“I had been pushed around all my life and felt at this moment that I couldn’t take it anymore.”— Rosa Parks, on refusing to give up her seat on a bus in 1955
I am primarily a member of the Caucasian group of humanity, characterized by a “white” complexion. I am also about 1/16 Native American Indian, but that does not characterize my experience within the American society to the extent that my European ancestry does. This genetic background predisposes me to being a member of the so-called “white privilege” power club, of which I was totally unconscious to for the majority of my life. Sometimes just talking about, or writing about, our unconscious participation in racism and other forms of hatred can be helpful, and can point us to new directions to take towards a more collective healing approach. Once problems are elevated from the unconsciousness to the conscious, we can make an active engagement with the issues, and thus bring the full expression of our spiritual and emotional intelligence to bear on these very difficult perceptual predispositions.
Being a member of the “white race” does not inherently make me an ignorant, or an evil man. Yet, the social dynamics of our cultural past tend to support judgement against all other races not of our own, as well as judging against all people who also do not share in our religious or philosophical inclinations. Since 1987, I have become much more conscious of the tendencies of our culture to remain in denial of our collective tendencies towards racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and other forms of institutionalized hatred which are totally, though many times unconsciously, embedded within our shared cultural and verbal experience. As time has progressed, I have evolved, and I have made conscious contact with the vast matrix, or array, of shared unfarir and negative judgements and hatreds against our beautiful, innocent, but different fellow members of our world
Yes, let’s make America great again. Oh, by the way, when was America ever truly great in love, compassion, equality, and Spirit? Definitely not while the white oppressors became the dominant force on this continent, beginning in the 17th century.By the way, some of my Native American Indian ancestors engaged in slave trading, especially in northern California, so oppression and evil are probably a lot more universal qualities of the human experience than we care to believe in.
Racism is a form of institutionalized hatred. What I mean by the term institutionalized is that racism, like its sponsor, white supremacy, is so much of a part of our collective memory and history that even though that it is ubiquitous, it is a rarely acknowledged phenomenon. It’s recognition brings discomfort in the dominant white racial group when it finally starts to recognize its own culpability. Its toxic principles continue to exist and remain energized as long as it remains unexamined under the surface of all of the dominant/white race’s thoughts and feelings. Whole groups of people are treated unfairly because of their race, and that becomes normalized within members of the racially privileged members of organizations or the citizens of entire countries.
Our bodies have institutionalized cells that we call antibodies, that automatically attack all cells that our immune system does not recognize as being part of our natural cellular constitution. Our culture has its own equivalent in our collective consciousness, with racism becoming wayward, self-destructive antibodies-judging and condemning all who do not conform to its understanding as to who is “us” versus who is “them”. When a body’s immune system attacks healthy cells, we call it a disease. When a culture’s immune system indiscriminately attacks someone not of the “in” group, we call that racism. And, this is a most powerful and destructive social, economic, physiological, and spiritual disease.
I don’t think reading another book written by yet another spiritual master, Christian or non-religious, steeped in “white privilege” is going to get the job done, as far as healing our world of the effects of racism. Looking to white Evangelical Christianity for solutions towards racism is identical to looking to unrepentant arsonists for help in fighting forest fires. And looking to teachers who claim that we all just need to meditate more, or just be more present in the “now”, is equivalent to sticking our spiritual heads in the sand. Hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil means
HEAL NO EVIL
Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil leads to continued propagation of evil
I have written a few books about toxic masculinity, toxic capitalism, and toxic religion, and they just get poo-pooed by those supposedly in the “spiritual know”. That is why nothing ever changes, the people that many of us look up to, and worship, keep us stuck in our prejudices, inaction, and deadly silence in the face of ignorance and evil. Those who proclaim that liberation is at hand forget that we must see the matrix of unconsciousness that guides and controls us, before we can consciously and completely let it go, and see into whatever Infinity has to offer to us in this moment.
How do you reunite a spiritually and racially splintered country?
Here is what Mike Pence, the former Vice President, stated:
Pence, a devout Christian of the born-again stripe, calmly replied that he would orient the country toward God and away from “voices of division” demanding transformational change — or, in his words, talking “too much” about systemic racism. “The faith community, I believe, has before and can again pay an enormously important role in healing the divide in our country,” Pence said to the clergy and congregants seated around him. What doesn’t help, he volunteered, is “this talk of institutional bias, or racism, within law enforcement.” And Pence is the moderate voice within our present administration!
