Guest at the Table: Dr. Desjamebra Robinson
My guest at this edition of the No-Nonsense Roundtable is Dr. Desjamebra Robinson, who you will quickly learn isn’t afraid to speak up.
Whether it’s in her writing, from the pulpit or as an educator, Dr. Robinson will make you stop and think.
In addition to pastoral work, she has written a book, “I Hope This Helped Someone: A Womanist Response to Spiritual and Psychological Trauma,” and she teaches in the Rochester City School District.
“My intention is to bring a perspective,” she told me on the No-Nonsense Roundtable. “I don't want you to think like I think, but I want you to think about these things.”
Here’s a sample of what she’d like us all to think about:
Melanin bias. Rather than talk about race and racism, she uses the phrase melanin bias. “There is only one race, the ‘human race.’ Now, there are people who have a certain level of pigmentation in their skin. I can't change that about myself. … I probably should have introduced that I have a doctoral degree. I have a master's degree. I've done the hard work - I have the bills to prove it - and so for someone to be biased against me or not be able to give me an opportunity, I don't call it racism.
I call it bias against the melanin in my skin because you look at me and you see the appearance, and now I don't have those opportunities.”
The addictive effects of incessant video games. “We’re talking about a generation of gamers that were born into modern technology that have an addiction to the dopamine high that they get when playing. We have our dopamine stimulators right in our hands, in our back pockets.”
Present-ism, or judging the past by today’s values. The current generation isn’t responsible for acts of previous generations, but it is responsible for helping people affected to deal with the resulting trauma. “The way that you deal with trauma is through truth. So when people refuse to tell the whole entire truth about what happened … when we fail to make the translation throughout the generations then we fail to give people the truth and then people cannot deal with the traumas that they are currently dealing with in this present day even though it wasn't caused by this current generation.”
As I said to her on the show, whether I agree or not, she gives a logical set of circumstances. Too often we don’t or won’t challenge our perceptions by listening to someone who has a different point of view.
To hear our conversation, click the QR code.
Dr. Robinson is pastor at First Baptist Church, which is at 3182 Chili Avenue in Chili. To hear her on a regular basis, attend her weekly worship. The service starts at 10 – “don’t be late,” she says – and runs to 11, which includes her 15-minute sermon. “I give you some things to think about and it's your job for the rest of the week.”
“A Guest at the Table” is a synopsis of a previously aired and particularly interesting interview on my No Nonsense Roundtable radio show, which plays at 10 a.m. Saturdays on NewsRadio WHAM-1180. After broadcast, all shows can be heard as podcasts at www.nononsenseroundtable.com.
