Anti-Racism Moment 7/17/21 - Sarah Pearson

Anti Racism Moment 7/17/21

 

Critical Race Theory.  Most of us first heard this term a fewmonths ago.  We understand that it is a framework used in academia through which race and racism are viewed as embedded in U.S. Laws and Policies. 

We also are aware that this term has become the new boogeyman of the right.  It is being used as a catch-all term to describe what are actually diversity and anti-racism initiativesin K through 12 schools, many begun in response to George Floyd’s murder. 

But Parents from Virginia to Texas, from Connecticut to Missouri, have overwhelmed PTA meetings and challenged school boards and educators with fury over their teaching of this“critical race theory”.  Are they simply misguided and unaware that critical race theory is not present in K12 education? Will this “movement” clear up once they understand that?

No.    These mostly white parents are reacting to the teaching of the truth, to the addressing of racism.  They are not reacting to something imaginary, they are just calling it by the wrong name. 

The problem is that this reactionary parent movement is having real consequences.

5 states have now passed laws that limit how teachers can address “divisive” concepts, like racism.  22 states have proposals on the table that would limit how schools can talk about race.   White Voter’s net support for Black Lives Matter reached an all-time high in June of 2020 with those in support being 10% higher than those in opposition, but now, that figure has flipped, with 10% more opposing than supporting BLM.

Rydell Harrison, who is black, was hired as superintendent of schools in SW CT after the murder of George Floyd and was tasked with addressing racial inequity.  But as the “critical race theory” protests bloomed this year, he was one of many educators relentlessly targeted by parents and his community, causing him to resign in June. 

Brittany Hogan, a black woman recently hired as a diversity coordinator in Rockwood, Missouri felt she had no choice but to resign after being violently threatened by local and national figures.

So it seems obvious that we are facing an intense backlash against an equity movement that was making great strides a year ago.   Why?  Is backlash of the proportion we are seeing inevitable?  What can we do to mitigate it so that the grassroots movement of Black Lives Matter can gain ground rather than lose it?

Anti-Racism Minute 7/4/2021 - Lauralee Carbone

 This is the article from which I extracted an Anti-Racism minute for the July 4, 2021 service:

Racism is the greatest threat to democracy today - The Fulcrum

Tyrone Grandison

June 15, 2020

Grandison is a co-chair of the Seattle Human Rights Commission, a political partner of the Truman National Security Project and board chairman of the Data-Driven Institute, a nonprofit that promotes data science to solve public health problems.

Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. All names you have heard in the past month. All Americans who deserve to live and breathe the values America was founded on. All human beings deserving the basic and common courtesies we publicly and externally promote. Unfortunately, they were not afforded the privileges that are extended to the average white American.

If you question that assertion, you likely have the privilege of never having to live your life in constant fear of how others react to you and what they may do to change your life instantly. You have the privilege of firmly believing the police force is present to serve and protect you. You have the privilege of being an individual — with your actions not prejudged by negative racial stereotypes and you not being seen as representatives of your entire race.

We are all patriots. We are all committed to vigorously supporting America and prepared to defend our democracy against its enemies and detractors. Right now, democracy's most formidable enemies and detractors are internal — people, policies and systems. Racism is the greatest threat to democracy today. It is time to live up to our patriotic beliefs and put in the work needed to make America a place where all people are equal.

As a white person, you can be unaware of the racist origins of the American police force. You can ignore the media proactively painting blacks as demonic, super-human, menacing, "more mature," lazy and less deserving of compassion and empathy. You don't get to experience the systems and the networks that exclude the very people who are a bedrock of American prosperity.

You can be unaware of the laws and institutions that have forced generations of servitude, poverty, inequality and despair. You can be blissfully unaware of white Americans breaking every treaty they signed with American Indians, Mexicans and Africans in the pursuit of Manifest Destiny. You can ignore the sadness and sorrow of the genocides — local and global — executed in your name. You can wrap yourself in the flag and recite the talking points that make you feel good about yourself and your fanciful role in the world.

And you can live each day blissfully unaware that a chance encounter may be your last.

What about the American dream for the Indians slaughtered for the land we walk on? What about the American dream for the black slaves that were beaten and brutalized to make your money and deliver your creature comforts? What about the American dream for the Asian immigrants you imprisoned, stole from and demonized? What about the American dream for Latin Americans you put in cages, dehumanize and subject to human trafficking and abuse?

Our country is our values. The Declaration of Independence declares: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The schizophrenia and hypocrisy of the American experiment rests in the series of lies that we learn as history, which have been embedded into the fabric of everyday life through laws and systems.

It is clear that views of equality in 1776 were aspirational and applied only to white men. It is clear that Indians and the enslaved were "othered" and denied those three unalienable rights. But, approaching 250 years later, the idea of America and the reality of America are still miles apart.

It is now time to address this original sin. It was easy — and remains so — for our government to count a slave as three-fifths of a man, deny veterans' benefits to black and brown soldiers, create Jim Crow laws, institutionalize redlining and incentivize the overseeing of black bodies but the protection of white ones. Now it is squarely the responsibility of white people to collaborate with minority groups to transform the current state of affairs into equitable systems, policies and networks that finally live up to our founding principles.

Those in power are the ones who need to affect change. The powerless can initiate, ignite and press for change, but the powerful control the levers of the system.

As an American, you owe this to every single "other" — in other words, not a white person — to be better, and do better, to finally create a more perfect union.

The system is not broken. It was designed this way. For decades, many black and brown people have raised their voices about the oppression they experience. Many of them have mobilized, identified the ideas that need work, and provided recommendations on what needs to be done.

How do you help? How do you stop America from devolving into one of the nations that it routinely destabilizes? How do you create a better world for you and your kids, and their kids?

First, you must believe and defend your black friends and colleagues. Silence means you are on the side of the oppressor. March towards your path of being anti-racist. In an ecosystem that has racism as a cornerstone, being non-racist is not enough. You must speak up, stand up and risk something to keep this great representative democracy called America.

Second, you must overhaul the institutions that multiply and reinforce the racist ideals of our forebears. It is time to overhaul the justice system, the financial system, the police system, the health care system, the prison system, the education system and the housing system — for starters. What steps can you take to make those systems anti-racist? Should asset forfeiture be examined? Should funding sources for the police be revamped? Should police unions be reformed? Should "broken window" policing be stamped out? Look deeply. Pick your favorite issue in your favorite system or institution.

Third, focus on policy and policymakers. It is time to elect officials who align with our principles and then write laws creating this equitable and just society we all deserve. This applies to everyone — whether white, black, brown or Asian.

It is time to mobilize to elect and create the country and society we all desire and deserve.