The fourth in a series of Learning Letters to the congregation of The
First Unitarian Church of Hamilton from Rev. Victoria Ingram
From Inclusion Winnipeg
Diversity is a fact.
Equity is an option.
Inclusion is an action.
Belonging is an outcome.
Inclusion Winnipeg is dedicated to making life better
for children and adults living with intellectual disabilities.
Why This Work?
I don’t think any of us would be surprised to hear that the world is changing. We are experiencing change every day. Many factors are coalescing to open our eyes to conditions in the world that we can no longer ignore, justify, or explain away. Things like food insecurity, homelessness, racial inequality, climate change – the list is long.
Underlying many of the world’s woes is a system of colonialization, Eurocentrism, and white supremacy – attitudes, beliefs, systems, and frames of mind hundreds of years old that need to be deconstructed, questioned, and changed. Why? Because we know that they are toxic to the environment, degrading to all people, and dangerous to the survival of this planet. And they represent a violation of our central UU values.
Solutions to the world’s problems aren’t going to be found in the thinking that created them. We need to embrace the wisdom and creativity in the world to find our way through. For that we need to embrace the worth, dignity, knowing, and talent of all of earth’s people, not just a particular culture’s strategy or point of view. We must understand and believe that the knowing, talent and input of all people is equally important, that there is wisdom and insight in many ways of knowing, and that the survival of all people and the earth matters.
Why Is This the Work of the Church?
Our UU Principles ask us to constantly be in faithful dialogue with issues of worth, equity, justice, and inclusion. With compassion, we are called to help those impacted by systems of inequality, oppression, and injustice with generosity and care. With a vision of solving problems at their core, not just treating the symptoms, we are called to address these systems through witness, advocacy and participation.
At its core, our faith demands we engage in this work. We need to be better partners with all the people of our communities. Because our church is a system that exists within larger systems, we have to look carefully at our own embrace of white supremacy characteristics. We need to develop the skills to step up AND step back if we are to work together, humbly and effectively. This will help us engage the knowledge and wisdom available across the wide, diverse, and interconnected world.
Learning our history, hearing the stories and experiences of our own community and those of the communities in which we exist, reflecting on our participation (conscious and unconscious) that has perpetuated systems of oppression, and seeking ways to interact and engage differently are all part of what we are here to do as a faith community. We have to prepare ourselves with the skills we need to expand who we cooperate with, who we listen to, and who we work with.
Where else can we share our stories with one another and speak our truth with trust and compassion? In what other place are we encouraged to engage in spiritual and personal questioning and development? Where else can we practice and fail, and practice some more until we grow our confidence and step out of our comfort zone? That’s why this is the work of the church. And now is the time.
What Does White Supremacy Mean?
White supremacy doesn’t mean that every white (identifying or identified) person has an easy life. Every life has challenges, sorrows, losses, and regrets. What white supremacy does is ensure that one’s white skin isn’t a contributing factor in making life difficult and may even have been a factor in creating social advantages – in education, earnings, political power, or access to services or supports.
White supremacy is a system that gives privilege, advantage, preference or value to those deemed “worthy” of said privilege simply because of their white skin and related social, racial, or cultural positions. These systems have existed for hundreds of years and have become the accepted norm. Therefore, we may not be fully aware of how we are influenced and impacted by white supremacy because it is something so familiar and accepted that we experience it as “just the way things are.”
Some of the characteristics of white supremacy culture include:
Perfectionism – to focus on how people or work is inadequate or lacking as opposed to stressing its worth
A Sense of Urgency – to encourage quick results, doing too much with too little too quickly
Defensiveness – to deflect threats, and resist criticism, change, or feedback
Quantity Over Quality – to believe progress means bigger, more, faster, better
Worship of the Written Word – to value documentation and written communication
Only One Right Way – to see and value only one type of solution or way of being do
Binary Thinking – to see things as either/or, right/wrong, rather than as both/and
Paternalism/Power – to hold the power to make decisions without including others
Fear of Open Conflict – to avoid disagreement or openly expressed anger
Individualism – to value the individual over community, and competition over
cooperation, delegation, or teamwork
Objectivity – to value logic, the rational and to discount process, emotion, the mystical,
or non-linear thinking
Right to Comfort – to believe the powerful have a right to emotional and psychological
comfort
From: The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture,
By Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun
I invite you to consider how each of these is present (or not) in your thinking, your world view, and your life. Consider how they are present in the organizations and systems you interact with, including the church. Then, consider the ways that these characteristics may stand in the way of racial justice.
