• Who We Are
    • Who We Are
    • Mission
    • History
    • General Synod
    • Leadership and Ministry
    • Staff
    • United Church of Christ Board
  • What We Believe
    • What We Believe
    • Worship Ways
    • Daily Devotional
  • What We Do
    • What We Do
    • Office of the General Minister & President
    • Justice & Local Church Ministries
    • Wider Church Ministries
  • News
  • Church Finder
  • Donate Now
  • Search
UCC Logo United Church of Christ
  • Church Finder
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Store
  • Frontline Faith Portal
  • Donate Now
  • Search
  • Who We Are
    • Column
      • About
        • Mission
        • Constitution and Bylaws
        • History
          • UCC Archives
        • UCC Brand Guidelines
        • General Synod
          • Synod 33 Worship Videos
          • Past General Synods
        • Abuse Prevention
    • Column
      • Structure
        • Conferences
        • Affiliated Ministries
    • Column
      • Team
        • Elected Officers
        • Staff
        • United Church of Christ Board
          • Board Minutes
        • Office of General Counsel
        • UCCOSSN
    • Column
      • Career Opportunities
      • Annual Reports
  • What We Believe
    • Column
      • Worship
        • Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ – La Declaración de Fe de la Iglesia Unida de Cristo
        • Worship Ways
        • Daily Devotional
        • Sermon Seeds
  • How We Serve
    • Column
      • Office of the General Minister & President
        • Welcome to Human Resources
          • Employee Relations Resources
        • Center for Analytics, Research & Development and Data (CARDD)
          • General CARDD FAQs
          • About The Center for Analytics, Research & Development, and Data (CARDD)
          • Authorized Minister Opt Out
          • Access UCC
          • Archived Reports
          • Assessment Resources
          • Information Policies and Requests
          • Faith Communities Today (FACT) Survey
          • MissionInsite
          • Statistics and Reports
          • Vital Signs and Statistics Blog
          • Data Hub FAQs
          • Data Hub
          • Yearbook and Directory
    • Column
      • Justice & Local Church Ministries
        • Justice
          • Faithful Action Ministries
            • Environmental Justice Ministries
            • Economic Justice
            • Racial Justice
          • Office of Public Policy & Advocacy in Washington D.C.
            • Justice and Peace Action Network
            • Our Faith Our Vote 2020
            • Justice Training Resources
            • Action Center
          • Health and Wholeness Advocacy
            • Disabilities and Mental Health Justice
            • Encuentros Latinx
            • UCC HIV & AIDS Network-UCAN
            • LGBTQ Ministries
            • Our Whole Lives
            • Overdose and Drug Use Ministries
            • Scouting
            • Wellness Ministries
          • The Pilgrim Press & Stillspeaking Publications
    • Column
      • Justice & Local Church Ministries
        • Local Church
          • The Faith Education, Innovation and Formation (Faith INFO)Team
            • Weekly Seeds
            • Youth & Young Adults
          • Worship Resources
            • Worship Ways
            • Sermon Seeds
            • Synod 33 Worship Videos
            • Music and Liturgical Arts
          • Stewardship & Generosity Resources
          • Ministerial Excellence, Support & Authorization (MESA)
            • History, Polity, and Theology
            • Search & Call
            • Ministerial Profiles
            • Ministry Opportunities
            • Manual on Ministry
    • Column
      • Wider Church Ministries
        • Global Ministries
        • Global H.O.P.E.
          • Volunteer Ministries
          • Refugee and Migration Ministries
          • Disaster Ministries
          • Recovering Hope
        • Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations
  • Resources
  • News
    • Column
      • News
        • United Church of Christ News
    • Column
      • Columns
        • Witness for Justice
        • Into the Mystic
        • Getting to the Root of It
        • The Pollinator: UCC Environmental Justice Blog
        • UCC Roots
        • Encounters at the Well
        • Reflexiones
    • Column
      • Upcoming Events
        • Webinars
      • Changes & Deaths
  • Giving
    • Column
      • Donate Now
      • Ways to Give
        • Giving Tuesday
        • General Synod 2021 Thursday in Black Offering
        • General Synod 2021 Racial Justice Offering
        • Disaster Ministries: How to Give
        • Our Church’s Wider Mission
          • Our Church’s Wider Mission Basic Support
          • Strengthen the Church
          • One Great Hour of Sharing
          • Neighbors in Need
          • Christmas Fund
          • 5 for 5
    • Column
      • Ways We Give
        • Scholarships & Grants

