Exponent II's Blog, page 168

The Reification of Women in the Book of Mormon

It has been many years since I have read the Book of Mormon on a regular basis, but in the last few months I have returned to studying it as part of my spiritual practice.  I have been struck by many beautiful insights that speak powerfully to me – most notably in terms of the many forms of bondage in the scriptures.  I trust there is still an effectual struggle to be made, and I can bear with patience mine afflictions.

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But the pattern that keeps striking me, and is indeed the reason I stopped reading the Book of Mormon several years ago, is the reification of women.  Reification, or objectification, is a term in feminist theory that signifies the act of treating someone as an object rather than a person. Understanding the process of reification is crucial both to our understanding of structural sexism and structural racism.  Modern racism has been inextricably shaped by the institution of slavery.  Slavery has existed for millenia, though the process of linking it to race happened well after the initial process of establishing dominance and ownership over individuals or groups.  This racialization of slavery was particularly shaped and accelerated by the European invasion of the Americas, but slavery itself existed since the earliest days of civilization.

The historian Gerda Lerner made the case that a necessary precursor to slavery was the reification of women.  Before you can enslave someone, you need to be able to imagine a person as ownable, less-than, exploitable.  Controlling the reproductive potential of women was crucial to survival in antiquity, which made the exchange of women — capturing them, sexually assaulting them, controlling them — crucial to creating and maintaining power structures.  Capturing women opened the door to the possibility of enslaving women from other groups rather than adopting or integrating them into the community. * 

Some of the most ancient sources discussing slavery do not suggest the presence of male slaves — The Illiad, for instance, tells of Briseis and Chryseis, captured women who had to serve Achilles and Agamemnon.  Andromache faced the dreadful prospect of becoming a slave should the Trojans lose. Her husband Hector fearlessly faced death, his only possible fate should the Trojans lose, but mournfully declared:

“But it is not so much the pain to come of the Trojans that troubles me, not even of Priam the king nor Hecabe … as troubles me the thought of you, when some bronze-armoured Achaian leads you off, taking away your day of liberty, in tears; and in Argos you must work at the loom of another, and carry water from the spring Messeis or Hypereia, all unwilling.”**

 Incrementally societies moved from reifying women, to enslaving women, and only from that to enslaving men and women, and making enslavement an inheritable and perpetual quality rather than a temporary condition resulting from loss of a war.  Thus discussing the reification of women is inextricably tied both to our understanding of patriarchy and to our modern understanding of racism and oppression.

 Returning then to the Book of Mormon, the pattern that strikes me again and again are the ways in which the female characters are erased or objectified. The feminist theorist Barbara Nussbaum posited seven categories within the idea of objectification.  I want to look at each one and consider to what degree the (extremely limited) references to women within the Book of Mormon fit these patterns.***

1. Instrumentality: Treating a person as a tool for one’s own purposes. Existing to provide children, to provide food, to provide sexual pleasure.
Examples:

(1 Nephi 7:1)  “It was not meet for him, Lehi that he should take his family into the wilderness alone; but that his sons should take daughters to wife, that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise.” The purpose of bringing the women out of Jerusalem, soon to be destroyed, was so that they could reproduce and perpetuate Lehi’s lineage.
(Mosiah 19:13) “Those who tarried with their wives and their children caused that their fair daughters should stand forth and plead with the Lamanites that they would not slay them”. The beautiful daughters are used as bait, or perhaps a reward.  They’re certainly at risk of bodily violation.  Why pick the fair daughters as ambassadors?  Why not the plain ones? Or the sons? There was a potential for a peacemaking exchange of freedom for the fathers in exchange for sexual availability of daughters.

2. Denial of Autonomy: treating a person as if they lack autonomy or self-determination. Dictating how the other person will behave so as to secure one’s own satisfaction.

Examples:

Lamoni offers one of his daughters to Ammon as his wife (Alma 17:24).  Lamoni and Ammon’s agency are clear.  The desires of the daughter are seemingly irrelevant and indeed there’s no evidence they would have met before Lamoni made the offer.  The daughter seemingly exists to cement desirable partnerships between men.
(Mosiah 23:33) Amulon and friends “sent forth their wives, who were the daughters of the Lamanites, to plead with their brethren, that they should not destroy their husbands.” (Note that these are different men and women from those I discussed above) So they kidnap and sexually assault these women, then use them as pawns to save their own skins. 

3. Inertness: Treating a person as lacking in activity or agency. Things happen to this object, but the object takes no active role in determining the outcome.

The other examples I offer here abound in this.  Lamanite daughters are abducted.  Ishmael’s daughters leave Jerusalem and marry Nephi’s family without any suggestion of choice on their parts.  Lamoni offers his daughter as a wife to Ammon.

