Fighting White Supremacy: Following through

This article has been on my mind for several weeks:

https://greenerpasturesnw.medium.com/eight-minutes-46-seconds-and-365-days-c49a3956b797

It was posted on June 2nd, but acknowledging a year since the death of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020.

Medium contributor, speaker, and local businessman Stephen Green writes about the immediate surge of support, with protests and Facebook profile edits. He then notes that in the year since (longer now), police have killed an additional 229 Black people, and support for Black Lives Matter has decreased while support for law enforcement has increased.

That is discouraging, though not as surprising as one might hope.

In the article, Green also refers to a pledge with over 400 signatories:

https://www.iwilldomore.org/

You have to scroll down for it, but there are also concrete suggestions on things that one can do, and three phases for each suggestion.

For example, first you might start by following new Black people on social media. Do.

Then, since you are following new voices, you can choose to amplify one of them each week. Do more.

Then you could move on from retweeting and posting to suggesting others follow them. Do better.

That is an extreme simplification of one suggestion. Obviously, I want you to read the links, and see what he says in his own words.

I do want to point out some things.

First, notice what a natural progression it is. You have a suggested course of action there, but it is also one that might flow naturally.

Second, it increases your exposure to voices that you might not normally hear. It is very easy for white voices to drown out everything else, and even the nicest white people will miss things about the current state of racism. Increasing the points of view that you take in is important, and easy to neglect. However, I do believe that conscious action here can change you.

(Notice that this specific post is pointing you to someone else.) 

Finally, I want to point out that I didn't use "finally" in listing those steps. Just as these steps can lead to each other (possibly requiring some nudging), as you know more, understand more, and empathize more, there shouldn't be an end. Not until we are all free and equal.

Fighting White Supremacy: Sincerity

I am pretty sick of humanity right now. That is the virus spreading, of course, but not exclusively.

This particular complaint comes from a tweet by Amanda Marcotte, a blogger and writer who is considered liberal, but I would say is more leftist, at least in terms of tendency to criticize more traditional  liberal positions.

This particular tweet was part of a short thread complaining about people who have been vaccinated still wearing masks.

https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1416078552953409544

I have been pretty consistent on this: due to the number of people that are still not vaccinated, allowing more mutation; plus the already present Delta variant; plus as a means of keeping things safer for those working public-facing jobs in a world where there are people who would like to spread the disease as a proof of their defiant conservatism, there are plenty of reasons why masking and social distancing should remain the norm for now. You see all of those disease spikes as people started easing restrictions? Maybe that means it was premature.

Now, is it specifically the vaccinated people not wearing masks who are spreading it? With the Delta variant, that is a real possibility.

In five tweets, Marcotte refers to "mask theater", a way of performing political identity (that she can't relate to, because she prefers concert T-shirts), and accuses it of making the pandemic worse because it politicizes COVID fear as a liberal concern.

It's condescending, and not well-reasoned, but that level of condescension usually is not built on great reasoning. After all, facts can really get in the way of a superiority complex.

Also, I think it might be reasonable to say that conservatives have politicized everything about the virus so much that nothing liberals can do will depoliticize it. The off-chance that being completely reckless will bring them around is too irresponsible even if it were likely to work. It is not.

This is why I assume Marcotte is more of a leftist than a liberal; no matter how bad conservatives get, it is always liberals' fault, and the need to change is on them.

That is irritating, but it's not why I am writing this post. It is the part about "identity performance".

Marcotte got a lot of disagreeing replies (including from me), with people masking for their children, their fragile seniors, and their immune-compromised loved ones. No one appears to be doing it to own the conservatives.

In fact, most of them seem to be motivated by love for those they know, and concern and generosity for those they don't know.

It is more common to use "woke" for an epithet now, but once upon a time it was SJW, for Social Justice Warrior. (I'm sure it still gets used.)

When I first heard the term I didn't think that I could be called a warrior for anything, but how was it an insult that you would fight for justice of any kind? Was it the social part?

In fact, the insult was the assumption that any arguments or actions that people took was to look good. No one sincerely cared about social justice, but people who felt guilty about that would pretend, so the real courage and authenticity was, apparently, proud racism. 

There may also be people who think it's a stupid thing to care about social justice, or at least pointless, but yes, at the time I remember that the arguments mainly impugned the sincerity.

Humans are complicated, and the things we do may have multiple motivations. I still know that I sincerely care about others, and I am not alone in that. 

For as much as I get tired of people, I still know people that I love. I still see people that I do not know being patient or kind or looking tired or trying, and I feel love for them.

I get that there is a certain satisfaction that can come from looking down on the sheeple trying to prove things that you are way too cool to care about, but I want to punch people who find that satisfying. I don't, because I am trying to be better. 

In fact, I am trying to be like Christ. Not with his power to heal, but at least doing what I can to not spread disease.

In fact, if the only way in which you fight for social justice or any kind of human welfare is to score points on those who aren't doing it right, I promise you that you are upholding white supremacy.

Fighting White Supremacy: Praying for it

Recently, in the post on Juneteenth, I suggested that perhaps the best practice we could start is praying to end racism. 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2021/06/fighting-white-supremacy-meaning-of.html

I intended to start doing that in my family, but I found myself stymied by how to word that prayer.

"Please end racism," seemed too broad or too far off.

