A passing conversation:
Person A: “Did you notice there’s no big speakers this year?”
Person B: “Yes, it was a conscious decision to focus more on topics of interest to congregations.”
Me: “It’s kinda boring, though.”
Person C: “Well, the UU Christian group is washing feet in their booth [in the Exhibit Hall].”
Me: “Eww! Eww! Eww!”
Person B: “Wha–” (apparently not the response he expected from me)
Me: “Can you imagine the feet they’re going to be washing by the last day of GA?”
*****
Went to a workshop presented by “white allies,” white people who are supportive of anti-racism efforts and who are willing to work closely with people of color. Important work. Work that I fully support.
But I noticed a phenomenon that may partner Carol first pointed out to me in the world of environmental activism. Carol refers to it as “shaking a finger at you.” That involves making you, the listener, feel terrible about how you are contributing to ecological problems. Yes, we should all feel terrible about being dependent on fossil fuels and over consumption and so on, but what Carol points out is that that kind of feeling cause many people to give up on trying solve ecological problems. Much of Carol’s work has been to help people to enjoy solving ecological problems, because that way, they might actually do the work. You might call this approach “social marketing.”
This came to mind in this white allies presentation. Everything they said was true, and everything they said made me feel terrible about racism, overwhelmed by racism, shamed by racism. I’m enough of a Puritan to believe that it is wholesome for white people to feel terrible, overwhelmed, and shamed by consciousness of the sin of racism; but I’m also honest enough with myself to admit that feeling that way makes me less likely to engage in anti-racist work.
Speaking as a former salesman, we religious liberals could stand to do a little more in the way of social marketing. We might get more done.
*****
Another visit to the Exhibit Hall, mostly to drop in and see the folks at Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF) booth — I used to work at CLF, and I wanted to catch up with them. Long talk with Lorraine, who is heading off on a well-deserved sabbatical, traveling up and down the West coast with her husband. Jane was not at the booth, so I didn’t get a chance to say hi to her — but then, that’s what happens at General Assembly, you don’t see half the people you hoped to see.
On the way to the CLF booth, I unexpectedly ran into Megan. She has just graduated from college, and is heading off to teach elementary school in New York City. She’ll be living and working in Brooklyn. Public education has long been a central concern for Unitarian Universalists, so I’m always excited when young adult Unitarian Universalists become teachers.
And I talked to several other people, until I felt refreshed enough to come back to the webworkers room and finish writing up the stories I covered this morning.
Someone reported a comment similar to yours to the Allies email list. I appreciate it, because, stupid me, I was bummed and wasn’t aware exactly why. I’m not new at anti-racism either. I can’t be very supportive of others when I’m so bummed. I think it would be a good idea to take a different tact. We’re a brand new organization, though, so don’t take that as how we’re expecting to communicate with all our congregations about it. Mine had a great Jubilee World weekend that was very empowering even though we did talk about white privilege and the history of racism. It can be done.
BTW, thanks for volunteering with the web team. I need to do that one of these years. In the mean time, I appreciate all the work everyone does and I send links to the site to many others.
I am almost completely turned off by the way we do anti-racism/anti-oppression work, to the point where I feel almost completely helpless in doing any of the work – not to mention mystified as to what “the work” really is or where I fit into the whole picture. There has to be a better way.
Check out Wendy Ewald’s work in Black Self/White Self. Pretty remarkable, and it comes
from children.
Jess — Jean is right, check out Wendy Ewald — the book of Ewald’s I have is I Wanna Take Me a Picture, and tells how to do some pretty stunning anti-racism work with children.
Dan
Joyce — I want to be sure to emphasize that it’s not just your group — it’s liberalism in general. When the religious right, and when the political right, mock us for self-flagellation, they’re right on target. One of the big things hurting the folks fighting global warming right now, for instance, is the fact that global warming is being presented in a finger-shaking manner: “Bad us! Bad, bad us! We’re wrecking the world!” [sound of speaker zipping up hair shirt]. This kind of thing is happening throughout religious liberalism and throughout political liberalism.
I used to be in sales, and I learned that you need to tell people what they’re going to get for their money — if they spend the money, how will it immediately benefit their lives? We used to talk about “features and benefits.” For white folks, what are the immediate features and benfits of anti-racism work? How will it satisfy them?
Having said that, one of my general rules for doing social justice work is to be clear what it is that I’m getting out of doing the work. If I’m clear about what I’m getting out of it (esp. if I have clear, articulated goals for myself), then it’s far easier to build trust with the people whose community your work is suppsoed to benefit. So when I worked as a carpenter, in 1993 my boss and I went to do rebuilding work in the Quad Cities after a big flood on the Mississippi River. We were clear what we were going to get out of it — my boss got a tax write-off and free advertsising in our home community, I got domething to put on my resume, and we both liked to do the work — so we found it real easy to build trust in the community we went to serve.
Anyway, thanks for giving me a chance to sound off on one of my favorite pet peeves.
Dan