Tag Archive | White Privilege

Beauty is NOT Skin Deep

I expect you’ve heard the phrase “beauty is only skin deep.” I wholeheartedly reject this phrase! I understand the implication is that what is inside a person is much more important than how they look on the exterior. However, our culture has established standards of beauty that are Euro-centric, White-centric, and profoundly damaging to the internal sense of self for people of all races, ethnicities, and genders.

Many years ago, I created and facilitated a workshop called “Sex Sells” for a sexuality education-focused youth conference. As part of this workshop, participants created collages that explored the ways magazines use images of people who appear to offer a standard for “perfect” beauty in their articles and advertising. They do this primarily to sell their magazines and the products of their advertisers.

We had a very deep conversation about how these images affect our own self-images and our ability to love and appreciate ourselves, as well as how people have been bullied because they don’t fit the “norms” for beauty. We talked about how this also separates us from one another when we judge or avoid some people because of their external appearance. There were many tears, some laughter, and, above all, profound insights about how we either resist or succumb to these influences. Together, we came to realize that true beauty is not on the surface, but rather what is in the heart and soul of a person.

What makes a person beautiful inside? I can think of many qualities … kindness, compassion, tenderness, curiosity, and joy come to mind right away. What else makes someone a beautiful person?

As we engage in conversations about Beauty this month during our 10:00 faith development programs for teens and adults, the covenant groups, in our worship services, and in other gatherings, I invite you to look at what is beautiful inside you, and what is beautiful inside those around you among family, friends, co-workers, and co-students. Perhaps if we all look more deeply for the beauty in ourselves and in those around us, and cultivate that beauty, the world will become a more beautiful place for all beings.

With a grateful heart…
Reverend Jan

Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture

May5

As I read Facebook posts related to our Unitarian Universalist White Supremacy Teach-In and related events going on in our congregations and in our wider UU circles, I’m struck by how much I don’t know that I don’t know about “White Supremacy Culture” and how it shows up in my words and actions. I am grateful for the people who are quick to let me know when it shows up … even though it takes a few minutes to move past the initial sting of making a mistake before I get to the warmth of gratitude.

I’m especially grateful to my colleague on the UU Allies for Racial Steering Committee, Lori Stone Sirtosky, for referring me to this publication: Kenneth Jones & Tema Okun: Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture. This article describes detailed characteristics of the ways in which white supremacy culture shows up inside our organizations, as well as antidotes for finding a new way of operating. I can identify how all of these characteristics show up in me, and in the congregations I’ve been affiliated with in various roles over the 26 years I’ve been an active adult in UU communities, and I also see some of the antidotes being implemented.

In today’s post, I want to lift up two of the characteristics that have been priorities in my own growth and development.

Perfectionism: Thanks to the work of Brené Brown in her book “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are,” I’ve been examining my concepts of perfectionism for a few years. But there’s always more work to do. Jones and Okun recommend developing a culture of appreciation, taking time to make sure that people’s efforts are appreciated, and making it a point to actively learn from mistakes. This would encourage people to celebrate mistakes as a way to learn, though they do caution the importance of emphasizing what people do well before moving into those learning experiences. I think the art of appreciation and encouraging risks, mistakes, and learning are crucial to a volunteer organization. Setting people up to succeed is great; and, making the risk of “failure” a positive experience goes hand-in-hand as part of that success.

Closely related to perfectionism is the characteristic Only One Right Way. When I was a very young adult, I worked as an Accounts Receivable Clerk for a subsidiary of Western Union. When I was preparing to leave that position, I wrote out all the instructions for my successor. I think that manual ran about 32 pages. I included every teeny-tiny detailed aspect of my job, including how to open the envelopes. I had developed The Right Way to do this job and I wanted to make sure the next person who sat at that desk knew THE Right Way. I can only imagine how completely overwhelming and stifling that was for that person! I’ve long since learned that there are many ways to achieve a shared goal, and to not only embrace other possibilities, but to invite them. And, sometimes, probably more often that I realize, I forget. I have oodles of examples to remind me that when people work together, create together, explore and imagine together, the outcomes are far greater and more wonderful than what I would have created alone.

I invite the people I work with in my many roles to remind me when I’m stuck in a “perfectionist” or “only one right way” operating mode. Even if it stings for a moment, I do welcome the feedback!

My next post will explore some of the other Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture … the list goes on and on and on!

What We Inherit: White Supremacy

May4

For several years people have mentioned how much I look like my mother. I never thought I looked like my mother. She had brown eyes, I have blue. I have freckles, she had none. I certainly hear my mother’s voice in my own … in the phrases I use, my tendency to mumble incomplete thoughts, and an occasional exclamation to the person driving (my husband), “You don’t want to go that way!” (An inside family joke – a story for another time.) But, since I got my hair cut short a couple of months ago, every time I look in the mirror, there’s my mother. Can’t get away from what we inherit in looks, and difficult to run from the mannerisms, phrases, and other characteristics we are either born with or pick up from those who birthed us and/or raised us.

We inherit many things that are invisible to us, until and unless we intentionally seek to see the invisible. White supremacy is like this. Everyone of us living in the United States of America inherited the systems of white supremacy that are in the DNA of our founding. Whether one is actually a White Supremacist, actively engaged in promoting the idea that people who believe they are white (of western European descent) are better than people of other ethnicities, or one is actively working to build an equitable, just, multicultural country, we are swimming and functioning in the waters of white supremacy.

