do I have to have a spiritual leader, a formal spiritual leader? Why do I have to have a spiritual leader, a formal spiritual leader? Why do I have to have a formal spiritual home? I mean, there's I realize there's so many. There were so many ways in which I was being anchored outside of myself and I think if I hadn't had that long period of release, I'm slowly really maybe not even relinquishing, basically them just getting, you know, torn out of my hands Because I was not like, I was super like open and willing, it was more so just oh like. That's not here anymore. I just have to figure out what to do and I think if I hadn't had that comfort with discomfort, that comfort with not knowing, I couldn't have had the spiritual imagination to go on my journey towards the Black Madonna and really make it my own and not just find some black Madonna teacher and like become their disciple, cause I'm like really good at being a disciple.

Melissa : 21:10

Yeah.

Dr Cleveland: 21:15

Yeah, give me some readings to do, give me some practices to do. I will do the things. I will show up at the retreats.

Melissa : 21:23

Yeah, yeah, which is a blessing and a curse. Right, I still. My therapist will catch me and be like that's just something you have to decide. It's not written in the book. There's no right or wrong. You just got to decide that.

Dr Cleveland: 21:35

I'm like yeah, I think in a way like I learned to become my own priest before I even had a spirituality that affirmed that I love that, yeah, I learned how to hold space for myself. I went for long walks, I went, you know. I mean I just learned how to be okay with not having those structures.

Melissa : 22:04

Right With your family. If you don't mind me, if you don't mind answering like how has your relationship evolved with your family? Are you still in close?

Dr Cleveland: 22:12

contact A lot. It's changed a lot. I'd say in some ways it's gotten better because there's more authenticity. So it really depends on the member, the relational partner, right, and so some of the folks in my close family have not been able to. Our relationship has not been able to accommodate my journey, my journey.

Dr Cleveland: 22:36

And so I'm not in contact with them. After lots of years of trying to make things work, it's just one of those things. But I would say for other members of my close family, even though they are on a completely different path than me, we actually have the most beautiful relationship we've ever had, Because there's a realness. There are way better boundaries we've ever had because there's a realness there there are way better boundaries.

Dr Cleveland: 23:01

And, um, you know, I had a family member tell me the other day I uh, well, maybe you know we, this is a family member I talk, I talk with every week, and so maybe it was a couple months ago now that they said this. But they said you know, christina, the further along you've gone on your journey and the more secure you've been in it, the less rigid you've been about my journey. And so now they said now you can actually have, we can have conversations where we disagree on issues that are extremely important to you and you can share your perspective with me. But I don't feel like you hate me.

Dr Cleveland: 23:35

Because, I think at first I was so hurt a, I was detoxing. B and c, I needed affirmation. I I was craving affirmation. I needed somebody to tell me I'm doing the right thing. Those people are toxic, those people are terrible. You know to affirm and my family members couldn't do that. None of them could.

Melissa : 23:58

Right.

Dr Cleveland: 24:05

And some of them were like I, I still want to, I want to be in relationship with you, I want to figure this out, but they still couldn't meet that need. And so, because they couldn't meet that need, I was like it was really self-hatred, I was ashamed that I had stayed in those spaces for so long. But then I'm like how can you possibly?

Dr Cleveland: 24:18

you know I'm trying to help them see, but in this like very white male God way, like very, you know, authoritative, like shaming it really, it was me carrying a lot of shame. So now I'm able to have these like really beautiful conversations around difference and spirituality and, um, now that I know that I'm sacred, I can trust that they're sacred too and that their, that their journey is sacred simply because they're sacred, and I'm not as afraid of what they're going to do with that belief as I used to, Cause I now. Now I now believe God is a black woman and I'm like, if God is a black woman, it's handled. I mean, they can believe that she can handle it If she wants to talk to them and change.

Melissa : 25:11

You know that's something she can do Right, not my job, not my job.

