Some strong words in this Huffington Post article, but worth a read. Racism, and the legacy of slavery, affects all of us. Which means we all need to seek to understand how other people are feeling, and be brave enough to ask ourselves: 'Could I be wrong about this?' This is harder if you don't perceive there is a problem. As the writer says: 'White people are in a position of power in this country because of racism. The question is: Are they brave enough to use that power to speak against the system that gave it to them?' Read the article here...
This article and quiz is from the US context, but most of the questions could be applied to our society in the UK. It's point is to show that "anti-Blackness is deeply rooted in American culture, extending far beyond the most egregious examples of racist aggression. Racism manifests in laws, in advertisements, in economic policy, in media portrayals, in criminal justice, and in general society. We have all been steeped in it, and that you as a person have been unaffected by it is highly unlikely."
The legacy of slavery is an issue that needs to be recognised and tackled by our whole society – the descendants of those who benefitted, and continue to do so, as well as those who suffered, and continue to do so. Are we prepared to admit that racism is not sustained by hate groups? It is sustained by "everyday, good-hearted people who do not realize how deep anti-Black biases can be planted in our minds and our culture." These questions may help us to reflect more deeply. This article in Premier Christianity magazine explores how the majority of UK churches are split on racial lines and asks: "Can we re-unite a segregated Church?" While there are a few notable exceptions, today's situation of most churches and Christian Festivals being mono- rather than multi-cultural is a legacy of racist attitudes going back 70 years.
"The tragedy of the Church’s racial divide is that much of it could have been avoided were it not for the racist attitudes that often prevailed in Britain and its churches in the mid-20th century. The first Windrush generation of Caribbean immigrants to the UK in the late 40s and 50s brought their Christian faith with them. But they failed to find a welcome in British churches, frequently being told that they were not welcome to attend. So, they began their own churches." How much does the Church simply reflect wider society and how much does it demonstrate another, better way of relating to each other? If Martin Luther King's words “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning” apply here too, it would seem that there is work to be done on justice and reconciliation among the people of God. Read the full article here. An interesting article in today's Independent by Jame Moore is titled: "I used to love ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ – until I found out what it meant". With rugby's Six Nations tournament currently being played, this song will be sung by many, but the New York Times has suggested that "it might actually be grossly offensive to turn a spiritual from the slave-owning era in America into something as trivial as a sporting anthem." It consulted a number of academics about the use of the song and one commented that: "a group of people seemed to be free-associating with imagery largely disconnected from its history." Considering the lyrics are about the release of death for a slave who has been cruelly mis-treated, Moore reflects on a recent trip to the American South: "The ugly legacy of slavery was everywhere. Some of what we saw in museums about how it operated was truly horrifying. Set against that, the use of the song in a sporting context? Well it makes me shudder, anyway."
Read the full article here. A response to Ijeoma Oluo's article "White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves." by MJR's Nigel Pocock
This article seems to be an appeal to white Americans who have grown up in the southern US states to develop a self-understanding of their ‘interpretational reflexes’ of which they are blissfully unaware. While the author lists the pain which she has suffered as a Black woman writer, and this must, consciously or otherwise, be an attempt to evoke ‘empathy’ (imaginatively living in another’s shoes), it is not what she consciously appeals for. She clearly wants a level playing field, and sees the unconscious dominant white southern ideology as being the problem. She wants white southerners to come out of denial, and to face this ideology of white dominance. Psychologists like Yale Professor of Psychology Paul Bloom (2016) agree with our author. His argument (not accepted by all) is that empathy is usually directed not towards another ‘out-group’ but towards an in-group or individual with whom we share as much in common as possible. For this reason, empathy can be highly dangerous. It can lead to gross over-reaction over the death of (say) one person, with a completely disproportionate response, even leading to mass killings and violence. Research shows that greater empathy is correlated to greater harshness of punishment towards people seen as threats (this of course cuts both ways, black vs. white, white vs. black, and feeds the process known as ‘co-radicalisation’). The dominant ideology of the plantocratic élite was justified through ‘pluralistic ignorance’, a psychological mechanism where people may have doubts, but dare not share these doubts, lest they undermine the status quo; they therefore reinforce the dominant ideology in language and actions, even while festering doubts may be there. This dominant ideology maintained the flow of capital, expropriation of land, the planting of cotton, and the growth of southern slavery, all in lockstep between the American South and the Liverpool and Lancashire cotton mills, with UK government support (anyone not convinced of this, should read Sven Beckert’s great work, Empire of Cotton: A New History of Global Capitalism, which was recommended by Jim Walvin). How can people address the huge suffering that this ‘lockstep’ caused, both to the Southern slaves, and the Lancashire mill workers? Bloom says that no-one can live with empathy, without burnout, even if this empathy is pro-social as regards an out-group. He recommends a rational compassion. Compassion is the projection outwards of loving thoughts (not inwards towards another’s suffering, which is empathy). Research studies shows that compassion leads to greater motivation to help, while empathy brings sadness and pain. Bloom acknowledges that (say) empathy drove and awakened the antislavery campaign, for example the Brooks motif), but that compassion is (psychosocially, for example Thomas Winterbottom’s medical work in Sierra Leone) a better way . . . Would this surprise our author? Probably not, for it seems that this is what she has in view. What is the significance of this, for MJR, if Bloom is right? Films like ‘Twelve Years a Slave’, and the new version of ‘Roots’ might unavoidably focus too much on the violence and therefore the empathy aspect, rather than compassion. This suggests the need for a more subtle approach, rather than hitting people with the most painful images conceivable. How can love, especially agapē love, be encouraged? The New Testament has four words for ‘love’: agapē, eros, storgē, and philein, with the latter two being concerned with the in-group, eros with sexuality, and agapē with obedience to God, not empathy, per se. We are called to love others, even people very different, even enemies, because that was modelled by Jesus, and this is what God wants! ‘Compassion’, in this use, seems to be pretty much synonymous with agapē type love. (Read Ijeoma Olou's article here.) This powerful article by Ijeoma Oluo is titled: "White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves." Though a reflection on US society, its basic argument rings true for the UK as well: that the "dominant culture does not have to see itself to survive because culture will shift to fit its needs. This shift is cheaper and easier when you don’t look too closely at how it’s being accomplished..." Ignorance of their own culture and history on the part of white people is a requirement to ensure things continue as they are. Black people can see what white people cannot, namely: "how much of the legacy of slavery and brutality [is] still lodged deep in your bones."
