But I'm not a ...

Yesterday I promised that I would return to one of the most frequent responses people who identify as white have to the use of the term "White Supremacy" as the way to describe the dominant culture in which we, to borrow a phrase, "live, and move, and have our being.'  For those outside the "bubble," the Unitarian Universalist Association, the denomination in which I serve, is being asked to examine how its hiring (and other practices) perpetuate a culture of white supremacy.  And there is, predictably, an uproar in response.  Primarily from people who identify as white, we are hearing things like:

• How can you paint us with the same brush as the KKK?
• We're committed to anti-oppression work.  How can we be "white supremacists"?
• If we use the term "white supremacist" for us, what do we call people like David Duke and Richard Spencer?

Yesterday I addressed the "appropriateness" of using the term -- both because it is actually a more clear and accurate way of describing the systems and structures of racism, and because it is the term that a great many People of Color are asking that we use.  (Since People of Color are, after all, far more intimately effected by racism than are we white folk, they probably have a more clear understanding of what it is, how it works, and how it should be described.)

Yet even with all that said, there still is the issue of what it means to use the same term to describe we large-hearted, well-meaning, liberal white folks that we use to describe Neo-Nazi, torch-carrying, alt-righters.  My answer may disappoint some of my friends and colleagues of color who, until now, have generally found my writing to be a fairly useful distillation of the things they have been saying for decades ... for generations.  (I believe that as a white person I can develop an intellectual understanding of the way racism infects the dominant culture and all that is touched by it, but I realize that I will never have the in-my-cells, present and generational, experience of it.*  That means that pretty much all I know and, therefore, all I can say, I have learned from People of Color who have given voice to their experiences and their learnings.)

With this post, though, I may well disappoint some, because I am going to say that for me the answer to the apparent dilemma is to say that I don't think we should use the same word to describe the average Unitarian Universalist -- or other well-meaning white person -- and the Grand Dragons of the world.  I would say that those folks are, without doubt or question, white supremacists.  I would not say that about folks like me and (hopefully) most of you.  I would say that we all participate in, and (even if unconsciously and unwittingly) we unavoidably perpetuate, the culture of white supremacy.  In other words, I make a distinction between white supremacy, and white supremacists.

Here I do break with some of the voices I have heard from People of Color who say that we should use that same, later, term -- white supremacist -- to refer to any person who identifies as white who, by virtue of that identity, perpetuate the systems and structures of the culture of white supremacy, even when we don't realize it, even when we try to actively work against it.  And I think I do understand their point.  I recoil from it, not surprisingly, but I think I do understand it.

Nonetheless, though, I do make this distinction.  It's possible, of course, that I make it because of my own discomfort -- I do, after all, have a lifetime of hearing and understanding those words in a very particular way, and I have spent my life trying to be the antithesis of what I've known those words to mean.  So I also recoil at the thought of them being used to describe me.  Yet I have learned that there are a millions of ways each day that I do and say things that reinforce the systems and structures that perpetuate the elevation of whiteness as "supreme."

I've redrawn the graphic that's often called the "White Supremacy Triangle" to hopefully more helpfully make it clear that it's also a "White Supremacy Iceberg."

Above the waterline there are things that are clearly and unambiguously part of what I've known as "white supremacy" -- the klu klux klan, neo-nazis, cross burnings, etc.  Yet as with any other iceberg, what's on top is supported by what's below.  So I know that there have been times that a Person of Color has described an experience and I've instinctively questioned whether their interpretation of events was right.  (Was it really a racist act, or did that cab driver really simply not see you?)  And I was definitely raised to think that a "colorblind" approach to combating racism is the way to go.  (Let's not see any difference but, instead, focus on our common humanity!)  And I absolutely have in my head all sorts of inaccurate information about, for instance, U.S. history, because I was exposed to a Euro-centric curricula that presumed white experiences were more important than those of African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Indigenous People (and, for that matter, all other historically marginalized groups).

I know that I have -- unconsciously and unintentionally -- silenced People of Color by responding to their stories with my own as if they are the same.  I've insisted that the way I see things, and my analysis of a situation and how to respond to it -- including what words to use -- make the most sense, even when what I'm talking about truly is outside the realm of my experience.  I know that I have often -- and even still recently have -- responded to a situation with what I thought would be the most helpful thing, without even pausing to consider that maybe I should first ask the people I'm wanting to help what they think would be the most helpful way of responding.