Former President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said Wednesday that he doesn’t regard “systemic racism” as a problem in the U.S. Donald Trump’s main adviser and often times speech writer, Stephen Miller, is a white nationalist and a racist of the first order, and he will continue to bring hatred to the national discussion. Nobody should expect any kind of structural changes in regards to our national problem of institutionalized racism for a long time to come.
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Implicit bias and unconscious discrimination against others is an autonomic response, and shields the practitioner from their own malfeasance of attitude and behavior. This is the unconscious knowledge component which supports and advises the common knowledge game-. Those that believe that they are the chosen of God, to the diminishment and detriment of others of differing racial, ethnic, or national origin, are promoters and perpetrators of the biggest , most heinous lie ever told. We all are either the chosen of God, or none of us are. White supremacist pseudo-Christians use their filiality to Judaism through the Jewish prophet Jesus to justify their illusions of importance and placement in the eyes of their own mistaken understanding of the divine energy of our universe.
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“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” ― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven
It is time to exit our caverns and see our world as it is and how it could be, all white dominated cultures from around the world who continue to unfairly prosecute, and persecute, members of other races and ethnicity.. .
For faith communities, reparations must not be only an effort to compensate for past harms, they must also chart a pathway to a just future. Otherwise, reparations become little more than a salve for white guilt while the sin of white supremacy continues to thrive.
– Kelly Brown Douglas, A Christian Call for Reparations
We all must develop the courage to not only recognize evil/ignorance wherever it might appear, we must confront it, both within ourselves, and within our world, and challenge it, and keep challenging it, until it becomes dislodged, and love and understanding can be revealed.
Toxic men have their gun in one hand, their penis in the other hand, and no room for a bible, let alone understanding of its real message.
There are so many “Hank Williams Jr.” types, however (even is disguise within our own hearts and minds) that our work will never be completed. Do not despair, Spirit is with us until the end.There remains a lot of work to do, but there is a lot of gain for all of us.
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Punch A Nazi Sign at June 2018 Portland, Oregon Rally for Immigrants and their families
Punch A Nazi Sign at June 2018 Portland, Oregon Rally for Immigrants and their families -
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The Far Side Wait, Wait, We don’t have to be just sheep
The Far Side Wait, Wait, We don’t have to be just sheep
We must be prepared to “leave the flock”, and to “punch a Nazi”, at least figuratively speaking, if the situation warrants it. Otherwise, we remain only lemmings that follow others, perhaps even off of the cliffs of rationality and love.
Yes, I finally stopped following other politicized religious minions.
“We have to be willing to lay our lives on the line for our friends, and make whatever sacrifice that is necessary to protect each other from danger!”—Bill Y, New York City
I would now like to recount a short story that I have taken from one of my books, that has a great message embedded within it.
I began working with the US Postal Service in 1975, first as a swing-shift clerk on a letter sorting machine. Concurrently, during the daytime, I attempted to finish two engineering degrees, in both electrical and computer engineering, at the University of Portland. After I left school to devote more of my life to the care of my mentally ill wife, as well as to my own addictions and self-destructive intentions, I committed to work with the USPS. Eventually, in 1980, I accepted a promotion into the maintentance department. Because of my education with electrical, electronic, and computer engineering (which placed me well ahead of most of my peers in theoretical expertise), this caused some concern among some co-workers. More than one co-worker thought that I might try to parlay this education into a pogo stick to jump over their place on the seniority roster, but that never happened.
The national training center for electronic technicians for the US Postal Service was located in Oklahoma, on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. I was sent several times over a four year period, from 1980-1984, to Norman, Oklahoma for appropriate and necessary training. In 1980, I was sent to Norman for my first three week training experience on troubleshooting and repairing their letter sorting equipment, which I was quite familiar with through my clerical experience. This was the first time that I had ever flown on an airplane, on Continental Airlines, and it was my first great adventure by myself away from home. I stayed in the University of Oklahoma’s student dormitory, which was shared with the USPS during the summer months for all students.
