The Lament Project: The Grief of Race, Overhead
JANUARY 23, 2018
First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley
Listen to The Grief of Race, Overhead
Artist Bios
Michael Kim-Eubanks
Works for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as a regional coordinator for Black Campus Ministries. He is also a musician and songwriter who plays with the R&B band The Delivery. He and his wife, Erina, reside in Berkeley, CA and attend The Way Christian Center.
Sarah Park
A freelance writer with LA & OC roots and an editor for Inheritance Magazine - a platform for Asian American Christian stories centered on the tensions of race, culture, and faith. She is also a program manager for Project Peace East Bay and is a member of The Way Christian Center.
Teressa Coenen
Teaches English/Language Arts and Science to middle schoolers at a public charter school in Oakland. She lives in an intentionally communal house in Berkeley with six other adults, a baby, and a German Shepherd. Teressa is a member and sings on the worship team at Ark Ministries of Berkeley.
Description
When there’s news of another Black life slain, our American-conditioned response is to suppress emotion, power through, move on. Injustice at large is too overwhelming to allow yourself to feel; we wanted to counteract this by modeling a different way.
The Event
The event explores what it looks like for racialized people to lament the stories of others, specifically between a Black man, an Asian American woman, and a White woman - framed for the public as a creative conversation, as if the audience were eavesdropping on a vulnerable moment. The performance is oriented toward our faith in God, grounded in the context of our friendship, and explores hard-to-voice questions about racial injustice through original music, spoken word, worship, prayer, and interactive elements.
The performance will be followed by a 30 minute Q&A and debrief facilitated by the artists for whoever would like to participate
The Hope
The experience is meant to disrupt and create conditions for a pause of deep honesty as we acknowledge truths about our trauma as well as our complicity with racial injustice, and how racialized norms affect us even within the church space. We hope that this will be a practice of sitting in tension with the narratives of our lives: inhabiting our identity as the people of God while also being Black, White, and Asian.
Disclaimer
Profanity will be used.
NOTE:
At-the-door tickets will be available for $30, so we highly recommend you buy your tickets ahead of time at a lower cost.
We would like for this space to be available to anyone. If the cost of a ticket is a deterrent, please contact Sarah at sarah@projectpeaceeastbay.org.