And what has been hard for me to hear, and hard for me to really even understand, is that each of these things -- and so, so many unnoticed more -- serve to reinforce the culture of white supremacy.  So I understand that I am part of, participate in, and unwittingly perpetuate this white supremacist culture.  Yet I also do think that it is helpful to make a distinction between the David Dukes and the ... well ... me.  "Above-the-line White Supremacist" and "Below-the-line White Supremacist" makes clear our relative positions on the iceberg, but they are sort of a mouthful.  "Overt White Supremacist" and "Covert White Supremacist" is a little easier to say.  Yet I do understand the need to include the words "white supremacy" when talking about either the above-the-line or below-the-line kind.

For now, the best I can come up with is that the torch bearers are White Supremacists, while I participate in and perpetuate a culture of White Supremacy (or, a White Supremacist culture).  As I said, this may be because of my own discomfort, or the limits of my understanding, but it's the best I can do at this time.  And none of us -- we who identify as white -- will ever do this work "perfectly."  All we can do is keep trying our best, keep stretching ourselves, keep moving into places that feel uncomfortable and make us struggle, and keep learning to see the world through the voices of those who have lived in a world so very different than mine.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

* -  It's been pointed out to me that saying, "I will never have the in-my-cells, present and generational, experience of it" could be used as an excuse not to do the hard work daily of increasingly making this a real part of my life.  As the person wrote on Facebook, this "gives permission to not try to get it into our cells by demanding of ourselves to see the every act of our lives as part of white supremacy and to learn to disrupt it."  In other words, it could be read in a kind of defeatist way:  I'll never get this, so why try?

That's actually the opposite of my intention.  I'm glad to learn that those words might confuse my message, so that I might attempt to be more clear.  I would stand by the statement that I will never have a "cellular" understanding of the way(s) white supremacy works in the world, and the way(s) it works in and through me.  Yet that doesn't suggest to me that I shouldn't try, but that I should try harder.  So much of the culture of white supremacy is invisible and inaudible to me because the experience of it, and its effects, are not already in my cells.  That means I must engage in a herculean and never-ending effort to learn to see it, and to listen to those voices to which I have been preciously deaf.

And recognizing that "I will never have the in-my-cells ... experience of it," also insists that I never fool myself into thinking that I've become some kind of "expert," that I can claim some kind of complete understanding.  I can't.  I can speak first-hand about what I am learning about how the culture of white supremacy effects me, as a white person, and the ways I am coming to see that it works in and through me.  And I can try to help other white people come to see this in their lives, too.  (Which is why I do so much writing and speaking primarily to white people.)  What I can't do, though, is fall into the trap of centering my own voice.  Because I will never have the "in-my-cells" experience of the way(s) the culture of white supremacy has effected People of Color, I must always make sure that I center their voices over mine, that I listen carefully and deeply to their analysis, their perspectives, and the stories of their lived experience.

Words Matter

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the couple discovers that each is a member of the family that is their own family's sworn enemy.  Juliet opines, "What's in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  

She's one to listen to, that Juliet.  In words that could well be applied to nearly every case of enmity between peoples, she says, "'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;  Thou art thyself, though, not a Montague.  What's Montague?  It is not hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man."  We could ask:  What's Palestinian?  What's Israeli?  What's conservative or liberal?  Oh if only we could remember that it is most often our names -- and the histories that go with them -- that are the real heart of our divisions.  This one particular Montague -- Romeo Montague -- is so much easier to love than the idea, the label, of "Montague."  "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  In other words, don't let the label -- the mere name, the word -- get in the way of engaging with the thing itself.  Don't get hung up on the words.

As with most ideas, of course, this is both true in some ways and quite untrue in others.  It is true that we far too often get hung up on words and so are unable to fully attend to the specific person/moment/experience before us because of all the baggage we've attached to the words we use to describe it.  That is all true.  At the same time, though, words matter.

For those of us in the dominant culture -- in which I must count myself as a straight, white, cis-gender male in the United States of the 21st century -- it may seem as though the language is changing rapidly and radically around us.  It seems as though every day brings a declaration of some new word that is now "off limits."  It can seem as though the dictionary has become a minefield ... except that using military metaphors may cause offense.  

"Political correctness" is the term most often used to describe this expectation of increasing linguistic sensitivity, and it's usually used derisively and dismissively.  The implication is that the extra care being asked of us -- again, dominant-culture "us" -- is part of some (liberal) political agenda; that it's an effort to unnaturally and unnecessarily change the perfectly natural and acceptable status quo for "political" reasons.  Why does it matter what we call things?  Aren't these words that are now "forbidden" really just racist or homophobic or whatever they're accused of being because some people have chosen to declare them so?  And haven't those people and groups chosen to do so in order to make their own "cause" seem important?