My roommate was Bill Y of New York City, who also was a maintenance mechanic/electrician from that area. I had never spent any time sharing a room with any human being in my life, save my family, and my wife, who I was now legally separated from. So here we were, Bill and I, sharing a common bathroom and spiritual and emotional space. He happened to be a black man, and he is the first black person I ever had any relationship with, other than through basketball adventures on outdoor ball courts throughout the north Portland areas that I used to engage in. Bill was damaged goods, being a veteran of Vietnam, and still suffering from some very concerning aggressive tendencies and attitudes. Bill always had a pint of liquor in his drawer, and would take libations frequently. But, somehow, he held himself together.
One Saturday evening, six of us Post Office Maintenance Trainees drove a substantial distance from Norman to a nationally famous bar in Oklahoma City. There were five African-Americans, including my roommate Bill, and Jermaine, from New Jersey (who had a huge bag of weed that he just grabbed into and freely distributed to all who liked to partake) and me, the one pale-faced party warrior. I loved being with these guys, and I have never experienced more camaraderie and mutual respect than by running with this group of men. There was a bonding that I just did not understand, but I later learned one of the fundamental tenets of their group energy.
When we arrived, the parking lot was almost full. It was a huge club, with all sorts of action going on outside, and, I was to see, inside as well. We found a decent parking spot, and all walked up to the door together. Bill led the way, and the greeter held us all up, because of me. They did not allow “white people” into their place. Bill explained to the man that I was part of their team, and I was not just any “white person”. The door man told Bill that he would have to register me with the club, and so I was signed in, with the other five people that were with me signing the same paper, vouching for me. I was told that I was not to dance with any of the black girls, and to keep with my group so as to keep the peace. The place had several hundred black people partying and carrying on, and I got more than my share of searching, and some times, dirty looks. Somehow I kept my cool. Paranoia would not have helped me that evening. I settled in eventually, and enjoyed a couple of strong drinks. Bill went outside, to share a joint with Jermaine, while the rest of us hung out on one side of the dance floor, enjoying the music, laughing, and having a good time.
Suddenly, Bill came back in, with Jermaine in tow, and started waving his gun around in the air. He started yelling very loudly, proclaiming
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt here!
Someone has blocked our car in, and unless they moved their car immediately, someone was going to get hurt.“
My other three friends surrounded me, and we all started walking to the door, with the express intention of leaving without anybody slowing us down. A parting of the crowd, like Moses with the Red Sea, occurred, and we made it outside, awaiting the offending driver to move his vehicle. Two angry looking dudes came outside, with a following entourage of onlookers, and moved the car, all the while with Bill still waving his firearm in the air.
After the offending car was moved, we all piled into the rental car, and Bill assumed the driver seat, laying the gun in his lap. We tore out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell, and we all watched to make sure that we were not followed. Bill later expressed one of his fundamental values:
“We have to be willing to lay our lives on the line for our friends, and make whatever sacrifice that is necessary to protect each other from danger!”
I began to really understand why I had never felt so safe and protected while with this group of men. This was the civilian equivalent of a small military squad in a war zone, which, apparently, Bill still felt that he was in. I have never felt this way with any other group of people in my life. It was exhilarating, fun, bonding, challenging, hair-raising, and enlightening to run with this crew for three solid weeks. I was someone I had never been before, respected, accepted, and honored as being a part of a family, where we were accountable for each others’ success and safety. I was accepted into the field of human energy where I was unconditionally accepted as a brother, and a friend. The color of my skin did not matter, as long as I shared in the energy, and did not bring judgement with me.
I never forgot the challenging fact that many of my dark skinned brothers and sisters feel like they are victims of a multi-generational war against themselves, and their race, heritage, and culture. Though I am not a conscious racist, I share in a collective white consciousness that has persecuted, judged, and marginalized all races not white, since the whites have been the predominate, ruling class of individuals within society.
My three week experience with Bill was sometimes like being on patrol in Nam, without the jungles and uniforms. Yet, Bill, like most of his black community, had been on patrol together long before the advent of the Viet Nam war. Bill had adjusted as best he could to the constant oppression of his life by the white cultural power brokers as well as the limited opportunities given to him from our culture of white privilege. Our culture continuously speaks out of two sides of its collective mouth: one side promotes the idea that we are all equal, yet the other side promotes hatred and indifference to all non-whites, and the denial of equal opportunity. Bill’s innate goodness and internal resourcefulness had never been fully recognized or acknowledged by our broken culture, and he had compensated for that by forming self-protecting mechanisms that helped him to try to feel better about himself, and to feel more in control, even while things beyond his immediate reach really were out of control. He, like his family and friends, knew all too well what a life “on patrol” felt like.