Decolonization, White Supremacy, and Unlearning
The world as it is configured today exists because of colonialization which divided the land between Europe’s great powers of the past. In that process, the language, culture, land, resources, identity, and humanity were extracted from indigenous peoples. They were replaced with a Eurocentric ideology of life and of “right” living.
Indigenous people were “encouraged” (read bullied, beaten, bribed, broken) to give up their uniqueness and adapt, assimilate, and accommodate to colonial systems, languages, values, religions, governance, food, gender stereotypes, and ways of being. Enslaved black people and exploited people of color enabled the creation of great wealth for many in the white population. It has resulted in hundreds of years of trauma, pain, rage, suffering, and dehumanization. Dehumanizing others allows discrimination, violence, slavery, and exploitation to exist and flourish.
People have continued to fight back against their colonizers throughout history. They have been met with war and genocide to ensure their compliance with their oppressors. We are in an era when the push for decolonization is front and center on the world stage and in our consciousness. Systems of colonization are being called into account, and we have the opportunity to shift the world’s cultural dynamics.
While they say that the winners write the history, we are at a historical moment when we can rewrite the story. We can deconstruct the colonizing influence and break the bonds with the colonizer within each of us – that history, world view, and way of being that privileges white supremacy. Who among us has not at some time harboured racist thoughts? We can begin to rehumanize ourselves and question the “truths” that have plagued humankind and our planet for millennia.
This is not easy work. It can seem overwhelming to face the “Gordian Knot” of that embodies white supremacy in all aspects of our lives. We might feel afraid of what making changes will mean for our own well-being and quality of life.
A more helpful perspective is to consider that systems of oppression disadvantage don’t only disadvantage the oppressed. They place huge burdens on everyone, creating expectations, standards and norms that damage all human beings. They require that we ignore or unjustly blame others for the suffering caused by the dynamics of the system. They ask us to disconnect from our humanity, our compassion, interconnectedness, and suffering. By deconstructing colonialization and white supremacy both the oppressor and the oppressed become more free.
To question the status quo, to consider changing a system that we have always known can be risky. It requires us to become accountable for where we are, the harm that has been done, to acknowledge where we need to learn, and to work to make amends for the damage done. We have to forgive ourselves for our role in the system, while working to make needed change.
With love,
Rev. Victoria
RESOURCES:
Check out YouTube for videos on white supremacy culture, racism and anti-racism, and change by some of the following writers and social commentators:
- Ibram X Kendi – an author, professor, and anti-racist advocate/educator
- Ijeoma Oluo – a Nigerian-American author, formerly a technology professional
- Robin DiAngelo – a professor, author, consultant on issues of white supremacy and racism
Catch up on your reading by checking out the five finalists in Canada Reads. Each provides an insight into the experiences and wisdom of other people, cultures, and points of view:
The 2021 winner is:
JONNY APPLESEED, by Joshua Whitehead.
A self-ordained NDN Indigiqueer glitter queen, Jonny leaves the rez for Winnipeg, where he lives doing cybersex work. When his stepfather dies, he is called to return to the rez. He has a week to collect the money, the memories, and the meanings of his existence as he confronts the intersections of his life and loves.
Runners Up include:
Honey Butter Pig Bread, by Francesca Ekwoyasi
Nigerian immigrant Ekwoyasi’s debut novel tells the stories of twin sisters, Kehinde and Taiye, and their mother, Kambirinachi, who feels she was born an ogbanje, a spirit that plagues families with misfortune by dying in childhood to cause its mother misery. She believes she made the unnatural choice of staying alive to love her human family and now lives in fear of the consequences.
Hench, by Natalie Zina Walschots
Anna does boring things for terrible people because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. Working as a temp isn’t glamorous. When she finally gets a promising assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called “hero” leaves her badly injured. With no money and no mobility, with only her anger and internet research acumen, she discovers her suffering at the hands of a hero is far from unique. When people start listening to the story that her data tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks.
Two Trees Make a Forest, by Jessica J. Lee
A chance discovery of letters written by her immigrant grandfather leads Jessica J. Lee to her homeland, Taiwan where she seeks his story while traveling the land. She unearths parallels between the natural and human stories that shaped her family and their beloved island. Lee also turns a critical gaze upon colonialist explorers who mapped the land and named plants, relying on and often effacing the labour and knowledge of local communities.
The Midnight Bargain, by C.L. Polk
In a world reminiscent of Georgian England, where married women’s magic is taken from them to protect their unborn children, Beatrice must balance her desire to become the first full-fledged female magician against her duty to her family, who are in severe debt. The have traveled to the city for Bargaining Season, when young men and women of means socialize and negotiate to secure the best marriages, and she is expected to make an advantageous match.