In other words, again, what's in a name?  Well .. quite a lot, as it turns out -- centuries of oppression, violence, and both cultural exploitation and extermination to name just a few things.  Perhaps an example would be helpful, and here's one that should be, by now, fairly widely understood.  In the 60s and 70s, women argued that when people -- usually men -- used the word "man" to describe humanity as a whole they were leaving out about half of the population.  No matter how inclusive the intent, women asserted, when someone said "all men are created equal" they were effectively not talking about women.  Mankind is simply not the same as humankind.

To be sure, folks enmeshed in the dominant culture -- mostly straight, white, cis-gender males (then as now) -- didn't see what all the hoopla was about.  What's in a name?  Of course women were included in "mankind."  Who could possibly think otherwise?  Well ... women, as it turns out -- women who could point to a history of being dismissed and derided as being less than men; a lived experience of being treated as property and being intentionally excluded from nearly every category open to men.  In other words, women were telling men that the only reason men thought that women were included in this male-gendered language was because, quite honestly, men weren't really thinking about women at all. Their male experience is what informed their understanding of the way things are in the world, and women argued that they would always continue to be excluded as long as they were excluded from the language being used to describe reality.  (So, in other words, both cause and effect going on here.) 

Slowly men have come to understand this argument, and changes have been made.  Not universally, unfortunately.  Within this decade, during an interview with a congregation I was interested in serving, I was asked what I thought about the current "fad" of using gender-neutral language in worship.  (True story.)  Thankfully, this kind of thing would no longer happen in most mainstream settings.  A sensitivity to gender inclusion in what we say has become a cultural norm.

This kind of thing does continue to happen however, and often, with regard to a variety of other historically marginalized groups.  One of the attributes of a dominant culture is that it doesn't think of itself as "a dominant culture" but, rather, simply as "the culture."  And when you're part of the dominant culture you get to think that the way things are for you is the way things are.  And that means, of course, the largely unconscious assumption that the way things are for you is the way they are for everybody.

Except that they're not.  The lived experiences of an African American transgender woman, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, and a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant man whose family has lived in the Hamptons for generations are ... well ... different.  And these differences are real.  The anthropologist Wade Davis named this succinctly:  "Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you ..."  The lived experiences of traditionally marginalized people are not some kind of substandard version of the experiences of straight, white, cis-gender men (and those who identify with them).  They are full and fully "real" in and of themselves without the need for any comparison to anything and anyone else.  As we become more aware of this truth, things of necessity will need to change.

It is, perhaps, important to note once again that the "we" I am addressing -- as in "As we become more aware of this truth ..." -- is the "we" of the dominant culture.  People of color, women, transgender persons, and others who have long been relegated to the margins have always known this.  They have always needed to be at least bi-culturally aware, knowing that their own distinct culture and the dominant culture exist side-by-side.  Now, though, many of us who have never really had to think about these things before are finally beginning to recognize these truths also.  We are beginning to recognize that our culture, the culture we've long taken for granted as being normative for all, is not the only culture there is.  Just as (most) men have learned that gendered language does, in point of fact, extend and exacerbate the historic exclusion of women, so too an insistence on preferencing the dominant culture maintains and magnifies the history of dominance and domination that is the long unspoken dimension of our heritage.

I will confess that at times I am overwhelmed with the demands of trying to listen to so many long-unheard voices as they cry out for recognition.  At times I want to say, "Really?  Is that word so important?"  I'll admit that I'm personally currently wrestling with the challenges of recognizing that even apparently gender-neutral language still often reflects a binary understanding of gender which can be experienced as dismissive and damaging to people whose experience of gender is more fluid than that.  The structure of the language itself, though, and not just word choice reinforces this older understanding.  Yet always new awareness has led to the use of new language.  

It isn't some kind of "political correctness" that demands change from those of us who as a group, have called the shots (or have had the shots called in our favor) for so long that we no longer even recognize that that's what's been happening.  It's really more a matter of "empathic engagement" -- caring enough about other people to recognize that they are not "failed attempts" at being like us but are people who have their own experiences of life.  When men who really wanted to be inclusive came to understand that the language they were using was in actuality exclusive, they changed their language to better reflect their really intentions.  We -- one last time, dominant-culture "we" -- say that we value all people.  So when we learn that the language we use (among other things) actually devalues huge swaths of humanity, what can we do but try to respond?  