4. Fungibility: Treating a person as interchangeable with other objects. A person is reduced to a set of body parts performing a certain task, and under that understanding can be replaced by another similar body, or by a machine.

Examples:

(1 Nephi 16:7) “I, Nephi took one of the daughters of Ishmael to wife; and also, my brethren took of the daughters of Ishmael to wife; and also Zoram took the eldest daughter of Ishmael to wife.” Are these daughters distinct from one another in any meaningful sense? Not that we ever learn, since they don’t even rate having names.  This example also works with inertness – there is no evidence of agency from these women at all.
(Mosiah 20:3) When the priests of king Noah decide to abduct the Lamanite women it is because “they durst not return to their wives.”  But they needed sexual services and female labor so they just took some other women and replaced their former wives with new ones.

5. Violability: Treating a person as lacking in boundary integrity. The society engages in the sexual use of women or physical displacement of women without their consent.

(2 Nephi 23: 16) – Isaiah is prophesying what will happen to wicked men “Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished.”
(Mosiah 20:4-5) “[The priests of Noah] discovered the daughters of the Lamanites, they laid and watched them; and when there were but few of them gathered together to dance, they came forth out of their secret places and took them and carried them into the wilderness; yea, twenty and four of the daughters of the Lamanites they carried into the wilderness.”
(Moroni 9:9) “Many of the daughters of the Lamanites have they taken prisoners; and after depriving them of that which was most dear and precious above all things, which is chastity and virtue. . .”  (followed by torture, murder and cannibalism).

6. Ownership: Treating a person as if they can be owned, sold or bought. The exchange of women in return for a desired object or outcome – actual sale is less important than the idea that one person has the right to transfer control and possession of the person to another individual.
Examples:

Mosiah 13: 24 “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.” Neither the wife nor the maid-servant (or the man-servant) qualify as neighbors in this context.  They are things that belong to the neighbor, and are in the same category as a house or an animal.
(Alma 54:11) “I will not exchange prisoners, save it be on conditions that ye will deliver up a man and his wife and his children, for one prisoner; if this be the case that ye will do it, I will exchange.”  Now in this case Moroni was trying to swap entire families for single soldiers and was doing a good thing for these women – but nevertheless he is literally offering to swap people.  

7. Denial of Subjectivity: Treating a person as if their experiences and feelings lack importance. Not showing interest in understanding how the other person might be thinking or feeling

There are only six women named in all of the book of Mormon.  Three of them are references to Bible characters and don’t appear at all (Eve, Sarah, Mary).  One of them does not appear as a character but instead is referred to as a sign of wicked behavior (the harlot Isabel).  That leaves Abish and Sariah, in an account that spans a thousand years and millions of people.  Offhand I’d say that the authors of the Book of Mormon didn’t think the experience of women was particularly important.

This critique does not mean that portrayals of women in the Book of Mormon are universally negative.  This is not so.  Abish is a heroine.  The (unnamed) wife of Lamoni is loyal and faithful. Nephi’s (unnamed) wife pleads on his behalf.  The (unnamed) mothers of the armies of Helaman had powerful faith.  Many women flocked to see the Savior.  These examples, however, don’t change my larger point that the Book of Mormon, from a female perspective, is the story of the reification of women.  Abish was a maid-servant, potentially an owned person given the context that role has elsewhere in the scriptures.  None of the other women even have names.  

Nussbaum asks “should we say that each is a sufficient condition for the objectification of persons? Or do we need some cluster of the features, in order to have a sufficient condition?” She provides no answer to these questions, but in the case of the Book of Mormon the question becomes moot.  If the Book of Mormon met only one of the above conditions then a debate might be worthwhile.  Certainly I can see examples that I shared that one could interpret a different way. But the treatment of women within the Book of Mormon manifestly meets most or all of the categories.  

This leads me to wonder what place the Book of Mormon should have in my life, given that I self-identify as a woman.  I inhabit a female body.  I present myself as female.  I occupy feminine roles – mother, wife, sister, daughter.  This book was written for our times and should guide us to truth.  But the patterns that I see of women in the Book of Mormon consistently show that women are not people at all, but are instead objects to be used with varying degrees of benevolence or cruelty by men.  What am I supposed to learn? Which female character am I supposed to rejoice in imitating?  What female characteristics that I see modeled in the lands of the Nephites and Lamanites am I supposed to embody?

