Year: 2015

Last weekend, I and a group of eleven other Houghton students attended the tenth annual Faith and International Development Conference at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I’ve been thinking for the past month or so about what it means to be graduating with a degree in International Development. International Development is a relatively new area of study which means that there isn’t one established way to think about it or really any major areas of agreement at all. For every issue there are at least three sides, and the literature is filled with vehement arguments. Learning about development entails learning a lot of different ways of looking at the world and evaluating the arguments for each of them.

The framework used by a lot of Christian development practitioners is known as transformational development; it is the framework typically used by the speakers at FIDC Calvin. Transformational development, as defined by Bryant Myers in Walking with the Poor, looks at poverty as an economic, relational, and spiritual phenomenon, not only present in the lives of those who suffer from resource poverty but in the lives of those who are rich. And I think the transformational development framework should be used by any Christians who are interested in engaging in any way with the world, which should be all Christians.

Fundamentally, transformational development is concerned with seeing the world as it really is, not the way we want it to be. The opposite of transformational development is willful blindness to reality for your own benefit. President Mullen, in her chapel message at the beginning of the week, talked about how many of the problems in our world have been caused by the self-deception of those in power. At one point near the beginning of the talk, she said: “…Sooner or later, this pattern of not calling things what they really are stops being a matter of the mind… and starts being a matter of the heart.” Practitioners of transformational development are not simply witnesses to the process but are themselves transformed.

At the conference this past weekend, the theme was “Healthy Humility: Learning to Learn,” particularly from the people whose perspective we typically ignore. One of the best sessions was a devotional by Dr. Ravi Jayakaran, a member of the Lausanne Movement and pioneer of participatory development. His message was taken from the story of Simon the Pharisee and the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet. Jayakaran stressed the importance of being in a posture of orienting ourselves to the marginalized. The passage he referenced in Luke 7 reads that “Jesus looked at the woman and spoke to Simon”.

This is what we are all called to do as Christians. We are called to be a prophetic voice in society, aligning ourselves with the needs of the marginalized rather than the desires of the powerful. Liberation theology, born out of the experience of the Catholic Church in Latin America, has sometimes been controversial but it emphasizes something that Western Christianity is in danger of missing. One of the key elements in liberation theology is God’s preferential option for the poor—our God is a God who looks at the poor when speaking to the powerful.

I don’t mean to suggest in any way that the international development industry has always or even often aligned itself with the cause of the oppressed. That is unfortunately and sadly untrue—counterexamples are too numerous to number. USAID has a long history of granting aid for reasons of foreign policy that has been used by the elite members of developing societies for their own benefit.

I do think though that at its best a Christian theology of international development has the right view of the world. Listening to the speakers at the conference—Kurt Ver Beek from the Association for a More Just Society in Honduras; Pauline Muchina from the Future African Leaders Project; Scott Sabin from Plant With Purpose; Michael Woolcock from the World Bank—I was inspired by their clear passion for righting injustice whether through environmental interventions, the empowerment of women, or the promotion of a legal system that works for rather than against everyone.

As a graduating senior looking toward the rest of my life, I want to be one of the people that looks to the powerless rather than to the powerful. I want to give preference to the marginalized rather than deference to the celebrated. I want to see the world the way it really is.

“And when the saints go marching in / I want to be one of them”.

The Subtle Side of Racism

We live in a world today that doesn’t pay attention to anything mediocre. Miley Cyrus has to either come in like a wrecking ball wearing, well, nothing, or Beyoncé has to drop a self-titled album out of literally nowhere. And thanks to technology that rivals that of the Jetsons’, we have become subconsciously conditioned to ignore things that don’t immediately grab our attention.

Love it or hate it, it is the shock factor of Miley Cyrus that keeps her famous. By taking time out of our day, we, the consumers, allow for extremes that keep Miley Cyrus twerking, while celebrities like Hilary Duff (who also started as a child star) look on in the post-Lizzie McGuire life, largely unnoticed. And unfortunately for us, this culture manifests itself in other aspects of life outside of Hollywood and the gossip-starved media; it manifests itself in conversations that really matter to human co-existence, like racism.

I like to think that at Houghton, racism is a common enemy; something we can all rally against, kind of like seeing “ice pellets” on the weather forecast and still not getting classes cancelled (unless you aren’t bothered by that, in which case… who even are you?). And for the most part, I think most of the Houghton population could adamantly deny being racist—at least, not intentionally.

This is where the problem lies.

The media does not talk about a celebrity’s everyday life if it does not draw out extremes and intense emotions. Likewise, our community does not talk about the more subtle side of racism, the more nuanced side of it, if you will, because of the lack of internet and emotional outcry against it. But there is actually a word for this kind of racism: it is called micro-aggression.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term micro-aggression, it is defined as any form of unintended discrimination against minority groups—in this case, ethnic minority groups such as Asians. Whether that’s asking if I “speak Asian” or “am really, really good at math,” these sometimes humorous and even well-intended questions can act as a form of micro-aggression. Maybe this was some of you yesterday, and maybe some of you have never even thought about it. And that’s understandable, though perhaps not excusable, because we as a community have failed to talk about the everyday subtleties that micro-aggression manifests itself in. While we are quick to address more evident issues of racism, for which I commend Houghton, I think it would serve us well to think about the everyday realities of attending a majority-white school as an Asian. What does it feel like to be the only non-white student in your class? What about people assuming you know a certain Chinese student because, well, she’s Asian? Or what about even hearing compliments from people who tell you your “English is very, very good”?

This is not to say that everyone at Houghton has been either a perpetrator or a victim of micro-aggression. And this is most certainly not to say that race should be a taboo subject because of the potential awkward moments it could create. Rather, what I am trying to convey is that in order for us to fully understand the presence of micro-aggression that exists even on this campus, there must first and foremost be a sense of awareness and humility. There needs to be a realization that good intentions are simply not enough—it’s time to ask ourselves what kinds of effects our words may have on others, a continual process of self-reflection. And from there, engage in open dialogue with those who may be otherwise prey to acts of nuanced racism, to micro-aggression.

Just to be clear, I am not the only Asian voice on campus, nor am I even a representation of the majority Asian perspective and experience at Houghton. But if this article has done nothing else, let it at least be a tool from which you can start helpful and tactful dialogues with other Asian students.