  • Home
  • News
  • Column
  • Witness for Justice
  • Bullets that Intersect
Witness for Justice

Bullets that Intersect

by Tracy Howe | published on Apr 1, 2021

Minister of Congregational and Community Engagement

After the Atlanta mass shooting on March 16 left 8 people dead, 6 of whom were Asian women, I was feeling very Filipino. That feeling is rare for me as someone of mixed ancestry with white skin, separated from any kind of life-giving cultural legacy or known family history to speak of—English, French, Filipino or otherwise—and socialized white. My grandmother at the age of 19 married my grandfather, a U.S. serviceman stationed at Clark Airforce Base in the Philippines during WWII.

My father was born in the Philippines but eventually they all moved to the rural New Mexico-Colorado border in the U.S. My grandmother, with her thick Tagalog accent and her kind smile, took a job at the Holiday Inn off the interstate and worked that job for 30 years, never returning to the Philippines. My father made his way to the University of Colorado at Boulder where he majored in physics and then stayed in Boulder the rest of his life working for the National Institute for Standards and Technology. So I was born and grew up in Boulder, where another shooting occurred on March 22 in the neighborhood I lived in for years.

I am angry at this mass of death and suffering. These bullets intersect so many lives and so many issues of injustice, but what rises up in me—the truth I want to scream—is that white supremacist violence will kill us all. Whether you are Asian or Black or white, racism is a machination of death, and in this nation it is completely enmeshed with capitalism, such that we are effectively living in a white supremacist plutocracy. It is killing us, every single one.

Native theologian and activist Mark Charles has always been clear that the founding documents of this nation are geared toward establishing and protecting the interests of land-owning white men. From that origin, aged and matured to this point in time, gun control policy (despite overwhelming bipartisan support) cannot be passed because it is not in the interest of the land-owning men of our day: the white corporation owners, etc. Gov. Kemp doesn’t want Black people to vote, not just because there is disdain for Black people in power, but because there is a strategic and collective interest to preserve the concentration of wealthy white power, the white plutocracy. Racialized capitalism is a form of sanctioned vulnerability that the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) women working in the Atlanta spas bore.

When we understand how the State can sanction racialized vulnerability to the point of death, and apply that understanding to the white plutocratic corruption of gun lobbyists ending the assault weapons ban the people of Boulder, CO, voted into place in 2018, then we cannot separate the sanctioning of vulnerability from the sanctioning of violence from the framework of white supremacy.

The liberating hope here is that we all, every single one of us, have an opportunity to recognize our own stakes. We must dismantle racialized capitalism. We must end racism and white supremacy in all its forms and machinations, no matter where we live, no matter our embodiment.

None of us is free until all of us are free. None of us are safe until all of us are safe. None of us will thrive until all of us can thrive.

Rev. Tracy Howe is the Minister of Congregational and Community Engagement for the United Church of Christ.

View this and other columns on the UCC’s Witness for Justice page.
Donate to support Witness for Justice.
Click here to download the bulletin insert.

Categories: Column Witness for Justice

Sign Up For Our Newsletter








Privacy Policy






Related News

Witness for Justice
Witness for Justice

Channeling Rage

Jessica QuinnOnline Communications Specialist, Washington D.C. Office On June 11, staff...

Read More
Witness for Justice
Witness for Justice

Juneteenth: A Day to Remember

Traci Blackmon Associate General Minister This week, for only the second time in history,...

Read More
Into the Mystic

Longing & Hope

Listen to the podcast https://soundcloud.com/theucc/jess-chancey-longing-and-hope Read the...

Read More
  • Column
    • Local Church and Conference Resource Directory
    • Mission
    • Justice & Local Church Ministries
    • General Synod 33 Resolutions
  • Column
    • Contact
    • News
    • Store
Content on ucc.org is copyrighted by the National Setting of the United Church of Christ and may be only shared according to the guidelines outlined here.
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Subscribe on YouTube

Donate Now


UCC Crest
© United Church of Christ 2022. Privacy Policy.
Crafted by Cornershop Creative