I also wish that this critique would lead us to a more nuanced discussion of Book of Mormon heroes.  Every one of them belonged to societies that, in the best case scenario, erased women and denied them subjectivity.  The most benevolent and heroic among them clearly still engaged in the reification of women.  So while we can treasure words that lead us to Christ and honor the good aspects of their examples, we should also take the time to acknowledge that the silent majority of the Nephite/Lamanite population suffered at the hands of these men to varying degrees.

*Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. Oxford University Press, 1986.

** Illiad Book VI: 369-439

***Nussbaum, Martha C. “Objectification.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 24, no. 4 (1995): 249-91. Accessed May 20, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/2961930.

Social Justice Work is Spiritual Work

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In this Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, pandemic moment, I want to reflect on the ways in which social justice work is spiritual work. The Black Lives Matter to Christ Facebook page held a Juneteenth fireside that focuses on the ways in which racial justice is a spiritual and religious issue, giving the perspectives of many Black LDS folks. In a recent podcast episode, Fatimah Salleh and Gina Colvin reflected on the disconnect between the values of Christianity and sins racism that many white Christians perpetuate in the United States and around the world. Fatimah and Gina spend time talking about the grief and disappointment that accompanies these experiences of racism.

When we do the inner work of confronting our own racism together with the outer work of dismantling oppressive systems, we might pause for a moment to reflect on where our motivations come from. I do this kind of reflective work to keep myself honest with myself and others and to show up with integrity. I ask myself the following questions:

Why am I doing this work?
What is my relationship with those who I am supporting?
Am I hearing, honoring, and amplifying the message of those I am supporting?
How do I feel about the work that I am doing?
Where do I feel God’s invitation in this work?

The answers to these questions are likely to change over time because spiritual work is a journey. Seven years ago, these questions seemed straightforward and uncomplicated. I did not understand the work or the difficulty and challenges it would bring. My answers to those questions reflected that ignorance.

Why am I doing this work? I am a good person.
What is my relationship with those who I am supporting? I am helping my friends.
Am I hearing, honoring, and amplifying the message of those I am supporting? Maybe?
How do I feel about the work that I am doing? Great!
Where do I feel God’s invitation in this work? I should post more on Facebook.

With six months of experience watching people discuss race and try to enact change, my responses to these same questions would have been different. I saw that white people tended to center themselves in social justice discussions, education, and activism. I wanted to do better, but I didn’t always know what that meant or looked like. I needed to educate myself beyond listicles and racism 101 articles.

Why am I doing this work? I would like to be a good person, but this isn’t feeling like a great answer.
What is my relationship with those who I am supporting? I’m not sure. I thought I knew, but now I’m seeing that it is more complicated than I originally thought.
Am I hearing, honoring, and amplifying the message of those I am supporting? Sometimes I get this right and sometimes I get this wrong. I see other people getting feedback on how they are doing social justice work and it feels harsh even when it is good feedback. Sometimes I don’t want to engage because I am afraid of getting it wrong, but that doesn’t feel right either.
How do I feel about the work that I am doing? Uncomfortable. I am learning and I feel that is good, but actually engaging in conversations about power, privilege, race, and opportunity are starting to make me see myself and my experiences in a different way. They are also opening up a world of experiences for people of color that I did not know existed. I often feel defensive and then I feel guilty for feeling defensive.
Where do I feel God’s invitation in this work? I feel like I learn the most when I can hear what people of color are saying in difficult conversations and focus on marginalized voices rather than white responses. I think that God’s voice comes through these marginalized voices. I need to hear more of that.

Today, I find that my answers to these questions are now quite different. Education has helped me understand that my motivations impact the way in which I engage racial justice work. I recognize my ability to do harm in the process of working toward justice.

Why am I doing this work? I want to uphold the dignity, humanity, and worth of Black people.
What is my relationship with those who I am supporting? I am a white, middle class, cisgender, bisexual, married to a man, former Mormon, ordained in Community of Christ, woman who wants to engage in anti-racism work to dismantle systems of oppression that harm Black people who, like me, hold many different kinds of identities in conjunction with their racial identity. My whiteness gives me tremendous privilege in our society and when I am trying to support someone with a different racial identity, I need to understand that my whiteness requires me to listen. I understand that white women have played an important role in perpetuating racism in our communities and need to remain conscious of that dynamic. I understand that individual Black folks may never be able to trust me as a white woman, but I am committed to racial justice anyway.
Am I hearing, honoring, and amplifying the message of those I am supporting? This is a question I now ask myself every time I post on Facebook or social media or answer a question. I make mistakes, but I now see this as an important criteria for what I am sharing and try to keep this question foremost in my mind.
How do I feel about the work that I am doing? Every day it is uncomfortable and I am starting to recognize different kinds of discomfort and what those feelings are telling me. I don’t like engaging white people who push back against the existence of racism, but I am trying to do this more often and commit myself to these conversations.
Where do I feel God’s invitation in this work? I feel an invitation to educate myself and educate other white people about racism. I must continually work to undo my own internal racism so that I can be an effective educator.