Dr Cleveland: 25:17

I mean, yeah, I can, I can speak my truth and you know I can speak my truth. I can say this is how I feel, this is what I, this is what's important to me. I can invite people in and say this is how it's liberated me to change my perspectives on trans folks, for example. You know what I mean. Like this is how it's liberated me, but that whole like you're the worst and like just that way of shaming and controlling people, um, especially in close relationships, that there's been some release from that, if some of my family members have noticed that, which is really beautiful that is.

Melissa : 25:48

That is when they can see the change, even though it's not in alignment with what they believe. Real change, real change, yeah yeah it's interesting.

Melissa : 25:57

Well, you just mentioned trans folks, and that's something that I I've realized the more the veil lifts and the more I, you know, cleanse myself of my own white male godness is that the things that society lash out the hardest against, or that this system has us hating the most, like black women and trans folks, that's where the power is, like I've noticed, like anything that the establishment tells you is bad or tries to keep you from looking at, there's a lot of good stuff there, like go there seriously, seriously go in the opposite direction of the mediocre white man.

Dr Cleveland: 26:37

you know, um well, when I I read the black trans prayer book it came out in 2020 I read it cover to cover and like the first week it came out, and I've read it multiple times since then and basically when I read that book in 2020, I had already changed my, my, my sort of personal beliefs around trans folks, but I had never really opened myself to being pastored by trans folks, black trans folks, and that's what that book is. It's a, it's a, it's theology, you know, and it's like. And so I just remember reading that book for the first time and thinking why have I been listening to anybody but black trans folks? Like, literally like, and since then I've actually that the folks that were most involved it's a, it's a, it's an edited volume but the folks that are mostly even I've been tithing to them because I'm like, you're my pastor, like you're teaching me, and I would do that if I were in a church. You know what I mean To support the people who are doing this work that is typically underfunded and under. You know what I mean Like, there's a need. These are not rich folks, you know, just like, and so just honoring it in the way that I would honor any other spiritual teaching you know, it in the way that I would honor any other spiritual teaching you know, and and so like, allowing my, my perspective to be changed, allowing my interpretations to change of scripture.

Dr Cleveland: 27:55

That book isn't just Christian. They have there's lots of different perspectives within it, but there are some like really beautiful interpretations of scripture that I had like never thought of before and I'm like, oh yeah, that makes how did I like that is the most healing, powerful way for me to even think about that and that's amazing, you know. Um, so yeah, I'm like I can't believe I spent so many years, a, listening to white men or people influenced by white men, especially when it comes to spirituality and believe. B, believing that I was not like a stunningly beautiful human being, like I just I look in the mirror today and I'm like, how did they trick me?

Melissa : 28:36

Right yeah.

Dr Cleveland: 28:39

How did, how did they trick me into believing that I'm not not just sacred, but like gorgeous we all are. But like you know what I mean, it's like I'm not just valuable, I'm breathtaking you know yes. I agree, you're bright, shining light but I think we all are too. You know what I mean in this sense of like. How did anyone tell us that we're not? That right like, that's what.

Melissa : 29:08

I was starting. This is because at first, you know, I started writing this book. That's what inspired the podcast and it still fits. It's close, but it was about my journey and I didn't, you know, I didn't even know what I was going to write about when I started writing. This is just kind of what started coming out of me was my journey leaving the church, and then me was my journey leaving the church, and um, then I, as I've been in this work, I realized, like leaving the church to find god is really a metaphor like we're plugged into this matrix and when we unplug from it we find the divine. Like it's just not like our society has been built on this, like imperialism, white supremacy white supremacy not just ours, but many societies. So for me, leaving the church is really just like lifting the veil and learning who we really are, and that's something that has really evolved. But for those who are listening and this is like new, you know, a new conversation for them Can you talk more about your work and this white Sure?

