I hope that this can help people.

First, here's a news article about a Mormon Sunday school teacher who was dismissed for using LD$, Inc's own "Race And The Priesthood" essay in a lesson:


https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2475803&itype=CMSID

It all started with a question.

The Mormon youth simply asked his white Sunday school teacher why the man's Nigerian wife and her family would join a church that had barred blacks from being ordained to its all-male priesthood until 1978. Why, the student wanted to know, was the ban instituted in the first place?

To answer the teen's inquiry, Brian Dawson turned to the Utah-based faith's own materials, including its groundbreaking 2013 essay, "Race and the Priesthood." His research prompted an engaging discussion with his class of 12- to 14-year-olds.

But it didn't please his local lay leaders, who removed him from his teaching assignment — even though the essay has been approved by top Mormon leaders and appears on the church's official website lds.org.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declined to comment on the handling of the Sunday school incident, but reiterated its efforts to spread the word about the race article and its other essays on Mormon history and theology.


So, how do you deal with racism when you yourself are not racist?


https://www.uua.org/files/documents/gardinerwilliam/whiteness/emotional_lives.pdf

Here are a few excerpts:

The paper entitled” The Emotional Lives of White People” describes the variety of feelings we have as white people including fear, hatred, indifference, amnesia, anesthesia, denial, loneliness, anger, and hopelessness.

The emotional life of white people is complex – to say the least.

The word guilt is often used to describe the emotional life of white people. In my experience, the emotional life of white people is far more complex than what is typically thought of with regard to that word. If we are to affect change we need to understand this complexity.

There are some difficult emotions that white people experience as a result of living in a racist society. These feelings are: fear, hatred, amnesia, anesthesia, indifference, denial, guilt, shame, loneliness, and hopelessness. And there are feelings that are related to racism we are required to repress like anger, grief, and sadness. These are feelings that white people have in the context of a society based on race and rooted in racism.


HATRED

Hatred is intense dislike, extreme aversion, or hostility (Webster’s)

Those of us associated with the white liberal community have hard time thinking about the hatred that white people have shown for people of color. This emotion is foreign to us. We need to remember the power that the emotion of hatred has had in the lives of those of us who are white.

W.E.B. Du Bois describes hatred in his book The Souls of White Folk

On the pale, white faces …I see again and again… a writing of human hatred, a deep passionate hatred, vast by the very vagueness of its expressions…..We have seen, you and I, city after city drunk and furious with ungovernable lust of blood, mad with murder, destroying, killing and cursing, torturing human victims because somebody accused of a crime happened to be of the same color as the mob’s innocent victims and because that color was not white! We have seen…in the name of Civilization, Justice, and Motherhood…right here in America an orgy of cruelty, barbarism and murder to men and women of Negro descent. (pp 186-187 in Black on White edited by David Roediger

Hatred is the emotion that fed the lynching’s and the destruction of cities like Tulsa. This is the emotion that motivated the millions that belonged to the Klan. And this is the feeling that fuels the hate crimes and the white supremacist web sites of today.

Frankly I don’t understand why whites are so full of hate. Whites are the people who have committed the massive crimes against people of color – not the other way around. What have people of color done to deserve such hatred?

I don’t understand this fury and this hatred but I do have an explanation for it. Because of racism we who are white have become irrational people – inhumane people – indeed “crazy” people.

This awful emotion is still alive – felt by millions of white people in America even today.


INDIFFERENCE

In her book A Race is Nice Thing to Have Janet Helms talks about those of us who are white who live in isolation from people of color. Think for example of those living in Northern New England, the Dakotas, and many white suburbs. In these communities whites do not have significant contact with people who are racially different. Often these white people are suffering from amnesia and anesthesia. But they are also unaware of and indifferent to the legitimate needs of people of color for justice and equity.

Ms. Helms estimates that one half of the population of white people has an attitude of indifference toward people of color. But even if it is only one third of the white population that feels this way that would be approximately 100,000,000 white folks who have this attitude.

In his book And We are Not Saved, Derrick Bell tells the story of Ghetto disease. In this story an amber cloud descends on white adolescents leaving them afflicted with a terrible disease – Ghetto disease. Youngsters who had been alert and personable become lethargic and withdrawn. Immediately the government mobilizes. National leaders spare no expense to find a cure for this dreaded disease. But when civil rights leaders seek to apply the cure to black youth they are met with rejection. In his story Bell describes the indifference of whites to the Ghetto disease among Youth of Color.

