Our Journey Through Lament and Collective Trauma

Prophetic Lament and Cultural Trauma, post #3

Over the last few months we have journeyed together through the terrain of racial oppression in America, learning from Soong-Chan Rah, Michelle Alexander, and Grace M. Cho.¹ Although we all desired to develop a theology of lament robust enough to engage the collective trauma of racial oppression sustained by American exceptionalism, we each approached the dialogue from different perspectives. As a result of our varied contexts, our stimulating discussions have impacted us in unique ways. In this final glimpse into our conversations, we hope to capture and summarize a few of the insights we have gained along the way.

Hannah:

At the start of our dialogue about Prophetic Lament and The New Jim Crow, I hoped to increase my understanding of systems of oppression and consider how the Church can better respond to the racial trauma embedded into our society.² Both Rah and Alexander exposed the underworkings of race in America and Rah specifically discussed the Church’s role in perpetuating harmful narratives and practices. I was struck by the pervasiveness and complexity of racial oppression and at times felt helpless to address it, both personally and in the context of the Church. And in reality, there is no easy solution or simple way to resolve issues of racism in America. However, I believe that Rah’s call to lament is an essential start. He explains, “lamentations, therefore, serves to correct a triumphalistic worldview that seeks to fix the problems of the world through human effort.”³ In the end, I believe the church, and our nation, must examine and lament the ways American exceptionalism has harmed those on the margins. In addition, we must work to rebuild a worldview and understanding of the Gospel that creates room for suffering and acknowledges the harm done individually and collectively, especially to people of color.

Janathan:

We Americans value others based on their success and assume they won by effort and ability, rather than privileged advantages. We all fail and need grace — help, not condemnation. If control and domination (“law and order”) are the core glue of social structure rather than support for the flourishing of each member, then grace is gutted and the law will uphold the powerful. Legalism leads to injustice.

Previous efforts at racial legal reform showcased the unjust suffering of exemplary blacks like Rosa Parks. Alexander turns our attention instead to the unfair treatment of those who have failed.⁴ With detailed analysis she demonstrates how the legal system punishes blacks much more heavily than whites and creates widespread harm in the black community.

Seeing this injustice, Rah uses the book of Lamentations to hold up lament as the lens through which the church should see and respond to suffering, especially that caused by injustice.⁵ Lament calls us to take account of social injustices, recognize our complicity, and lift up the voices of the oppressed, leading to active confrontation of destructiveness in social structures. We discover our own salvation in awakening to the grief of others. Grace is found through the doors of lament.

Kevin:

Stories of trauma and lament in relationship to the people of Korea were introduced to me as a child through my father. The impact of his military service during the ‘forgotten war’ was shared with his family through the haunting ghosts of the trauma and PTSD he simultaneously named and denied. His story found its way into my own, similar to what Margaret Cho names in her book, Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War.⁶ I entered into this project looking for backward passages into my own family of origin and to seek out the connective tissue to my own story of trauma and shame.

Arriving at the end of this class, I find myself no closer to any concrete answers. Instead, I have found myself firmly placed upon a path with many other travelers, each holding individual and collective shame through trauma. My story is my own, just as the story of my father and each person impacted through the Korean War are stories of individuals. And yet, our stories are voices in a collective. Each of us speak words which identify shame and trauma that invite us into lament. The greater story of humanity is also one of shame and trauma. As individuals, we participate in a collective story which begs for redemption. The Gospel provides a safe place to hold individual and collective lament in the face of shame and trauma.

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1. Soong-Chan Rah, Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2015); Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York, NY: The New, 2012); Grace M. Cho, Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2008).
2. Rah, Prophetic Lament; Alexander, The New Jim Crow.
3. Ibid., 193.
4. Alexander, The New Jim Crow.
5. Rah, Prophetic Lament.
6. Cho, Haunting the Korean Diaspora.

…

Bibliography:

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York, NY: The New, 2012.

Cho, Grace M. Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Rah, Soong-Chan. Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2015.