{"id":590,"date":"2020-03-10T14:12:45","date_gmt":"2020-03-10T18:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/?p=590"},"modified":"2020-03-10T14:15:34","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T18:15:34","slug":"imagine-no-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/?p=590","title":{"rendered":"Imagine No Racism (by Reid Fitzsimons)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
The apparent head of the United Methodist Church \"Imagine No Racism\" project, Mark Webb, who holds the title of \"Bishop.\"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A very good and caring friend recently mentioned she had attended a seminar entitled Imagine No Racism, sponsored by the United Methodist Church in the Buffalo, NY area. I checked it out on-line and what I discovered was no surprise. For example, there is a list of desired qualities of prospective \u201cteam\u201d members: Do you have a passion for racial justice and equity? Are you open to change and willing to grow in your knowledge and awareness of racial injustice and white privilege? Do you have some knowledge already of racism and\/or white privilege? There is a mention that \u201cRacism is a disease that infects the hearts, minds, souls and bodies of individuals, churches and communities. Our Social Principles state, \u2018Racism is the combination of the power to dominate by one race over other races and a value system that assumes that the dominant race is innately superior to others.\u2019\u201d All utterly predictable non-sense, of course. Below is an e-mail I sent this person, which was well received by her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note the person referred to as \u201cNelson (name changed)\u201d is a\ngentleman from Kenya who I first knew when he was a teenager when I was a\nvolunteer medical director of a clinic in his remote village in the early\n2000s. In Dec. 2018 my wife and I were able to bring him to the US on a\nnon-immigrant visa to attend college; he has subsequently earned a 4.0 GPA!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hi_______:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m intrigued by the seminar you mentioned, \u201cImagine No\nRacism;\u201d I went to the website for it. I think you know I can be pretty\nscathing when it comes to religious and societal matters, and this has both!\nPerhaps you could share the following story at your next session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You haven\u2019t met him but I think you know who Nelson is. In\n2017 I traveled with him and my son throughout very (VERY) remote eastern\nUganda. When Nelson returned to Kenya he entered what is called the Land of the\nLuos (any major tribal area may be referred to as the \u201cLand of\u2026\u201d). Nelson is in\nfact a Luo but his skin, while a very dark brown, is not the actual black that\nis typical of the Luos. This was at the time of some tribal conflict, so once\nhe was back in Kenya he kept his mouth shut (Nelson likes adventure and new\nexperiences!) and heard some guys talking about what they should do to him.\nThey assumed he was a Kikuyu or other rival tribe and even considered killing\nhim. At this point he spoke up, in his native Luo language, and said he was as\nLuo as they were, with an implication they should have been ashamed of\nthemselves, and he continued his travels unmolested. Is that racism- injuring\nand even killing people not because they are black, but because they are not as\nblack as some others?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

For the most part we have no idea what we are talking about\nin the US. One time Michelle Obama was asked about her personal experience with\nracism, and she replied she was in a Target store once and someone asked if she\nwould get an item for her from a top shelf. Keeping in mind she is fairly tall,\nsomehow she interpreted this as racist because she assumed the customer asked\nher to retrieve the item because she\u2019s black, with the further assumption that\nblack people have such jobs. Being tall myself I\u2019ve been asked many times in\nstores to get items from top shelves and I\u2019ve always been more than happy to\nhelp old or short people or people in scooters. Even if they assumed I was a\nWalmart employee, I never felt insulted by the idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cannot Imagine No Racism because certain people cling to it out of need. Obviously I don\u2019t know the presenters of your program but I bet my life experience is different from theirs, and probably markedly so. Just as there are some Christians who need there to be sinners so they can feel extra holy (re-read Roman\u2019s 9:20-23- if you believe Paul, God Himself has the same mindset), there are lots of well-off white Americans who need to believe we are a society of racists, and they are therefore really, really special and extra good because they profusely admit their shame and seek forgiveness by the admission itself, as contrasted with the average moron, and by putting Diversity bumper stickers on their cars.\u00a0 They live in a world where they are anointed to declare others racists without really defining what it means to be so, and those they accuse are too stupid to know their stain- \u201cWow, I never thought I was a racist, but those wealthy and educated people keep telling me I am.\u201d In the years we spent in south Alabama I met a total of one true racist- he was such an oddity I made sure ______ (my wife) met him, kind of like going to a museum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Imagine No Racism powers should ask me to speak!! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A very good and caring friend recently mentioned she had attended a seminar entitled Imagine No Racism, sponsored by the United Methodist Church in the Buffalo, NY area. I checked it out on-line and what I discovered was no surprise. For example, there is a list of desired qualities of prospective \u201cteam\u201d members: Do you ...continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ynMC-9w","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions\/593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservativeproletariat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}