Dr Cleveland: 30:09

Yeah, yeah, so, um, when? So I I wrote a book called God is a black woman, um, which is about my journey of awakening to what I call the sacred black feminine, which is, um the iterations of the divine that show up as black women. Although femininity and womanhood are not exactly the same thing, they are often correlated, and so I first encountered the sacred Black feminine through the Black Madonna, this kind of witchy, rogue version of the Virgin Mary, and she's black instead of white and porcelain like the Virgin. She's fierce and strong and transcendent, while also being imminent in the way that she's not fragile like the Virgin Mary, she's not a handmaiden like the Virgin Mary, and so I kind of, you know, I her and um meeting her changed my life, I mean just coming face to face with, and so the black madonna has been around in in the context of christianity for over 2 000 years, um, but she has roots that go deeper than christianity to some of the ancient goddesses, uh, basically, christianity like gentrified her um catholicism and like forced her kind of into that box, but she's beyond that. So I went and visited a bunch of Black Madonnas in a really old region of France where there are a lot that are like 1500 years old, and coming face to face with these like icons and statues that are hundreds and some in some cases old um, and have been like very prominent pilgrimage spots across all of the you know the the two millennia of Christianity, um, that just changed everything. For me, to see that I'm sacred, to see that holiness can, holiness and goodness and strength and spiritual authority can be found in Black womanhood was so powerful for me.

Dr Cleveland: 32:15

But then I sort of had to go back as a social psychologist and look at how I had been shaped to be, like if I'm awakening to these truths about how breathtaking I am and how sacred I am, then I kind of had to unpack well, what have I been believing, even if, you know, I wouldn't have been vulnerable enough to say that out loud and maybe not even honest enough with myself. You know, like if someone had said you know, do you believe that God is a white man and that that impacts you, I would say no, I don't believe God is a white man. Like, I believe that there are images of God as a white man, but I don't really believe it and I don't think it has an impact on me, like I'm beyond that, but as a social psychologist, you know, one of the major gifts of the whole discipline of social psychology is that people tend to underestimate the impact that the situation has on them. So I kind of went back and unpacked my life, both in the Black church and in the white church, but then also just broader American society, and I came up with this term white male God all one word, all lowercase, and I say he's the patron saint of white supremacy and patriarchy. And more often than not white Jesus is showing up as white male God, because white male God identifies with the most powerful. White male God identifies with whiteness and maleness. White male God was used to justify the enslavement and trafficking of my ancestors, black people, and white male God is who got Trump elected bunch of people who worship white male God.

Dr Cleveland: 33:54

And then I started to just look more deeply, like all across society. I mean, even if you didn't grow up in any church spaces, you're gonna know like if someone says "'What does Jesus look like', you're gonna be like you're gonna picture a white man Like this, like you're not gonna picture someone who looks like a modern day Arab, which is what Jesus would look like. He was Afro-Asiatic. And so I started to kind of just look at and dismantle all the ways in our system not all the ways, some of the ways in our society that we see white male gods. So capitalism, of course, you know this idea that in order to be valuable you have to produce and you have to conquer and beat others.

Dr Cleveland: 34:36

And then just the ways that shows up in subtle ways, like literally on every single coin or dollar in the United States. It says in God we trust, next to the picture of a white man. And so there's this, there's this sense in the United States. It says in God we trust, next to the picture of a white man. And so there's this, there's this sense in the United States, whether you're Christian or not, that you're supposed to believe in a God and this God is a white man and we're supposed to trust this God. And I spent years and years and years gaslighting myself Because when I was uncomfortable with this guy I would say, oh well, I, you know, like, like patriarchy teaches us, blame the victim. So it's like, oh, I must not have faith, or I must have a bad attitude. I must have that Jezebel spirit, like I must, you know that Jezebel spirit man.

Melissa : 35:24

It'll get you every time right.

Dr Cleveland: 35:25

Exactly Right.

Dr Cleveland: 35:26

I mean there's like something wrong with me rather than something wrong with the system.

Dr Cleveland: 35:31

And so you know, just noticing how much I, you know, white male God shows up in the practice of gaslighting, especially when victims come forward and people defend the abusers and don't listen to the victims which we saw with the Me Too movement, the Church Too movement, the victims which we saw with the Me Too movement, the Church Too movement.

