living is coronavirusworld 118: are all white people racist?

7/22

opening day one day away

Just a Yankee hat this morning in honor of tomorrow night’s (finally) opening day of Major League Baseball.

One of Joel’s friends has described US religion as neopagan nationalism….

As we ponder where we are on the arc towards fascism, we confront Portland where an armed force, without IDs and in unmarked vans, operate as the President’s private army. He will be sending his forces to New Mexico and Chicago…and New York? This to me is like the day I realized I lived in country that puts children into cages. 

We’re remembering John Lewis (may he rest in power) and the blood that flowed on the Edmund Pettis bridge. (May it be renamed for Lewis.) How that blood on clean white shirts got to our conscience, our hearts. How much blood will it take this time? Our friends in Portland feel the President is pushing for a greater confrontation, greater violence so he can appear as the champion of law and order. 

Does this degree of social narcissism always exist?

We are in an agreement that we need to make it shameful to behave in certain ways. We need to bring decency to the public stage and turn away from the constant flow of plain and simple indecency.

We spend most of our time talking about an “on being” conversation between Krista Tippet and Robin Di Angelo and Resmaa Menakem. (https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9vbmJlaW5nLm9yZy9wb2RjYXN0cy9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbA/episode/NTEyZjQyNDQtNzBiMi00Yzg4LWEwYzktZTIyNTQ2ODU2ZjAw?ved=0CAkQ38oDahcKEwjA27u5mcHqAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAw). 

 One of our circle has brought a scathing critique of Di Angelo that essentially argues that her “white fragility” just adds up to a new white privilege, in a word, racism. The very fact of Di Angelo’s popularity (sadly) makes her vulnerable. The sense of look what a good white person I am. I feel ashamed, therefore I must be good…But the critique exists  with its own tropes of envy and cynicism. I’m not sure whether I want to be in the backlash or the backlash to the backlash. Why don’t we just accept what’s valuable in her work and let it go at that?

At one point in their conversation, Krista Tippet brings up John Lewis. His challenge to imagine what the new day looks  like. She asks her guests. For Menakem, it is to go to sleep and not have to worry that your door can be broken down and you shot. To simply live without fear of police intimidation and violence. That’s his place to start. Nothing more utopian than that.

We talk a lot about the definition of racism. Back in the ’70s, there was something called White Liberation training, whites seeking to free whites. We learned that racism and prejudice are not synonymous. Racism is prejudice plus power to enforce and enact that prejudice. So are all white people racists? One of us argues that ideas and policies can be racist, but not people. We do agree that while we all may not be racist, we all have benefitted from racism. In the end, policy is where we have to put our attention. 

I go out for  a late afternoon walk. Get caught in a thunderstorm. Lightning show. Torrential downpour. We’re allowed to hang out in Bean ’n’ Barley until the storm passes.