This is not the end of my journey. I will keep asking these questions and I hope that you will join me in this reflective spiritual practice.

Female Bodies, Female Beauty: My Experiences in the LDS Young Women Program

[image error]“My husband said that I just didn’t have that much potential to be beautiful. Can you imagine how I felt?” The woman, Anne, said tearfully to a room full of teenage girls.

It was the early 1990s. I was a fourteen-year-old Mormon and had been told that we would be going to someone’s house for a special Young Women activity. When all the young women, about twenty of us, were seated on the living room floor in rows, a woman entered the room. She wore a fitted suit, heels, styled red hair, and lots of makeup.

As she sat down on a folding chair in front of us girls, she told us about a moment in her life when she became determined to become beautiful. She had been a young mother, watching over the kids and not taking great pains with her appearance. She always wore clean clothes, of course, but she wore a lot of t-shirts and jeans. One day she heard her husband having a conversation with his mother. His mother was concerned about Anne’s lack of effort when it came to her appearance. Her husband’s response to his mother, that some people just don’t have all that much potential to be beautiful, was crushing to Anne. At that moment, she determined, she would turn over a new leaf. She would become beautiful. She’d show her husband and mother-in-law that they were wrong about her.

What unfolded then was a story of new clothes, new makeup, new hair, and the happiness that resulted for her and her husband as she cultivated a new coiffed and feminized appearance. Through careful attention, clothing choices, and makeup, she revitalized her marriage and found new worth in herself.

I found the whole story riveting as a fourteen-year-old girl. As was typical of the age, I was interested in romance and beauty. This sounded like a fairy tale—the ugly duckling who showed everyone the beauty that was always there. The message—that girls and women need to cultivate feminine, polished, and pretty appearances, or otherwise face the consequence of disinterested men—didn’t strike me as problematic at the time. I’m sure I thought this was great wisdom being disseminated.

Strangely (or maybe not so strangely), that was far from the only Young Women lesson I encountered about the importance of female beauty in my Mormon congregation. In fact, in my six years in the Young Women program, the only lessons I really remember are the ones about the importance of female grooming, clothing, and appearance. I always rather liked those lessons. They were practical and oriented towards something I was greatly interested in: male/female relationships and female roles and duties. Clearly, my duty was to make sure I was attractive and pretty.

As a forty-something year old now, I can’t help but wonder about the impact of these lessons on me, on my choices, on my self-conception. And to be fair, it probably wasn’t only these lessons that gave me angst about my appearance. No doubt mainstream media and my affluent Southern California town also gave me messages that a large part of my worth as a female was in my appearance. I look back now, and I’m sad for that girl who worried so much about being pretty enough. I’m sad for that girl who made the decision at seventeen to have a bump on the bridge of her nose surgically filed down. I’m sad I equated so much of my worth with my appearance.

In six months my only daughter will enter Young Women. Never having served in Young Women, I’m not sure how the curriculum has changed, but I worry for her. Will she also get messages about the importance of female beauty? Will she get lessons that orient her towards concern about her appearance, her clothes, her attractiveness to males? Is there any hope that she can escape modesty lessons, which in my view, ultimately reduce women to their appearance and their effect on males and therefore objectify them?

My great hope is for a Young Women program that will, among other things, orient her away from thinking about her appearance and about herself as the object of the male gaze.  If the body has to be mentioned in some way, please let it be about how terrific it is to have a strong body that can do things in the world. I hope Young Women teaches her about her infinite worth in the cosmos, about her potential to do and be anything. I hope it inspires her towards kindness and compassion, courage and wisdom. I hope it’s a chance to think big about the good she and others can do in the community. I hope it teaches her to find her voice and use it without apology, particularly to call out injustice or oppression. There’s enough in our world (and church) that will try to box her in and place limits around who she can and should be in this world. Please let our Young Women program expand her vision about her possibilities, not reduce her to gender roles and an attractive body.

I recently finished Sue Monk Kidd’s latest novel centered on the wife of Jesus. We meet her at fourteen, a girl teeming with longings and ambition and brilliance. The prayer she writes for herself at fourteen, the prayer that becomes her mantra throughout her life is this: “Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it. . . . When I am dust, sing these words over my bones: she was a voice.”

I wish I had been taught to embrace the largeness inside me at fourteen. I wish my religious community had done more to help me cultivate it. May my daughter–and all our daughters–learn to love the largeness inside them. May they find their voices and the courage to raise them.