Dr Cleveland: 35:51

But then also looking at how white male God hates, need, white male God wants us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and be this sort of rugged, individualistic white hero in order to even be worthy. And so just noticing how white male God was at war with my body, how white male God was at war with my human imperfection, which is actually like my birthright gift, white male God was at war with I call him in one chapter, the Machiavellian monster, like he'd rather be feared than loved, and he leads with fear. And there's a lot of fear mongering in, not just in the church, but like our entire justice system is one big fear mongering entity. It's punitive, it's not looking to understand people or actually support people, and so I just kind of like spent a lot of time as a social psychologist, looking at different aspects of American society that prop up this white male God, even if it's not a church.

Melissa : 36:58

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think we're seeing that more and more in this present moment, right now, in our politics and everything. And that was one thing for me that lifted the veil on a lot of my family because in my mind, well, they were well-meaning and they just don't know any better. But then when it came to like supporting trump over morals, you know I'm like, well, this isn't about morality for them, right, it's about power, brainwashing and it, yeah, yeah and holding on to power and who's sacred and who's profane yeah, yeah, and by yeah that, that judgment that I believe is also part of that neural program is that self-judgment and um deflecting is easier than reflecting for some.

Melissa : 37:48

Yeah, that was a really big eye-opener. For me, it's like, okay, well, you've lost all validity. Anything that you want to tell me about the church or God or the Bible or anything, all validity.

Dr Cleveland: 38:01

Like I see it yeah.

Melissa : 38:02

And I know what I learned about Jesus and those things are not in alignment, you know.

Dr Cleveland: 38:07

Right. Well, also, you want a marker of sort of white patriarchy or this, this white male God. Is the petulance, right, like the it's. It's like you can't handle any feedback, you can't handle any dissonance, you can't handle any conflict. Like it's just. It's so interesting because that that that whole system looks at women as if we're weak. You know, and I'm like there's nothing more petulant than white male God, or like a Trump supporter who like, literally falls apart in the face of different information. You know, like it's just, like, yeah, and so I kind of jokingly in my book, talk about how white bell God is petulant. And though the sacred black feminine or the black Madonna isn't petulant, she's petty, which is a whole different not petulant but petty.

Dr Cleveland: 39:02

Because there's one particular black Madonna statue that I visited that I only I didn't, I didn't know of her through my research, I just learned of her on the ground when I was in France. Um, she's that obscure, and I ended up walking, uh, 46 miles across the winter mountain range to go see her, because she's in this teeny, tiny village in the middle of nowhere. It's actually not even a village, it's a Hamlet. There are six, six households in that village, in that Hamlet, yeah. And so I walked out to see her and the thing is is she she's a black woman.

Dr Cleveland: 39:35

I call her Our Lady of the Side Eye. Her official name is Our Lady of the Rock, but I call her Our Lady of the Side Eye because she's a black woman. She's got her baby her like Jesus baby on her hip and then there's a white male priest in her in her statue. So like that's super rare, because usually most mary statues have either just mary or mary and a christ child, right, like they don't have like multiple people in the statue.

Dr Cleveland: 40:00

There might be people around the statue, like in a fresco or something, but like the actual statue there's a white male priest and she's just giving a side eye like so she's holy and she's like to the white male priest. And I was just like that is so amazing that since the 1100s sacred black women have been giving side eye to white patriarchal religion because black women be known for the rest of us. And then also I'm like that is so petty. Like she put a white man in her statue just to show the world that she's not here for him. You know, like that is just like so black, that's so black woman. You know what I mean.

Melissa : 40:41

Like but what an important like thing to leave know that's an important piece of information.

Dr Cleveland: 40:50

It's so important, and I'm working on a new book on the Black Madonna and I'm writing about the holy pettiness of Black women and how like, if you are willing to lean in and listen, you're about to learn something in the midst of that pettiness.

