Religion Dispatches: Discussing LGBTQ and Black communities
In Religion Dispatches, reporter Nyasha Junior details a conversation with Pamela Lightsey, associate dean for community life and lifelong learning and clinical assistant professor of contextual theology and practice at the School of Theology. Titled, “To be Queer, Gifted, and Black: A Conversation with Theologian Pamela Lightsey,” the article includes insights from Dean Lightsey on complex issues of marginalized populations through the lens of her new book, Our Lives Matter: A Womanist Queer Theology. She says that by using the word queer,
“…one is intentionally pushing back against the binary conversations that often happen when we’re talking about ourselves. Persons who self-identify as queer want to indicate that they understand their identity and their sexuality to be far more complex than an ‘either/or’ situation.”
Dean Lightsey highlights the importance of inclusion in relation to the presence of “black, lesbian, transwomen” in the “Black Lives Matter” movement. She identifies her perspective as “a Black queer lesbian womanist scholar and Christian minister,” and the experience she brings to her book to establish her identity, which she describes as “not fully embraced by all people.” The aim of Dean Lightsey’s book, she says, is to express her love for the LGBTQ community as well as the black community.
Read more at Religion Dispatches.