That may be getting hung up on nothing, but I believe that a lot of prayer's effectiveness comes from us keeping what we are praying for fresh in our minds. We are then open to ideas of things we can do better. We are open to change for ourselves.

"Please help us to not be racist."

That might be the right prayer. It also may not be enough. My family has gotten way better at recognizing and rejecting racism. Homophobia is a little harder, and ableism is not as much on the radar as I would like.

"Please help us to be more wise and loving."

Maybe. I mean, there are injunctions to pray for charity and to seek for wisdom in the scriptures. That might be the issue, except there are so many people who know they need to have charity and are still so comfortable with various types of bigotry. That is one of my primary complaints right now. I just wrote a letter to President Nelson about it.

"Please help us as a church to become less racist."

That might be it. We need it as a country too. We need it as a world. 

That is where I worry that the prayer "Please end racism" is too big. The need to end racism is big, but it feels like it will take many smaller steps.

It might be helpful to pray for schools and teachers now. What we learn of history and literature and culture can be a big part of understanding the world, and there are fragile people fighting tooth and nail for white supremacy at the school level. I am quite sure that losing elections will be only a temporary setback for them, but that is all the more reason that we need to keep it in mind. That is all the more reason to pray.

One thing I frequently find is that when we are moving to a new phase, we are acquiring new vocabulary for it. Finding new ways to understand and communicate is necessary for progress. 

Maybe we have not seriously considered eradicating racism enough to know how to talk about it in ways that don't sound awkward.

I will take the awkwardness over the continuing white supremacy. The awkwardness is the the path of growth; staying with comfortable bigotry can only end in suffering and stagnation.

"Father, please help us to fight racism, within and without."

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Fighting White Supremacy: When it feels like betraying your heritage

Is everyone thoroughly tired of me referring to Critical Race Theory yet?

This isn't really about that, at least not in the sense of what Critical Race Theory really is. If instead we think of the conservative bogeyman of any history that does not center and laud the actions of straight white men, well... I am thinking about the shortcomings of that system on this 4th of July.

(I admit to thinking about it a lot during the rest of the year too.)

I do understand where members may feel reluctant to criticize various aspects of US history. After all, The Book of Mormon clearly refers to Columbus and the Pilgrims, we believe, and shows them as an important part of the restoration of the gospel here. We have many conference talks and Ensign articles about how the Constitution is inspired. 

With that background, it may be uncomfortable to think about Columbus being so zealous in his pursuit of gold that it led to slavery, murder, punitive amputations and genocide, or that one of the earliest Thanksgiving feasts was a celebration of a massacre of Indians, or seeing how the Constitution enshrined racism (which the Supreme Court keeps upholding).

Arguments that the Constitution requires a righteous country works, as long as you will agree that racism is wicked, but racism was also codified in our Church for over a century.

So, how do we reconcile ourselves to this?

I have three thoughts for consideration.

First is that things foretold in prophecy aren't necessarily good. There are things that God makes happen, like having a plan in place, and a savior, and sending that savior into the world. There are also things that perhaps are not wrought by God, but are seen and allowed. 

(There is a whole other reconciliation to be done with agency and that we are allowed to choose evil, which many of us frequently do, but those choices and the path to healing from them is covered in the plan.)

But Nephi said that Columbus was inspired! Yes, well, definitely so was Brigham Young, but there's that racism thing again. It is possible that Columbus was a better man at first, and then the ease of enslaving the Arawak went to his head; it would not be the first time fame and pursuit of wealth has corrupted. We can like our life here and be grateful for that without making Columbus a hero or the colonization of the Americas an unquestioned good. It is imperative that we do, because when we don't acknowledge past wrongs we perpetuate them for the present and future.

(ETA: It seems important to clarify that I do not believe that the ban on Black men holding the priesthood was expired. I do assume that overseeing the exodus to Utah and temple building and many other things required inspiration, and that Brigham Young did get it. I also acknowledge that many other people were fine with the ban being instituted and prolonged.)

It is perhaps worth noting here that "Columbus Day" was not a regular official holiday until the Knights of Columbus lobbied for it in 1934, as a way of getting Italian-Americans more accepted. One of the earlier celebrations in 1892 followed the lynching of 11 Italian immigrants by a mob. In trying to quell one type of prejudice, we reinforced another. Surely we can do better than that.

But we needed a free country for the gospel to be restored!

Yes, and this gets us to the third of the thoughts: is it possible that in a country not built on slavery and genocide, that the gospel wouldn't have required so many martyrs?

Because technically if we had freedom of religion, the early Saints being murdered and jailed shouldn't have been a thing. 

There is a limit to how much good it does to imagine different historical possibilities; what's done is done. 

There is a lot to be gained from honestly assessing where we are now, and how we can do better. 

Loyalty to wrongs glossed over with lies will not allow for that.

Those who follow Christ should never be saying "America, right or wrong!" because we should be too committed to right for that.

Beyond that, I assure you that we can handle that. We don't need to be afraid of uncomfortable truths.

There is a plan, and it is a good plan, and there is room for everyone in it.

Additional reading:

https://rapidcityjournal.com/lifestyles/people/top-5-atrocities-committed-by-christopher-columbus/collection_76ebb2b8-f63d-11e3-a137-001a4bcf887a.html#5

https://tlio.org.uk/1637-pequot-massacre-%E2%80%8Bthe-real-story-of-thanksgiving/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day