I’m currently reading “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America” by Nancy Isenberg. For anyone still living under the illusion that the U.S. was intended as a class-free society, that illusion will quickly melt away. America offered an opportunity for England to rid itself of the poor, the criminal, the homeless, and the “unworthy.” Our founders were not saints who saw all humans as equal. Most of those who protested slavery did so because of the belief that having a slave system made white people lazy, not because it was wrong to enslave people, or because they saw people who were not white as equals. And this is what we in the United States have all inherited: a system that was based on the premise that some people are better than others, some white people (descendants of wealthy, educated Englishmen) are better than other white people, and all white people are better than people who are not white.

Just like the face I see in the mirror will always remind me of my mother, it will also reminds me of the system of white supremacy in which I swim. This is important for all white folks to see … and especially liberal white folks. We can often fall in to the trap of thinking that because we envision an equitable society where we see no race, or because we aren’t overt racists, that we aren’t part of the system of white supremacy. This is how we become complicit and perpetuating systems of white supremacy. I recommend this spiritual practice for people who pass as white: In order to increase your awareness, each day wake up and ask, “How will my life be easier today because I am white?” Then, at the end of the day reflect on all the encounters in the day in which you were aware that you are white, and the advantages that provided. Awareness is just the beginning. The next step is to challenge yourself to step away from those advantages, decline the offer (or don’t apply in the first place), hand the microphone to a person of color, listen more than talking, actively challenge your white privilege.

Cultural Identity

Jan9

I’ve been very intentionally active in anti-racism, anti-oppression, and multicultural (ARAOMC) programs, groups, ministry, and actions over the last 15 years. Much of my involvement has been as a white person working with other white people to learn more about systems of power and privilege, and to explore white culture and what it means to be white in the United States in these times. Lately, this has led me to explore intercultural development and increase my own intercultural competency.

In many ARAOMC programs, participants are asked to tell the story of their awakening to whiteness, racism and systems of oppression. During my most recent experience with this exercise, I tried to think of my awakening as one long thread of stories, but as I listened to others share their stories around the circle I kept discovering new stories. I realized this is not a linear set of stories rolled into chapters in the book of my life. I realized this aspect of my life (our lives?) is more like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle is an event, an incident, a book, a movie, a conversation, or some new experience that shapes my understanding of the complex world of culture, identity, and oppression. There’s no big picture to guide the placement of the pieces of the puzzle, and it seems the puzzle is constantly growing and morphing into something new.

Here’s one segment of the puzzle of my cultural development. I grew up in Fairfax County, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. I didn’t know that I lived in white world … it was just my world. There was one street connected to our subdivision where Black families lived. I was curious as I ventured through there on my bicycle, but I don’t recall any interactions with the people who lived there. My memory of elementary school is that all the students were white, but we did have one teacher who was Black. There may have been students of color in my middle school, but I don’t remember. There were Black students in high school, but I had very limited interactions. My world was white…very white…and I had no idea this was so.

I overheard family conversations in support of civil rights and I understood the faith I grew up in, Unitarian Universalism, to be involved and supportive of these efforts as well. I remember when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered; I was 7 years old. We were in D.C. either on that day or a day or so after…I’m not sure. We heard that riots were breaking out and my father rushed to get us out of the city. I remember being scared, but not sure what it was I was supposed to be scared of.

I was raised to be color blind … to see all people as “the same” or equally human. I was raised with the idea that all people either do, could, or should, live the life I lived. I did not comprehend there were significant cultural differences, even in my own neighborhood, until years later.

My father would often travel to Japan in the course of his profession, and he would bring back souvenirs for us kids … kimonos, chopsticks, dolls. He went to other places as well. I considered these all as exotic; places I read about in books or studied in school that were different and exciting. I knew that people in other countries spoke different languages, perhaps (probably) dressed differently, and ate different foods. But, I had no thoughts about other ways of being a family, or other ways of seeing the world.

We were normal and I thought everyone else was normal too (my normal) … even if they lived in a different country or had different shades of skin. As far as I knew the values I learned through “Father Knows Best,” “Leave It to Beaver,” and “My Three Sons” were the values everyone across the globe shared. Certainly everyone everywhere wanted to be just like us, right?

In my recent trip to Japan I noticed many cultural differences. It’s hard not to compare … I would hear these phrases in my head over and over: “Oh, I wish WE were more like that!” or “WE do that better.” But those were false statements popping up in my mind. First of all, WE is a misnomer. Defining American cultural ways of being is not possible. It certainly seems that the Japanese people, based on my limited experience, value politeness and cleanliness far more than I have experienced here in the United States in general, but not specifically. If I make any statements about American culture, these would be gross generalizations; this is probably true for Japan as well.

On the plane ride to Japan, I watched a video that offered visitors to Japan a few guidelines for how to adapt to Japanese culture. This made me wonder what a video for people traveling to the United States might offer? What advice would you give to someone visiting the United States for the first time? How would it be different if they were visiting Atlanta, New York, Houston, or Miami? Or if they were visiting Iowa, Colorado, Vermont, or New Mexico? If they were here on business or for pleasure? If they were older or younger, traveling with young children or on their honeymoon? If they were Asian, Black, Hispanic, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, or living with a disability?

Gadding About

Meanderings of a UU Minister: Wanderer, Worshiper, Lover of Life

Tag Archive | White Privilege

Beauty is NOT Skin Deep

Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture

What We Inherit: White Supremacy

Cultural Identity