As a Haitian who was educated in Haiti and then spent twelve years in Quebec, Canada, and who is now is a Green Card holder in the United States, I feel that I am unwillingly carrying with me a colonized mentality. Internalized Oppression has always been very present in my life, although naming it was not evident. While I would not like my context to feel targeted by my desire to address the issue of Internalized Oppression, I have chosen to assert my prophetic voice. And like Bartimaeus, I will not let anyone silence it. My calling to St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, the reaction/resistance to my leadership and to the administrative reforms I have implemented, the rejection of my “VodooPentecoBaptistcopal ” preaching style, the constant negative jokes and derision of many - including reading stories from people who at the surface seemed very different to me — made my awareness of Internalized Oppression even “more real.” It helped me dig below the surface to understand that it was not mine or theirs exclusively. It was a collective Internalized Oppression that we expressed in this relationship, one side considering itself superior or inferior to the other, depending on the occasion. The purpose of this dissertation is to find out IF the Prophetic Preaching of Social Transformation, from a minister considered as an outsider, can impact an African-American small church context and provide a path out of Internalized Oppression for all sides concerned.
