On March 10, a demolition crew tore up the pavement of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington DC, and Reverend Starlette Thomas was there to bear witness. With this moment of government-ordered erasure as our starting point, we talk with Thomas about the protest and community that happened on that very ground after the killing of George Floyd in 2020—and why recent history has made many African-American protestors avoid the recent “Hands Off” rallies across the country. In this fiery and revelatory conversation, Thomas explains how our “color-coded” society is a facade for a destructive caste system, how those who are “racialized” with the identity of “white body supremacy” need to squelch the voices of others to stay in power, and makes the case for finding our holy “somebodyness” in something other than race.

Starlette Thomas is an author, activist, visual artist, and race abolitionist. She is also editor and director of the Raceless Gospel Initiative. She regularly preaches and teaches throughout the country and her sermons have been featured by Sojourners and other publications. Starlette is also a contributing author for the book Faith Forward: A Dialogue on Children, Youth & a New Kind of Christianity and author of the the book, “Take Me to the Water”: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church (Nurturing Faith). She is also the host of the Raceless Gospel podcast, now in its fifth season.

Find more of her work at racelessgospel.com or on social media at @racelessgospel.

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