 

#BlacklivesmattertoChrist and #keepsharingtheLDSmic actions

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Today at 6pm the Black Lives Matter to Christ Facebook page will  be live streaming a Juneteenth Fireside. From the page, the founder offers this description: “Just a reminder that the Juneteenth Black Fireside is in 2 days! I’ve gotten this question a lot, but yes the fireside is open to everyone to watch! It will be a Black centered space, but anyone can watch. I hope that it will be fulfilling for the Black folks seeking community and healing & will push nonblack folks to emphasize with us and find various tangible ways to support our community that ultimately leads in the dismantling of white supremacy.”

She has also organized a letter-writing campaign to church leaders and a series of posts tagged with #blacklivesmattertoChrist on facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Follow the page and the tag to find out how to participate, amplify and support the action.

Another action, #keepsharingtheLDSmic is happening on Instagram to highlight the voices of Black LDS women speaking and sharing on the platforms of white LDS women, as inspired by the #sharethemicnow action that took place last week. Follow the tags #keepsharingthemic and #keepsharingtheLDSmic to see the posts and stories shared, share in your stories and follow their socials.

These two actions are good places to listen, learn, change and act.

 

 

To the White Folks Asking “What Can I Do?”

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As we have seen recently and throughout hundreds of years of human history, white supremacy and racism cause unspeakable harm and injury to our BIPOC siblings.  White supremacy is both institutional and embedded into the framework of systems AND personal and engrained in our individual ways of thinking and moving in the world.  It is manifest from the policies and practices held at the macro levels of structures all the way to aggressions and prejudice at the micro levels between individuals. Breaking down this oppressive system is the moral imperative of everyone who believes in equality and fights for justice.

The problems and harm done by white supremacy exist because whiteness inserted unequal beliefs and practices into place and has buttressed them for centuries; therefore it is the duty of white people to be fully invested its eradication.

White supremacy is entrenched at macro levels of large systems (governments, communities, churches, schools, groups, families, etc.) and built-in to the micro levels of individual response, accountability and action. This means the work we contribute to dismantle it can be done at any and all of the points of impact where it exists.

Because we were all born into white supremacist systems (government, schools, churches, families, etc.) and through no intentional fault of our own or our parents, none of us can escape that white supremacy was baked into our social consciousness from birth and beyond.

As a result, we are all inescapably racist. Being racist is not an insult or a character trait, but a description of behaviors and thought patterns that are founded in white supremacy. While prejudice exists in all people, racism will be defined in this post as the combination of prejudice + power, and therefore will reject the notion that minority ethnicities are racist, or “reverse racist.” Disenfranchised persons lack the institutional power to enact racism.

At the personal level, white supremacy is built into our individual psyches from birth, all the way from the overt white supremacist terrorists like the KKK, to the average, kind hearted and well-intentioned white person who believes we are all children of God and created equal.

In larger systems like church, schools, and governments, the policies and laws to blame for dehumanizing, disenfranchising and denying basic human rights to BIPOC are countless and varied.

Church doctrine teaches the principle of individual agency; that no original sin of Adam and Eve passed onto their children. As Jesus said, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

In the context of engrained white supremacy and systemic injustice, there are communal and individual overt transgressions as well as sins of omission. Dismantling white supremacy requires repentance and restitution for both.

Implicit in this understanding is the need to reject the good/bad binary when trying to slice and separate racists from not-racists from anti-racists. “Good” people and anti-racist people are still racist. Goodness or badness as a person does not mutually exclude racism as a behavior.  Racism is a behavior, not a character trait.  We all have it, and unless we intentionally stop the spread and work to reverse it effects, we are complicit in its perpetuation.  One reason why we may not feel compelled to the work or why we may not feel complicit in the harm is that we cannot see the ways we cause it or cannot see how we have power to change it.  Such obliviousness to the racial dynamics and harm done to BIPOC by the consequences of white supremacy is evidence of our privilege.

Becoming aware of racism, to being more or less racist, to being more or less anti-racist is a spectrum along which we can all travel (or not) each day. The process of dismantling white supremacy at micro and macro levels is a daily repentance, a daily process and self examination, a daily commitment to do less harm today than we did yesterday, a daily chance to listen, learn, change, and act.

Like Medusa or the Hydra, white supremacy has many heads of harm and more continue to sprout up each day. As such, not all disenfranchised groups experience the same oppressions in the same way. In the US we see examples of anti-Black bias in the school-to-prison pipeline, anti-Indigenous colonization, anti-Latino actions toward those seeking  asylum, just to name a few different symptoms of the same poison.