Once I became an electrician with IBEW local 48, I continued to meet and befriend many members of all races and heritages. I worked to treat all people fairly throughout my career, yet I know that, collectively, racism continues, and is built into the very fabric of the American white consciousness. I worked with a least two bosses who blatantly discriminated against all non-white workers, as well as against female workers.
While I was an apprentice, I worked with a “Christian” man who emotionally abused those who worked under him. One memorable story was when a young black woman working as a new apprentice came to work with us at a Nabisco plant in NE Portland. There was a basement room where fat was processed, and it was at least 110 degrees F. It was a hot, greasy, and dangerous work setting, and the work was usually reserved for journeyman electricians. John C. instead assigned a disgusting job in the fat room to the new apprentice. He called it “her trial by fire”. Yet, there were over a dozen other better trained and prepared apprentices, as well as fifteen journeyman qualified to handle the assignment. The apprentice quit the apprenticeship program within two days, creating a huge storm within our Local 48, while greatly distressing Glenn P, the second in command at Oregon Electric Group. OEG desperately needed both women, and workers of color, to help them qualify for government contracts. Glenn confronted John about the work assignment, knowing that this was a unacceptable display of a callous, heartless judgement against the potential of this human being. But, it was too late, as a much desired employee had quit, and did not want to return to the apprenticeship program, because she knew that the persecution would continue in other forms.
Another time I worked on a project at PCC Sylvania Campus, for a now defunct company called Sutherland Electric. Rich R was the general foreman, and I answered directly to him, even though I was still an apprentice. We spent many hours together, and Rich would make sure that I got the benefit of his experience and knowledge wherever possible. Once a man with American Indian background came to work with us, and Rich was not friendly or helpful to this man. I was concerned about this, and I knew that I needed to have a capable co-worker privy to the same support that I was receiving. Rich stated:
“We defeated those damned Indians in the 19th century. They should only expect the crumbs that we toss their way, because we are the victors!”
I was appalled and disgusted, and the part of me that is an American Indian, which Rich did not know about, started on my own personal warpath with Rich. Yet, I could not communicate my displeasure with Rich, fearing for my job and my status as his number one apprentice. Other times, we had two black journeyman come to work with us. Rich was unimpressed that Bob A. had reassigned the workers to him. Rich was not willing to share enough knowledge with these gentleman to make sure that they would succeed on this job site. Rich spoke to me, in the trailer:
“My knowledge and experience are assets that I share with those that I feel could use the help. These two men will not benefit from it, and will have to prove that they belong on this site without our help. They have one week to figure things out, and if they don’t, I will lay them off.”
I had worked with Harold and Terry before, and they were good people. I was not personally empowered enough to speak up for them yet, however.
The “conspiracy of silence” that I have written extensively about, I had not yet been healed of at this time. I saw how I did not speak out against the oppression, sometimes keeping my mouth shut, for fear of being fired or laid off, clear up to the year 1996, when I finally started to find my courage and my voice. There were a few bullies, misogynists, racists, homophobes, and gun obsessed white deplorables that learned to hate me after that. We must find the courage to speak out, and to confront lazy thinkers and oppressive leaders. Those that choose to be fully aware of themselves can work to heal our wounding, and to help bring change around our broken consciousness.
In the meantime, The War continues. Nobody looks to our president for hope to bring healing to the racial divide. If racial violence does not abate, hope will ebb, and constructive, healing options will continue to feel like they are unattainable. There are many white men, and women in positions of power and influence,who have lost all sanity, love, and hope, or, more tragically, never had those qualities in the first place.
They just want to watch the world burn.
We need not burn with them.
The rest of us, those who truly want healing within our world, within our country, and within our own consciousness, must accept each human being, whether or not they are from our family, our tribe, our religion, or our race, as our own. In the immortal words of my USPS friend, Bill Y:
“We have to be willing to lay our lives on the line for our friends, and make whatever sacrifice that is necessary to protect each other from danger!”
[A] new society cannot be created by reproducing the repugnant past, however refined or enticingly repackaged.
– Nelson Mandela