Dr Cleveland: 41:05

And I give an example of my mom. Like you know, we were kids she would always have her rollers on in the house, like you know, rolling up her hair, cause you know she was a pastor, pastor's wife, she was a pastor and a pastor's wife, but she, she, she was a pastor too. I am grateful that I did grow up in a home where, like, women could lead and preach and that kind of stuff, cause I know a lot of women in my world didn't. But, um, but you know, she, she would be like in the house with her rollers on and then she, she would like come pick us up from school or something halfway through the day and she'd come with her rollers and we'd be like mom, like that is so embarrassing, which is really just like um, like respectability politics, right. Like the white, the white world doesn't understand this.

Dr Cleveland: 41:47

We want to fit in and my mom would be like you think so Okay, I'm going to keep them on an hour longer then, just like super petty right, like unnecessary she's, like I was about to take them out, but now I'm going to leave them alone and the message in that is be free, these people don't get to tell you who to be right. There's so much wisdom and holiness in.

Melissa : 42:12

Black women's pettiness.

Dr Cleveland: 42:13

That side eye that like, try me, I'd like to see you try. You know Energy. There's so much to learn and I love to see. I love just seeing that show up in some of the Black. But there's so many Black Madonna stories where I'm like, oh my gosh, the pettiness it's giving petty.

Melissa : 42:33

I love it. I love it so much.

Dr Cleveland: 42:35

I'm laughing so hard because I mean that's, you know, black women you know they love their petty, like, are so proud of their petty, that, petty, that, like I'd like to see you. I'd like to see you. Try, you know that, like I'd like to see you. I'd like to see you. Try. You know that energy and it's so different than a lot of other forms of womanhood, you know. So yeah.

Melissa : 42:55

I love that. I love that so much. Wow, what a what an amazing experience. I'm like my reading list is just growing as we we speak. I'm like I'm going to definitely like pull these books out of the conversations and link them in the description for anybody who's following along and like I drive and can't write that down, but of the situation, it will definitely be there so people can go back and reference these works that you're talking about. I recently started your Shameless Liberation Journey. Oh, cool, yeah, I just wanted to dive more into your work and I I'm loving it. Like I really didn't expect it to get me so in touch with my own ancestry in that way and I just it really is a beautiful journey and I definitely encourage anybody to go onto your site. I'll also put this in the description. Yeah, it's free.

Dr Cleveland: 43:46

yeah, we created that just to support people on their journeys.

Dr Cleveland: 43:49

Yeah, yeah, it's one of the things we're learning. You know, with so much of the racial liberation work I do, I'm realizing to shame. Shame is such a powerful force, and there's so many ways in which we carry shame around our own racial liberation, regardless of our race, and so we wanted to create something to give people a chance to unpack their story, particularly the parts of their story that they might feel a little bit ashamed about. You know, like my ancestors were slave owners, or I inherited some land that I know was stolen from indigenous people, or I know that it was my middle class access that got me into these schools. So there's that.

Dr Cleveland: 44:29

But then also, I mean, I've carried so much shame as a Black woman just around. You know why? Why did I internalize all this white supremacy and let it live with me and pass it on to other people? Why was I? You know, this evangelical house nigger for so long on these plantations? You know this evangelical house nigger for so long on these plantations? There's just so many ways in which we're awakening to things that we don't necessarily have the tools to hold with care.

Melissa : 44:57

Yeah.

Dr Cleveland: 44:58

And our journeys are worth holding with care.

Melissa : 45:01

All of them.

Melissa : 45:02

you know how dare you, you're awful and everybody's the worst. You know, I think so many people are afraid of that, even when I had mentioned to a couple of people who I consider pretty woke because I'm in Hawaii and you know we're multicultural here, like white people are definitely the minority and you know talking to tell her I was going to have this interview with you and that you know you do this work, in that you just kind of briefly mention your work and she's like well, be careful. And I'm like about what you know. And I could just tell from what she was saying that she's like you know, don't let them demonize you.

Melissa : 46:01

And I'm like for one, I don't really identify much with my white ancestors. I'm Cherokee and I was raised knowing that I'm an Indian and knowing the harm that was done to my people by white people. So that's never really felt true to me. That you know, but I'm very empathic. That you know, but I'm very empathic. So that was clear to me from a very young age that this is not, I'm not those people, even though I've reaped the privilege of it in many areas of my life. So that's something I've had to break apart. It's like I don't identify with white, but, yeah, the world sees me as white most of the time.