So what are our roles in destroying this seven-headed beast in apocalyptic fashion? i.e. “What can I DO?”

May I suggest a cycle that can be repeated at any point of impact or level of influence?

With intentional empathy and without fragility: Listen. Learn. Change. Act.

Entering conversations with intentional empathy means having the desire to change, to listen and feel, and to be willing to be shown new ways of thinking and working.

Entering conversations without fragility means leaving defensiveness about our actions or complicity at the door. It’s the type of humility that leads to being teachable. It’s in recognizing our own personal errors without overreacting. It’s in addressing our feelings without projecting guilt, or expecting to be made comfortable. It’s in not demanding labor or support from the oppressed persons to assuage our feelings of guilt or shame. It’s exemplified in apologizing when we misstep.

We should try to approach these conversations and interactions with racial literacy and racial stamina. This includes building our understanding of the vocabulary, history, and context, and in being engaged in the good work without giving up.

Listen. Start by listening, including reading or watching. What is your most comfortable way to consume media? Start there. Add social justice influences to your daily IG scroll, read their books or audiobooks, follow them on FB, subscribe to their podcast, add films to your Netflix watch list, and more. Some great suggestions shared here.

Learn. Each day, look for a way to be impacted by what you read or hear. Look for an “a-ha!” moment. Take that learning moment deep into yourself as an examination.

Change. Absorb what you listen and learn, bring it into yourself and invite a change of mind and heart to impact you.  Allow that impact to change your thoughts and behavior. Let those changes make you a better person in an instant.

Act. Let what you have heard, read, and learned inform your behavior. Make better choices tomorrow that will help you do less harm than you did today.

Repeat the process at micro and macro levels from today until forever.

Listen-Learn-Change-Act can be small, micro interactions at personal levels, or macro interventions in large structures, or anything in between. Over time these “a-ha!” growing moments will offer change, and these small-to-large transformations can be deeply impactful, no matter the scale. Transforming each day to do less harm can bring peace and healing to those injured by our previous words, actions, or by the systems we enabled.

Here are 4 possible scenarios of what a Listen-Learn-Change-Act cycle could look like on a daily basis, on a few different scales or points of impact.

After scrolling on IG to @theconsciouskid and reading about how most picture books don’t feature racial diversity in their main characters, I learn how my white children are growing up without seeing BIPOC represented in stories. I click over to the list of picture books with Black characters. I go to the library and pick out some books from the list. I read them to my children and we talk about literary representation.
I’m a music teacher who loves teaching American folk Songs to my students. I come across an article describing the racist roots and white supremacy embedded in the lyrics of “I’ve been working on the railroad.” Even though I like this song for its catchy tune, I commit to removing it from my curriculum. I no longer teach the song or perpetuate it to my students, and I tell them why.
I see a news story about some racial slurs that were spray painted on local school property. I show up and help to repaint. I contact the school board about incorporating anti-racism curriculum at the school and I attend the school site council meetings to advocate for curriculum additions until changes are made.
I never learned about Juneteenth in history classes as a student. I don’t understand the difference between “Black Lives Matter” and “All lives matter.” I heard the phrase “white fragility” but I don’t know what it means. What happens if we defund the police? What is “trauma porn” and why shouldn’t I share images of lynchings? With all these questions,  I set to work on Google to find videos, books, and influencers speaking about the issues. I read and research lots of places to make sure I’m hearing different voices that are fully intersectional. I avoid voices that repackage white supremacy to rationalize injustice. I build my racial literacy one term at a time.

If you, like me, have only recently arrived to the activist scene compared to the long arc of justice that has been bending for decades since before we were born, here are a few standing requests that have been in place since before we got here.