If you can appreciate the passion behind the occasional strong language, have a read, and a good think. If you do, pray as well. We know that the legacy of slavery affects everyone, but maybe MJR needs to be widening its focus to include those who are further away from recognising this to be the case, and stand to lose by doing so. White people. As the world watches the transition from America's first black president to one that has been supported and welcomed by many far-right and racist groups, there was a timely reminder this week of Barack Obama's reaction to the church shootings in Charleston.
On 26 June 2015, a 21 year-old white supremacist entered Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, joined a prayer meeting and then murdered 9 of the members present, including the pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney. Obama's moving tribute reflected his own deep Christian faith, and described the power of God's redemptive grace, even in the worst of situations (at one point he led the congregation in a verse of 'Amazing Grace'). He also referred to the legacy of slavery as a root of the hatred behind the tragedy. "For too long, we’ve been blind to the way past injustices continue to shape the present." "Maybe we now realise the way racial bias can infect us even when we don't realise it, so that we're guarding against not just racial slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal. So that we search our hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote. By recognising our common humanity by treating every child as important, regardless of the colour of their skin or the station into which they were born, and to do what’s necessary to make opportunity real for every American – by doing that, we express God’s grace." Read the full text of Obama's speech. Yesterday's Observer Editorial, was entitled: "The Observer's view on Britain's role in the slave trade". It begins: "Nearly two centuries after slavery was abolished, this country has still not fully acknowledged the shameful part it played. We must delay no longer."
Compared with the US experience, our British slaves were thousands of miles away, meaning the terrible cost of the wealth they generated, and which we still benefit from, has been all too easily forgotten. But the legacy is still there to be recognised, here in Britain, abroad in our former colonies where the scars are deep, and globally. Devoid of the historical context of our role in slavery "our international responsibilities cannot be understood ... They are derived not just from the deep injustice of the structural inequalities that divide global north from global south but from the fact that in the past Britain has helped create those very inequalities." Read the full article “If you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white.
If you’re a white, working-class boy, you’re less likely than anybody else in Britain to go to university.” These were the statements of the new Prime Minister Theresa May outside number 10 Downing Street on the day of her appointment. These are issues that are being researched by the Movement for Justice and Reconciliation. We recognise them as legacies of colonial slavery and industrial exploitation so we welcome the fact that we have a Prime Minister who at least recognises some of the injustices that are embedded in our unequal society. We welcome the statement by Prime Minister Theresa May, “The Government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few but by yours.” It is our hope that the new Government will not only recognise the issues of injustice in the nation but will actively initiate policies that will result in systemic change to deal with these injustices. MJR pledge support for all measures that will actually change the structures of society in a way that will provide equal opportunity for those who have, for too long, been marginalised in our nation. In November 2016 we will be publishing the results of a research programme that deals with some of the issues recognised by Mrs May which we hope will make a substantive contribution to understanding these issues and providing a basis for dealing with them. Read the letter to Mrs May from MJR. The recent referendum result has generated a lot of heat, anger and confusion. By voting Leave, the white working classes have taken the opportunity to hit back at a political system that they feel has betrayed them. As Ed Cox of IPPR said: “The people have spoken but in the North they have shouted”. These are people who have long felt ignored and used - most recently to bear the brunt of cuts to services and jobs to get the country out of a recession while those who caused it escaped punishment. One of the many articles written in response to Brexit says: "Westminster may have underestimated how very much it is hated by those to whom mainstream politics have not spoken in generations." In "huge areas of post-industrial decline and neglect" people are "more furious than Cameron and his ilk could possibly understand." The legacy of industrial oppression is alive and well and continuing to ignore it is to continue an injustice. The article is a bit heat-of-the-moment and, while some of it is questionable, it is still a provocative read. At one point it says: "I want to wake up tomorrow in a country ... where we have dealt like adults with the embarrassing fact that we once conquered half the world, instead of yearning for a time when our glory was stolen from enslaved people a convenient ocean away and large parts of the map were the gentle pink of blood in the water." The reference to Empire and enslaved people is intentional and interesting. Part of the legacy that MJR is seeking to address is the huge generation of wealth for some on the backs (literally) of the many who comprised the two human engines of the Industrial Revolution: the slaves, and the mill, mine and factory workers. That wealth and the inequality and cruelty behind how it was created became major building blocks of our modern economy and class-conscious society. It will take a lot of work for it to be recognised, let alone addressed, but maybe a window of opportunity has opened. Paul Keeble
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