Paul Wachtel, author of the book Race in the Mind of America: Breaking the Vicious Circle between Blacks and Whites, describes the attitude of indifference that whites in America for the legitimate needs of People of Color communities.

Paul Wachtel writes,

What is perhaps most important for whites to acknowledge and understand is indifference. A great deal of what is often characterized as racism can be more precisely and usefully describe as indifference. Perhaps no other feature of white attitudes and of the underlying attitudinal structure of white society as a whole is as cumulatively responsible for the pain and privation experienced by our nation’s black minority at this point in our history as is indifference. And at the same time, perhaps no feature is as misunderstood or overlooked.”

The white majority tolerates the misery in the midst our affluent society because of the belief that “they” are not like us and “they” are different. Most whites who feel little outright hostility -who even believe in fair play and equal opportunity -see little that has to do with them in the painful realities of people of color communities.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2021 11:38PM by anybody.

Rational self interest is the foundation of American culture. That’s why mathematician John Nash was awarded a Nobel prize. It can be proven, through the Nash Equilibrium, that this creates a stable society. Whether it is sustainable in the face of our better natures is another question. Experiments demonstrate that cooperation introduces instability in the Nash Equilibrium, which makes Mormons and other religious types heretics so good for them.

Blacks and Whites alike drank the Kool Aid of rational self interest, but the Kool Aid is the problem. It’s bad math. Just because a stable region exists doesn’t mean you can abandon the search for more optimal stable regions. It discounts belief. You do actually need belief for something else to work. Getting white people to believe in another way is the beginning of real change. I don’t know how CRT will work better than MLK’s faith-based approach.

Hardly anyone knows about John Nash, even fewer are familiar with his math, and nobody has decided that they are going to live their lives based on his mathematics.

Bradley, that's not how Nash equilibria work. What Nash demonstrated is that for many problems there are multiple solutions, some of which are better than others but all of which are stable.

Take the Prisoner's Dilemma. The two parties would do best if they cooperated by refusing to betray each other. But if they don't trust each other and pursue their naked self-interest they each achieve a worse outcome. In this example both solutions--mutual betrayal or cooperation--are stable but with wildly different results. Nash's analysis led to the conclusion that figuring out how to cooperate through, for example, signalling in a multi-round game, was essential to getting optimal outcomes.

So no, Nash didn't think or argue that "cooperation introduces instability." To the contrary, he demonstrated that cooperation can and often does lead to a better stability, a preferable equilibrium, in which all participants are better off.

You are responsible for what you alone do to others. Not your parents. Not your great-grandparents, not your 10x great-uncle. Not your neighbors nor your school. Not people of the same skin tone.

Anyone who believes in inherited guilt for something you didn't do is a bigot themselves.

+1

Hangar 18 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyone who believes in inherited guilt for
> something you didn't do is a bigot themselves.

What does that make people who pride themselves in what their ancestor's did?

Coat tail riders?

You are responsible to help fix something that’s broken, whether or not you caused it, Good Samaritan. Look it up.

I like your point, but to a degree. So many things to fix in this world though. So very many. And some genuinely don't seem fixable. I like to do what I can, where I can, but I'm not sure I feel that all that is broken is all my "responsibility".

I never saw the Good Samaritan as having a responsibility. I just saw him as innately good and empathetic. Those types transcend responsibility. And he never pointed his finger at others as I recall, either, which is all I see nowadays.

Leading by example is a wonderful way to make a difference.

No you aren't directly responsible for the past -- but...

Do you realise that you benefit from past wrongdoing even if you yourself weren't even born yet and that it's given you advantages that you may not have otherwise had?

Do you even acknowledge what happened?

Do you just shrug and go along with something that's wrong, or do you try to to stop it?


These are the questions you need to ask yourself.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2021 04:28PM by anybody.

> Do you just shrug and go along
> with something that's wrong,
> or do you try to stop it?
>
> These are the questions you
> need to ask yourself.


Mormonism teaches you to "...do what is Right; let the consequences follow..."

Of course, "Right" is defined by what's best for the church, first and the members second. Thus the support for 'first pay your tithing..."


Outside of mormonism, we each struggle to, first, decide what is "Right", next, how to implement it, and finally, how best to defend our decisions, should the subject arise.

