The Revs. Irene Monroe and Emmett Price made their first appearance of the new year on Monday’s Boston Public Radio reflecting on Monroe’s recent essay for GBH in a larger conversation about the ongoing struggle against white supremacy in both Massachusetts and the country as a whole.
Monroe's essay, titled “Where Do We Go From Here, Redux," spoke of the need for America to better confront white supremacy. It happened to coincide with a Boston Globe report on sexual assault claims made against Boston police Sgt. Clifton McHale in 2005. The Globe's report details a troubling allegation made against the officer, which led to a year-long suspension but didn’t prevent him from later being promoted to sergeant.
McHale is also the officer who was filmed joking about driving his squad car into Black Lives Matter protesters back in May.
"This is no progress, it’s no justice, and, ironically, it’s no peace,” Price said of the reporting, while chiding the number of leaders who "got on their milk crate," "gave platitudes" and "pontificated about diversity statements” in the aftermath of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.
"The issue,” Monroe added, is that “white supremacy is so steeped in the culture,” both in the commonwealth and across the country.
"I don’t care if you live in a multicultural environment,” she said, addressing Boston Public Radio listeners. "You still see [people of color] as 'other.’"
The Rev. Emmett G. Price III is executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The Rev. Irene Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist, the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology. Together, they host the podcast All Rev'd Up.
This Friday, Jan. 8, Monroe will appear on Jim Shainker’s show on WCAP 980AM to talk about the intersection of racism and antisemitism. On Jan. 10, she’ll deliver her MLK talk at Congregation Beth Israel of the Merrimack Valley, in Andover.
