I have been very disheartened in my attempts to reach out to people I know about the racism of certain school board candidates.
I admit there is a certain brilliance in recruiting candidates from churches in general -- especially but not exclusively LDS churches -- because then there are people who will recognize the names and think well of them. Of course I will put your sign in my yard!
But you would hope that if you mention the racism, people would at least listen to that, and be able to get past "But they have always been so nice!" initial response.
That has been disappointing.
The worst disappointment is that so many members feel like too much gets made of racism anyway. It's not that they completely doubt it's a problem, but surely it can't be as big of a problem as they make it out to be, especially when they know so many devoted and wonderful police officers.
This is when I want to give up on humanity, though I won't.
One reason I can keep going is because of a book club I have been in, reading Layla F. Saad's Me and White Supremacy. The organizer and most of the attendees are LDS.
Initially, I was frustrated with the book. I think I would have appreciated it more back in 2013, before I had read a lot of books and listened to a lot of people. The book was only published in 2020, so that just wasn't an option.
However, listening to the other group members, and some of the things they are facing, and some of the thoughts and attitudes that they admit to having and changing now... this can be a really important book.
I know more people who would benefit from the book than not.
So that might be a good place to start.
Beyond that, I will say one more thing about Critical Race Theory, even though I did an entire post on it Tuesday.
Many people have an idea in mind that racism is a matter of personal virtue, where being racist makes you a mean and bad person, and so if you are a good person you can't possibly be racist.
There are a lot of directions we could go with that. We could talk about the distinctions between "nice" -- often a matter of superficial lack of conflict -- versus kindness and goodness. We could talk about how the idea of being a "good" or "bad" person is an oversimplification, because even people who do a lot of good have their faults, and some people whose lives seem predominantly bad are nonetheless very kind. Trusting too much in your own goodness has definite dangers.
Critical Race Theory is one way of getting past that, examining how racism is built into the structure of of our society. Because of that, we are frequently participating in and benefited by racism without it being an obvious choice, regardless of how good your intentions may be.
Of course, then once you know that, you should be looking at things differently, and trying to change things; that is work. It involves discomfort. Your participation prior to knowing did not make you a bad person, but trying to be a good person will involve acting on that knowledge.
When everything was so comfortable before, some people reject that change. It's easier not to know, and not to have to think about it all the time.
Here's the thing: if you decide to put your comfort over unequal policing, and income inequality, and three times higher maternal mortality, and all of the stress and pain and unrealized potential that happens due to structural racism, then you are definitely not a good person. You are a weak and petty person upholding evil.
You may not be as bad as the people actively campaigning on a platform designed to uphold white supremacy, but you are bad enough.
That is the choice.
Related posts:
https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2020/08/mormons-and-racism.html
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