Melissa : 46:37

So there's also that, but just that automatic for someone who I would consider to be so woke to be like that defensiveness, and that's why I think it's so beautiful about your work, like when I opened the first page and I just see your bright, smiling face and it's just so kind of gentle, it's like there's, there's nothing to fear here. You know and I just want to say this out loud for anybody who's listening there's nothing to nothing to fear there. You know, on the other side of anything that we uncover and bury, untangle, there's only liberation on the other side of it. So, you know, especially looking at our own, our own issues, our own whiteness and our own participation in these systems, like there's all you can do is move forward right, just learn better and do better.

Dr Cleveland: 47:22

And it's okay. Yeah totally yeah, yeah, and learn to hold yourself with care. Yeah, I love that yeah you know, I think we just don't. We aren't taught how to, we aren't taught to do that, we're just taught to feel shame, and shame is just so disempowering.

Melissa : 47:42

It just demotivates.

Dr Cleveland: 47:42

you know it's not, it's not productive, at least, at least the American iteration of shame.

Dr Cleveland: 47:44

I know it shows up differently in other cultures, including in some cultures in Hawaii, you know cause it's shame. Shame works differently in a lot of collectivistic cultures. So I want to be clear about that. I'm talking about kind of like white American shame, but but yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just not productive and I've just seen so many people who would otherwise be pretty engaged in justice and liberation work, except for the shame that they carry, you know.

Dr Cleveland: 48:12

And then shame leads us to shame other people and it's like, well, do I want to be passing that on? Do I want to be shaming people onto this path, you know, like, versus inviting them and being vulnerable and sharing my story about where I, where I've been, what I believed, what I've participated in and how I've been set free and how I could never turn back. Now, um, which to me feels very divine, feminine, like that, feels like the antidote to the patriarchal, religious way, because the divine feminine is collaborative. It's an invitation. I say, you know, I call her she who loves, by letting go of control of fear, of shame, of fear, tactics of shame, of fear, of shame, of, you know, fear, tactics of shame, and I just I feel like that is such a powerful way to love people is by letting go of them needing to show up any particular way, um, and so, yeah, it's been really powerful for me to offer that to myself and then, um, participate in helping people offer that to themselves and to others too.

Melissa : 49:23

Yeah, Awesome. What can you talk more about your foundation?

Dr Cleveland: 49:28

Oh yeah, so the Center for Justice and Renewal is just a small, small nonprofit that trains justice advocates of all shapes and sizes and sort of places on their journey. So we like to say that everybody's a leader. You know, if you're a neighbor, if you're a parent, if you're a sibling, if you are a teacher, you know it doesn't have to be someone who's like I work in DEI and I have a title, it's like just anybody who wants to be a justice advocate in the world. We're just really interested in supporting folks and so we have several, like you know, free initiatives like the Shameless Liberation one on covering your race story. We're also. We also, you know, just people can get involved at the level that they want. You know we send out resource emails and I write at least once a month a reflection just to support justice leadership.

Dr Cleveland: 50:23

Um, but then we also our kind of flagship program is our cohort, which we're two, we're three quarters of the way done with, which is really sad for me. Um, but we just did our first January cohort and so right now we have a bunch of justice leaders who are working, who are kind of moving through a resilient racial leadership, racial justice leadership cohort and certificate program where they're really learning how to be emotionally healthy justice leaders for the long haul. So we're giving you know, I'm a social psychologist, so we're giving lots of practical tools around analyzing, you know, an organization or community and identifying, like you know, where the white supremacist streams and how can we, how can we transform those. But also there's a lot around working with our own fear and our own shame and our own racial identity so that we can show up not just with sharp tools, but also soft and strong hearts up not just with sharp tools, but also soft and strong hearts. And so it's really fun.

