Be Cool, Not a Huge Asshole

This post is a bit of an addendum to the last one, There's Room for Everyone Who Believes There's Room for Everyone. Some of what follows I even meant to include in that post, I just lost track of it as I was compiling everything. The theme, borrowed from one of the included essays:

The story isn’t going to be about one type of people all the time, and that type won’t always be the ones telling it. The story needs to be about all of us.

This first article does an amazing job of describing how our culture views White as the universal, default standard of normal and acceptable, and anything else as inferior.

I'm Black But Look White. Here Are The Horrible Things White People Feel Safe Telling Me.

In every instance where I’ve encountered racist rhetoric, I have made it my business to speak up. I have told (or reminded) these people that I am Black. I have told them my family’s story. And I have done whatever I could to educate them about the systems of racism that exist in this country.

Sometimes they say: “But you’re different!” Then I ask them if other Black folks they know are also “different.” When they say yes, I ask them: “How are all the Black people you know ‘different’? When are you going to realize that we are not different? That you have been misled into believing that Black people are somehow bad, and that what you see with your own eyes ― these Black people you know, and know are not different or bad ― are good people like you?”

And that floors them.

There is a purposeful and strategic force dedicated to segregation and racism. There are people who benefit from Black people and white people remaining in conflict. When people of different races live together and truly want to know and understand each other, it is harmonious. But when races are separated, it breeds suspicion and distrust. It becomes “us versus them,” and it weakens us as a nation.

Living as a Black woman who looks white has allowed me to experience white privilege firsthand. Because people assume I am white, it is assumed I am honest, smart and trustworthy. Many times I have thought to myself: If I looked Black, how would these people treat me? And I have known, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would be treated with disdain or suspicion, or as a criminal. I know in many instances that if I looked Black, the police would have been called to question me. And this sickens and angers me. How many of our Black brothers and sisters have had the police called on them simply for the act of living their lives?

As a nation, we need to stop this. The best way to achieve change is to accept and learn about our racist past and the injustices visited upon our Black citizens. It’s deeply concerning that people are protesting the possibility of our country’s history being accurately taught in schools. The only way for America to be great is to accept all of our citizens at face value, and the only way to do that is to understand our intertwined roots ― our history and all the pain and tragedy that exists within it ― and face this, together, head-on.

When are you going to realize that we are not different? And even when they are different, those differences don't make them in any way wrong, lesser, or inferior. When people of different races live together and truly want to know and understand each other, it is harmonious.

Because people assume I am white, it is assumed I am honest, smart and trustworthy. Many times I have thought to myself: If I looked Black, how would these people treat me? And I have known, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would be treated with disdain or suspicion, or as a criminal.

And even when they are different, those differences don't make them in any way wrong, lesser, or inferior.

Lunarbaboon - Either

The world is filled with people that are different than you. You can either be cool and accept them for who they are or you can be a huge asshole about it.

Be cool, not a huge asshole.

This article rightfully belongs in a post from earlier in the month, Would You Trust Me? I'd Trust Me.

The Real Source of America’s Rising Rage

I’ve been spending considerable time digging into the source of our collective rage, and the answer to this question is trickier than most people think. For starters, any good answer has to fit the timeline of when our national temper tantrum began—roughly around the year 2000. The answer also has to be true: That is, it needs to be a genuine change from past behavior—maybe an inflection point or a sudden acceleration. Once you put those two things together, the number of candidates plummets. . . . 

There are a few things that have notably changed for the worse. From a political standpoint, the critical one is trust in government. As we all know, trust in government plummeted during the ’60s and ’70s thanks to Vietnam and Watergate, and then flattened out for the next few decades.

From 1980 to 2001, trust stayed at roughly 40 percent except for a brief dip, during Bill Clinton’s first term, that was quickly regained. Then, right after 2001, trust began to plummet permanently. By 2019 it was down to 20 percent. . . . 

What accounts for this? . . . 

To find an answer, we need to look for things that (a) are politically salient and (b) have changed dramatically over the past two to three decades. The most obvious one is Fox News.

As anyone who’s watched Fox knows, its fundamental message is rage at what liberals are doing to our country. Over the years the specific message has changed with the times—from terrorism to open borders to Benghazi to Christian cake bakers to critical race theory—but it’s always about what liberal politicians are doing to cripple America, usually with a large dose of thinly veiled racism to give it emotional heft. . . . 

To an extent that many people still don’t recognize, Fox News is a grinding, daily cesspool of white grievance, mistrust of deep-state government, and a belief that liberals are literally trying to destroy the country out of sheer malice. Facebook and other social media outlets might have made this worse over the past few years—partly by acting as a sort of early warning system for new outrages bubbling up from the grassroots that Fox anchors can draw from—but Fox News remains the wellspring. . . . 

The Fox pipeline is pretty simple. Fox News stokes a constant sense of outrage among its base of viewers, largely by highlighting narratives of white resentment and threats to Christianity. This in turn forces Republican politicians to follow suit. It’s a positive feedback loop that has no obvious braking system, and it’s already radicalized the conservative base so much that most Republicans literally believe that elections are being stolen and democracy is all but dead if they don’t take extreme action. . . . 

The evidence is pretty clear: . . . it’s Fox News that’s set the country ablaze.

Our culture of constant outrage stems from lack of trust in the government--and difference--and all signs point to Fox. Fox News is a grinding, daily cesspool of white grievance, mistrust of deep-state government, and a belief that liberals are literally trying to destroy the country out of sheer malice.

And this one goes back a month to my last take on religion, The Details Don't Matter.

Marianne Kunkel

REVERENCE

My son … thou didst forsake the ministry, and did go over into the land of Siron among the borders of the Lamanites, after the harlot Isabel.

—Alma 39:3, The Book of Mormon

To runners, a trail is church.

I heard a pastor say church is its people.

My father prays when he sees a rare finch.

Every Sunday, my teenage nieces cuddle

in bed with their parents, watch TV,

call this church.

Lazy Sunday morning sex can feel sacred.

My husband and I watch Mr. Rogers

with a box of Kleenex.

Why is Mr. McFeely

so frenzied when Mr. Rogers

has the much harder job

preaching love?

My mother used to bake two

pillowy loaves of white bread

to take to Mormon church

for communion.

Men gingerly tore the loaves.

Everyone ate, licking their lips.

Some joked her bread was why

they came. Is bread church?

I first entered a Quaker chapel

and spun around and around,

never finding a pulpit.

Barely lifting her blouse

my mother quietly breastfed

my toddler brother in a pew

until an older man complained.

What was his definition of church?

In The Book of Mormon, only six women

have names, the rest lumped

into shapeless categories of wives,

mothers, queens or harlots.

The harlot Isabel must have been

fairly important to get a name,

though the 500-page book mentions her

only once.

Isabel, how many left their lives

to follow you?

A bored son in a long line of prophets

walked away from religious study

to sprawl underneath your bare body.

Your hair shimmering like stained glass,

your nipples as erect as steeples,

you were his teacher, in charge,

shushing him if he spoke.

Let church trail off and it sounds

like shhhh.

—from Rattle #73, Fall 2021

Even when others are different, those differences don't make them in any way wrong, lesser, or inferior. Be cool, not a huge asshole.