Gathering Power and a Counter-Narrative: Rebutting the Normalization of Racialized Injustice
In this "Fireside" chat, the audience will engage with Peter Storey on the ethical frameworks that challenge the legal normalization and the dominant social acceptability of racialized injustice. Under such adverse conditions, how do communities gather power to rebut in durable ways white supremacist power? In what grounded ways do those unjustly privileged and disadvantaged by dominant narratives create new narratives and more just relationships? How do people work together to shift-in radical ways-the terms of mutual encounter? Bishop Storey envisions the church as a key site of struggle and as a modeler and en-act-or of "right relationship." We will have the opportunity to learn about his ongoing connection to this work in North Carolina where he has served as an advisor to the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission of 2004-2006 and the Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Process of NC launched in Oct 2022.
About the speaker: Dr. Peter Storey, Ret. Bishop, South African Methodist Church. His 40-year ministry in South Africa was defined by sustained opposition to the apartheid government and its oppressive racist policies, first in Cape Town during the forced removals of people of color, and as chaplain to Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners on Robben Island. Later, as a Methodist and Ecumenical leader he played a significant national role in the Church's anti-apartheid struggle. He and then Bishop Desmond Tutu were witnesses-in-chief for the South African Council of Churches when the apartheid regime put the ecumenical organization on trial. Bishop Storey's pastoral ministry was grounded in inner city churches, most notably District Six in Cape Town and the Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg. He played a leading role in transformational movements within the Methodist Church of SA such as Obedience '81 and the Journey to a New Land process prior to the advent of democracy. He founded South Africa's Life Line telephone-based crisis intervention service and Gun-free South Africa, the nation's anti-gun movement. Bishop Storey was a regional chairperson of the National Peace Accord combating government orchestrated violence in the runup to the 1996 elections for a democratic South Africa. He was appointed by President Mandela to help select the members of the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.