Dr Cleveland: 51:26

Yeah, we're having a blast. I'm going to miss this group, but we're starting a new cohort in October, so people can, you know, feel free to sign up for that. And also we have several. We have a good number of scholarships for Black trans folks, and so if someone identifies as Black and trans, we can potentially get them a full scholarship for this, which is really joyful for us to be able to do as well.

Melissa : 51:46

So that's amazing. Yeah, I love it, I love all the things that you're doing is like talk about turning lemons into you really you really taken something that could have been potentially very destructive and turned it into something really productive and beautiful, and in in such a sweet way. I really appreciate that, and so, for anyone who is listening right now, what advice would you give about kind, about seeing where you're at and moving forward in a way that feels more authentic?

Dr Cleveland: 52:32

I'll say this I have a few people that I work with on our team, our Center for Justice and Renewal team, and they're all younger than me, which I love, because I'm starting to get old and it's nice to have like Gen Zers. Just be like, what are you talking about? That's not going to work in this world. You know what I mean. Like my ideas. They're like used to work 15 years ago. Nobody does that, you know. So it's really great. But one of the people on our team who's been working with me for a few years said if there's anything I take away from working with you is that I'm too sacred for just about everything in my life, because I often say, oh, we're too sacred for that.

Melissa : 53:16

You know what I mean.

Dr Cleveland: 53:17

Like whatever we get, like or I'm too sacred for that, like if I get an invitation that just isn't a good fit, or like it's clear that, like I'm just content for them, or I'm just their Black History Month speaker, or just whatever you know, it would just be like, ah, I'm too sacred for that, or we're too sacred for that. And so I think, like that's what I would say is ask yourself, like is this space, is this relationship, is this vocational opportunity? Is this book, is this theology? If this is the spirituality, is this belief something that's affirming my innate, birthright sacredness that has nothing to do with what I do, what I say, what I produce, just my innate sacredness. Can this community affirm that, not just like, tolerate it, but speak into it, nourish it, affirm it and then, if not, ask the question what's holding? Holding me here? Because that's a plantation.

Dr Cleveland: 54:23

You know all of my, all of my ancestors, most of the vast majority of my roots, go back to enslaved black people, um, and so, like you know, all of my ancestors were, most of them were, raised on plantations, taught that the plantation life is the best they can do, that's all they're worthy of, it's all they know, it's all they can survive, Even leaving the plantation, didn't even feel like an option for them, right? How am I going to do? I know the language? Do I know the terrain? Or do I know who to trust? Are these skills transferable? Like, how will I live? Can I make it to the North or, in some cases, down to Florida? Right? I mean, like all these questions, and I feel like that's the same thing that keeps me in places that can't affirm my sacredness how will I survive? Will I lose friendships? You know, will I. Will I lose my salvation? Right? I mean these big questions that are salvation, right? I mean these big questions that don't have answers until we leave, like we'll never know. And so I think the question for me is like am I sacred in this space and, if not, why am I still here? What do I need to trust in order to take a step towards my sacredness and my liberation?

Dr Cleveland: 55:43

And Harriet Tubman, who I consider an ancestor, even though I don't think she was biologically my ancestor she believed that. She said she had a North Star reminder that I'm held and that my sacredness is worth fighting for and that I'm guided and that there might be unknowns out there, but the North Star is always visible in the North American sky. It's always there, no matter what season. So the question is for me, it was like my North Star became the Black Madonna. I had to literally go out of my tradition in order to find a north star that could help me to trust my sacredness and take steps into the unknown, towards my sacredness. But, like we all have that journey, you know what? If? If I don't currently have that North star, then what is it? And I I believe in a universe that if you genuinely ask for something, it will come to you. If you're genuinely looking for a North star, it will come. I don't know how it will come, when it will come, what it will look like.

Melissa : 57:06

But it will come.

Dr Cleveland: 57:06

It will come. What it will look like? Um, but it will come, yeah, yeah, I love. It will guide and it will hold and it will get you to where you need to be so that you can finally be amongst people who can hold your sacredness and they are there, right.

