Tag: American racism

American Racism

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on August 24, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 8 Comments on American Racism

If you think racism in America is a Southern problem, you are not paying attention. American racism has never been a Southern problem. Our federal government has always enforced racist norms. When Nat Turner rebelled, the federal government sent in the United States Navy to stop the uprising. Both the American Navy and Army were used to crush perhaps...

Evil Doers in the Family

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on August 22, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments on Evil Doers in the Family

So we prayed Psalm 34:15-22 at church this morning, the second verse of which is: “the face of the Lord is against those who do evil,*to root out the remembrance of them from the earth.”Psalm 34:16 I read that and into my brain popped the thought, That’s the statue removal. Confederate statues, my brain meant. *** As...

If We Don’t Know about Racism, Maybe it’s Our Own Fault

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on January 24, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 4 Comments on If We Don’t Know about Racism, Maybe it’s Our Own Fault

The Public Defender broke the news: the DA was dismissing the charges against my friend. We were seated in his office, a small, square space with a desk and chair and not much else. I was there in my year-long wade through racism and incompetence in support of my friend. A white woman had claimed—three months after the fact—he had stolen her purse....

An Outside Plant

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 27, 2016. Posted in Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments on An Outside Plant

He had one plant, small. I had three hanging baskets and two big ferns, fat. He’d been there when I arrived, he and his wife wandering among the plants. It was mid-day Wednesday, no one else at the nursery. A young, spring day. The swarms of eager Memphians hadn’t yet descended on the unsuspecting begonias and geraniums. No one in...

“Yes, I Mind!”

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on August 1, 2015. Posted in Racism to Reconciliation. 4 Comments on “Yes, I Mind!”

So, here’s a story, one of my favorite from my young adult years. My sister went to visit her husband’s constitutional law class. The class is full of first year law students at a prestigious law school. Big bombastic law professor (this is the way I remember it.) Anyway, the professor leads the class in a call-and-response. He says, “When the...

First, There is Racism

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 19, 2015. Posted in Featured, Racism to Reconciliation. 12 Comments on First, There is Racism

When my husband and I built our house at Pickwick Lake, we built it into the high bluffs that circle the lake. In order for this to work, the architect had to take steel beams and drive them through the shifting mud until he hit bedrock. The house was thus anchored and then built around these beams. I keep thinking of this image as I ponder the...