Avoid optical or performative allyship; invest instead in deep relational change. Optical allyship puts the focus of the work on the ally, not in affecting actual change in this issue. Dr. LaShawn Williams said, “IF I NEVER SEE YOU (AS A NONBLACK PERSON) POST “BLACK LIVES MATTER” TO RAISE AWARENESS BECAUSE YOURE DOING THE DEEP WORK ON YOUR SELF AND YOUR FRIENDS TO STOP BEING RECKLESSLY HARMFUL YET WELL INTENTIONED, I would be happy.”
Avoid white centering or leading with white feelings. “I’m so angry…I feel so bad…I’m just so upset…” While it may be true that we are feeling angry, sad and upset, this is not the time be centering our own responses because it displaces culpability and personal accountability.  This shifts the focus away from the issue itself for the sake of addressing our feelings about it. Channel those feelings into learning, changing and acting.
Amplify “own voices” that speak about racial oppression from its center rather than our own white voices of allyship from the periphery of the issue. Do the work they’ve asked, but don’t speak on their behalf.
Expect to see white supremacy everywhere we look. Avoid articulating “outrage, surprise, horror, aghast” responses when we encounter another head from the Hydra beast. Responding with shock to the pain caused by white supremacy telegraphs to the injured person that we don’t understand the depths that white supremacy has plumbed, and that we see their lived reality as unbelievable, fantastical or too-fictional to be real. The obliviousness of being shocked is painful to those who wish we had been more attentive all along.
Develop our racial literacy by studying terminology and history. Use Google, and DON’T slide into the DM’s of BIPOC to pepper them with questions about what we can do, or where we should go to learn xyz, or to process our feelings of white guilt.
Avoid apologizing for whiteness as a whole, or for white people in general, but do apologize with specific, personal accountability. No culture is a monolith, and no one person can absolve an entire group with a single apology. By shifting the blame to the whole racial group, we displace the personal accountability we should otherwise own and speak from.
Support BIPOC scholars, educators, writers, artists, musicians and influencers who are fully intersectional in their approach. Do not expect their labor for free – buy their books, albums and courses, subscribe to their patreon and podcasts.

In our own discussions or social media postings, we can avoid sharing content which is “recklessly harmful yet well intentioned” by running it through a filter:

Am I using an intersectional lens?

What or who is the center of this narrative?

Am I perpetuating harm?

Whose comfort and safety is prioritized and whose is threatened?

What is my intention with posting, and will my framing achieve that intention?

Blessings to us all in this marathon work – may we be buoyed up with stamina to stay the course of justice that its ends may be achieved ever sooner because of our action and not delayed by our inaction or errors.

To the White People Asking “What Can I Do?”

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As we have seen recently and throughout hundreds of years of human history, white supremacy and racism cause unspeakable harm and injury to our BIPOC siblings.  White supremacy is both institutional and embedded into the framework of systems AND personal and engrained in our individual ways of thinking and moving in the world.  It is manifest from the policies and practices held at the macro levels of structures all the way to aggressions and prejudice at the micro levels between individuals. Breaking down this oppressive system is the moral imperative of everyone who believes in equality and fights for justice.

The problems and harm done by white supremacy exist because whiteness inserted unequal beliefs and practices into place and has buttressed them for centuries; therefore it is the duty of white people to be fully invested its eradication.

White supremacy is entrenched at macro levels of large systems (governments, communities, churches, schools, groups, families, etc.) and built-in to the micro levels of individual response, accountability and action. This means the work we contribute to dismantle it can be done at any and all of the points of impact where it exists.

Because we were all born into white supremacist systems (government, schools, churches, families, etc.) and through no intentional fault of our own or our parents, none of us can escape that white supremacy was baked into our social consciousness from birth and beyond.

As a result, we are all inescapably racist. Being racist is not an insult or a character trait, but a description of behaviors and thought patterns that are founded in white supremacy. While prejudice exists in all people, racism will be defined in this post as the combination of prejudice + power, and therefore will reject the notion that minority ethnicities are racist, or “reverse racist.” Disenfranchised persons lack the institutional power to enact racism.

At the personal level, white supremacy is built into our individual psyches from birth, all the way from the overt white supremacist terrorists like the KKK, to the average, kind hearted and well-intentioned white person who believes we are all children of God and created equal.

In larger systems like church, schools, and governments, the policies and laws to blame for dehumanizing, disenfranchising and denying basic human rights to BIPOC are countless and varied.

Church doctrine teaches the principle of individual agency; that no original sin of Adam and Eve passed onto their children. As Jesus said, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

In the context of engrained white supremacy and systemic injustice, there are communal and individual overt transgressions as well as sins of omission. Dismantling white supremacy requires repentance and restitution for both.

Implicit in this understanding is the need to reject the good/bad binary when trying to slice and separate racists from not-racists from anti-racists. “Good” people and anti-racist people are still racist. Goodness or badness as a person does not mutually exclude racism as a behavior.  Racism is a behavior, not a character trait.  We all have it, and unless we intentionally stop the spread and work to reverse it effects, we are complicit in its perpetuation.  One reason why we may not feel compelled to the work or why we may not feel complicit in the harm is that we cannot see the ways we cause it or cannot see how we have power to change it.  Such obliviousness to the racial dynamics and harm done to BIPOC by the consequences of white supremacy is evidence of our privilege.

Becoming aware of racism, to being more or less racist, to being more or less anti-racist is a spectrum along which we can all travel (or not) each day. The process of dismantling white supremacy at micro and macro levels is a daily repentance, a daily process and self examination, a daily commitment to do less harm today than we did yesterday, a daily chance to listen, learn, change, and act.

