“It’s a struggle for me on an ongoing basis to wrestle with my own internalized racism,” Judy Meikle admits. As she discusses how her calling to worship with imprisoned people has led her to a greater understanding of the effects of systemic racism, she explains, “I hear myself falling into the trap of exceptionalism, like somehow I’m the good antiracist—I’m not.”
“One of the most important aspects of the prison ministry for me is connecting people on the inside with people on the outside,” Judy says. “When you connect individual people, human to human, that feels like it’s a way of bringing people face-to-face with the realities of prison life and connecting it to a real human being.”
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