Luckily we usually hang out with people who are like us and thus usually agree with us. This is probably a Basic Rule of Life. If 'you' don't agree with me, I'm likely to gravitate towards someone who does, and who will help me defend my stark, naked graspings for power and majesty.


Yay, humans, and our ability to mesmerize ourselves. Surely this ability to improvise a morality that fits our needs is a gift from ghawd!!


If you're a four-day walk from the nearest water hole and you have three days of water, what's the point of sharing your water with someone with less than you have?

And to what extent do you defend your water from someone who will die without it?

What will your children, who need you and who are waiting for you, think of you if you steal the water necessary to get to them?


If White People were the best mormon ghawd could do in terms of his preferred worshippers, I don't think it says much for mormon ghawd. Of course, these are just the somewhat lurid musings that occur to me as I wander about in the Great American Southwest that bred Los Indios from whom I am descended.




In the famous words of Jay Silverheels, "What you mean, 'We', White Man?"

Pretty tune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhMqmdzLcRM

(Is that the brothers and did they really dress like that?)

Ironically, another video that came up on a search was two white guys playing this tune. They sounded great too but it wasn't the original artists, obviously.

This is pretty too. (The first photo may not be PG-13, sorry RfM):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM3tj7Mbeyk


Rats: I accidentally clicked on the ad for prostate troubles. Now I'll be getting some interesting sales attempts I predict.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2021 07:15PM by Nightingale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj0drevGOgA


...as featured on the Guardians of the Galaxy mix tape #1

Nightingale Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Pretty tune:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhMqmdzLcRM
>
> (Is that the brothers and did they really dress
> like that?)


Well, they're Brazilian, so however they want to dress is okay by me.

Everybody is outlandish in their dress to someone,somewhere!

I personally prefer a muumuu... I look elegant in my gold lamé, off-the-shoulder, muumuu.

I meant, was it somebody else's idea of how they looked because maybe I didn't get the original video or cover picture for it. I didn't want to pass on a dud.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2021 07:44PM by Nightingale.

I always wondered why they have their name with a Spanish article (Los). It would be Os in Portuguese. They are from the Brazilian state of Ceará, which is about as far from any native Spanish speaking part of South America as you can get.

Marketing I suppose. Half of South America speaks Portuguese, but all of Central America speaks Spanish. Go with the larger group.

So then this video popped up. I forgot how much I love this tune (Rivers of Babylon). Kind of religious but the tune is lovely.

Exmo Warning: The Zee word is mentioned (or Zed if you're a Canuck). (Zion). Interesting eh?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTq7vE_5un4


I remember that when I first heard it I love it instantly and wondered, as I often did, about all the fierce divisions over religion.

"May the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight".

That, to me, is the crux of a decent, wide-ranging objective when it comes to religion and what's wrong with people having different ways of expressing themselves within that endeavour?

If God likes white bread so much, why'd he make such a big bakery? Gotta use all those machines and fill up all the shelves. You'd think.

"White" people number roughly 800 million -- so that's just under ten percent of the Earth's population

Soon we may be able to get them their own planet!

That's what I meant to indicate.

Hope I didn't mess that up.

Yes, white is a minority.

So maybe not God's favourite? (As some claim or indicate by their actions or words).

I'm so tired of it.

Remember that old song with the mournful query: When will they ever learn?

Indeed.


PS: Oh yes, here is the song: Where have all the flowers gone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgXNVA9ngx8

(That always makes me feel so sad. Why do I do that to myself?)

"Where have all the young men gone? Gone for soldiers, every one".

"Where have all the soldiers gone? Long time passing. ... Long time ago. ... Gone to graveyards every one. Oh, when will they ever learn?"

Ack.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2021 05:36PM by Nightingale.

Maybe they are just keeping the brown bread out of the store so you only think that white bread is all there is....

What on earth does that mean? Sounds so racist.

Hangar 18 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyone who believes in inherited guilt for
> something you didn't do is a bigot themselves.


How about guilt for not doing anything about the lasting effects of things earlier people did?

^^^^

Yes, olderelder nailed it. Though I have to admit, the paper "The Emotional Lives of White People" made me roll my eyes so hard I fell backwards off my chair. It's sooooo complicated being white. Dah poor babies.

OTOH, I thought the LDS SS teacher being relieved of his duties because he cited the LDS essay on Blacks and the Priesthood was fascinating, and troubling.

"The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea." Vladimir Nabokov.