Melissa : 57:18

They're there, they exist, they're looking for you too.

Dr Cleveland: 57:22

They're looking for. They need you as much as you need them. Yeah, yeah, we need communities where we can be held and hold, you know.

Melissa : 57:33

Yeah, yeah.

Dr Cleveland: 57:34

Yeah, yeah. It's like just as important for me to have people to hold and to welcome to the Underground Railroad or welcome to whatever, whatever their Underground Railroad is. People always ask me do you think everyone used to believe that God is a Black woman? And I'm like no, that would be white patriarchal to require everyone to believe what I believe.

Dr Cleveland: 57:56

I think it's in everybody's best interest to believe that God is a Black woman. I think most people who believe that are best interest to believe that God is a black woman. I think most people who believe that are softer, kinder, more courageous people and that's good for them. But I just think everyone needs to find some very they need to find that, they need to find themselves in the divine, whatever that looks like for them?

Dr Cleveland: 58:24

divine, whatever that looks like for them, yeah, and to truly know that they're sacred, and not just because they earned it or because they're showing up in a certain way. Yeah, right, that changes everything so good, so good. I appreciate you so much, I appreciate your time thank you wonderful wonderful such a thank you it's so fun to connect with you and to learn about more about your journey, so thank you thank you, yeah, yeah, I feel like I've already just like my mind is already just expanded, my heart is just expanded.

Melissa : 58:55

So much in this conversation and, yeah, I will continue to follow and support your work thank you.

Dr Cleveland: 59:20

is it katherine, catherine or?

Melissa : 59:21

Melissa. My first name is Catherine, my middle name, I go by my middle name, melissa, but when doing this work, actually I I communicate with those who have crossed over. It's just always been a natural.

Melissa : 59:34

Oh, cool okay yeah, and in doing this work, my, my grandmother actually came to me recently because they were the pastors of my church. My grandparents were, and my grandmother told me. She said, use my name, it'll give you my power. And so I started because I named after her. So I've started using the full name whenever I do this work because she told me to.

Dr Cleveland: 59:55

I love that. Oh, that's beautiful. Oh yeah, awesome.

Melissa : 1:00:01

Well, it's nice to meet you.

Dr Cleveland: 1:00:03

Melissa Catherine. Enjoy the rest of your day, aloha.

Melissa : 1:00:11

All right, god poders, I just wanted to add a little postscript to this conversation. Around 44 minutes in, I speak about my Native American heritage and how I haven't considered myself to be white. What I realized in this conversation is that that is just internalized shame. I've been looking away from that part of my ancestry, although it is just as real as my Native American heritage. I've been looking away from it because I see it as being so ugly and so awful. Now, without this conversation, I probably wouldn't have ever looked there or seen that.

Melissa : 1:00:45

Even though I'm on this journey of looking into my own heritage, I approach the shameless liberation journey only looking at my Native American ancestors. This is the power of shame Shame hides. It's a shadow, it hides within us and without seeing this shadow, I would not have been able to shine a light on it. And, as you'll hear me say, often once you shine a light on the shadows, they aren't shadows anymore, right, they've stepped into the light, and then we can look at them clear example, for one, of why these conversations are so important, but also why it's important to never stop learning, because even when we feel like we've gotten something all figured out or that we're really on the right track. I promise you. There's always something lurking in the shadows that we need to look at. So I just wanted to share this experience with you.

Melissa : 1:01:39

In the moment it didn't feel appropriate to stop the conversation, I was really enjoying all the wisdom being shared and wanted to be able to really put some introspection into it once the conversation was complete, but also felt like it was very important to add this to the conversation, as just in that moment I was able to see how much internalized shame I have over my white ancestry. So now I don't have to be ashamed. I can actually start working on that and start healing that part of myself which needs just as much healing as the part of my ancestry that was harmed. Thank you again for tuning in. I really appreciate you being here. These conversations are life-giving for me. I hope they are for you too. Thanks again. I hope you all have a wonderful day and I love you.