Our response should not be to decry some words as now "forbidden."  Rather, it should be to listen carefully, closely, to the people who rarely have a say to learn how different words sound to them.  How do they hear these words that are so commonplace today?  If we learn that there are words that carry meanings that we do not intend -- even if only for some -- doesn't it make sense to look for alternative words that will more fully and accurately convey the whole of our meaning?  "Political Correctness," then, is really empathic engagement with others -- listening to their stories of their experiences -- and making changes in our language so as to respond to what we've heard and to make sure that our words do not get in the way.

Pax tecum,

RevWik 

A Rose By Any Other Name

"Even to speak of 'God' is to invite confusion," I wrote this past Wednesday.  "It is so easy to be misunderstood."  Of course, there is a bit of wisdom from Al-Anon, and the other 12 Step traditions that reminds us, "What you think of me is none of my business."  Perhaps I needn't worry so much if I'm misunderstood.

And yet . . . 

And yet it matters because communication is all about the intention of taking the thoughts and feelings and experiences within me and attempting to convey them as accurately as possible to you.  If I know, at the outset, that the manner in which I plan to do this will almost certainly lead to distortion, then shouldn't I take that into consideration?  If I know that you will not understand me if I say something in a certain way, shouldn't I try saying it in a way that I think increases the liklihood that you will understand me?

Imagine, for instance, that we are both bi-lingual, only you know English and French and I know English and Japanese.  I know that if I speak in Japanese, my Japanese friends will be able to understand me, but you will not.  Doesn't it make sense for me to speak in English when we're together?

So if I know that the use of traditional religious terms like "prayer," and "God," are likely to cause confusion -- because I can be fairly confident that I don't mean by them what you do -- then shouldn't I look for other words?

On Thursday I was facilitating a workshop on prayer at Andover Newton Divinity School, and among the sixteen participants most said that they were there because they wanted to deepen their spiritual lives.  Nearly all described, in one way or another, having some kind of "problem" with prayer and were hoping that this workshop could help them.  I said that I thought that I had an insight and wondered if they'd agree:

Our fundamental problem with prayer is that the word itself -- prayer -- is linked in our unconsious mind to the concept of "Talking To God So That HE Can Know Our Problem And We Can Ask HIM To Do Something About Them."  And this concept is so intimately connected to the word, so inextricably bound to it, that we cannot hear, or speak, or even think the word without this idea coming up in our unconscious.  And since we reject this concept, we have a block even with the word.  How, then, can we not have problems with the practice?

Just about everyone nodded in agreement.  This, it seemed, hit the nail on the head for them.  The word, the concept -- and all of its attendant baggage -- was getting in the way of the experience.  So what are we to do?  Forget the words, of course!  Do the thing; don't get caught up in what it's called!

As Shakespeare said so long ago, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," and I remember a teacher once telling me that a rose is called a weed when it's growing in a tomato patch.  Don't get so caught up in the names -- they're just signifiers, pointers.  Perhaps that's why the author of the Rule for a New Brother of the Brakkenstein Community of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers in Holland advises, "Don't talk too much about God."  Perhaps that's why Lao Tzu said, "Those who know do not talk; those who talk do not know."

Of course, he said that in a book of eighty one chapters.  Because, eventually, we want to try to communicate, to take the thoughts and feelings and experiences within us and attempt to convey them as accurately as possible to others.  And so we resort to words.

We could create new words -- and some mystics and contemplatives have done just that.  And some, I suppose, simply put their sandals on their head or thwack you with their stick rather than say anything.  But we can also take up the old words and "breathe new life into them," attempting to infuse them with the understandings and insights we have discovered.  So when I do this thing that is most definately not "Talking To God So That HE Can Know My Problems And I Can Ask HIM To Do Something About Them," and then use to word prayer to describe what I'm doing I'm helping to expand the word, to make it more useful, more descriptive, and helping to dissolve the linkages that have made the word a block for so many.

And the same can be done with all of the traditional terms:  God, sin, grace, redemption, resurrection, repentence, miracle -- all of these words are only that, words.  The meanings we give them are up to us and should come out of our own experiences.  After all, isn't religion a meaning-making enterprise?  Why are we so often contented to have the meanings of religious words given to us?

In Gassho,

RevWik