Like Medusa or the Hydra, white supremacy has many heads of harm and more continue to sprout up each day. As such, not all disenfranchised groups experience the same oppressions in the same way. In the US we see examples of anti-Black bias in the school-to-prison pipeline, anti-Indigenous attitudes of colonization, anti-Latino sentiments regarding political asylum and immigration, just to name a few different symptoms of the same poison.

So what are our roles in destroying this seven-headed beast in apocalyptic fashion? i.e. “What can I DO?”

May I suggest a cycle that can be repeated at any point of impact or level of influence?

With intentional empathy and without fragility: Listen. Learn. Change. Act.

Entering conversations with intentional empathy means having the desire to change, to listen and feel, and to be willing to be shown new ways of thinking and working.

Entering conversations without fragility means leaving defensiveness about our actions or complicity at the door. It’s the type of humility that leads to being teachable. It’s in recognizing our own personal errors without overreacting. It’s in addressing our feelings without projecting guilt, or expecting to be made comfortable. It’s in not demanding labor or support from the oppressed persons to assuage our feelings of guilt or shame. It’s exemplified in apologizing when we misstep.

We should try to approach these conversations and interactions with racial literacy and racial stamina. This includes building our understanding of the vocabulary, history, and context, and in being engaged in the good work without giving up.

Listen. Start by listening, including reading or watching. What is your most comfortable way to consume media? Start there. Add social justice influences to your daily IG scroll, read their books or audiobooks, follow them on FB, subscribe to their podcast, add films to your Netflix watch list, and more. Some great suggestions shared here.

Learn. Each day, look for a way to be impacted by what you read or hear. Look for an “a-ha!” moment. Take that learning moment deep into yourself as an examination.

Change. Absorb what you listen and learn, bring it into yourself and invite a change of mind and heart to impact you.  Allow that impact to change your thoughts and behavior. Let those changes make you a better person in an instant.

Act. Let what you have heard, read, and learned inform your behavior. Make better choices tomorrow that will help you do less harm than you did today.

Repeat the process at micro and macro levels from today until forever.

Listen-Learn-Change-Act can be small, micro interactions at personal levels, or macro interventions in large structures, or anything in between. Over time these “a-ha!” growing moments will offer change, and these small-to-large transformations can be deeply impactful, no matter the scale. Transforming each day to do less harm can bring peace and healing to those injured by our previous words, actions, or by the systems we enabled.

Here are 4 possible scenarios of what a Listen-Learn-Change-Act cycle could look like on a daily basis, on a few different scales or points of impact.

After scrolling on IG to @theconsciouskid and reading about how most picture books don’t feature racial diversity in their main characters so our white children are growing up without seeing BIPOC in their stories. I click over to the list of picture books with Black characters. I go to the library and pick out some books from the list. I read them to my children and we talk about literary representation.
I’m a music teacher who loves teaching American folk Songs to my students. I come across an article describing the racist roots and white supremacy embedded in the lyrics of “I’ve been working on the railroad.” Even though I like this song for its catchy tune, I commit to removing it from my curriculum. I no longer teach the song or perpetuate it to my students, and I tell them why.
I see a news story about some racial slurs that were spray painted on local school property. I show up and help to repaint. I contact the school board about incorporating anti-racism curriculum at the school and I attend the school site council meetings to advocate for curriculum additions until changes are made.
I never learned about Juneteenth in history classes as a student. I don’t understand the difference between “Black Lives Matter” and “All lives matter.” I heard the phrase “white fragility” but I don’t know what it means. What happens if we defund the police? What is “trauma porn” and why shouldn’t I share images of lynchings? With all these questions,  I set to work on Google to find videos, books, and influencers speaking about the issues. I read and research lots of places to make sure I’m hearing different voices that are fully intersectional. I avoid voices that repackage white supremacy to rationalize injustice. I build my racial literacy one term at a time.

If you, like me, have only recently arrived to the activist scene compared to the long arc of justice that has been bending for decades since before we were born, here are a few standing requests that have been in place long before we got here.

Avoid optical or performative allyship; invest instead in deep relational change. Optical allyship puts the focus of the work on the ally, not in affecting actual change in this issue. Dr. LaShawn Williams said, “IF I NEVER SEE YOU (AS A NONBLACK PERSON) POST “BLACK LIVES MATTER” TO RAISE AWARENESS BECAUSE YOURE DOING THE DEEP WORK ON YOUR SELF AND YOUR FRIENDS TO STOP BEING RECKLESSLY HARMFUL YET WELL INTENTIONED, I would be happy.”
Avoid white centering or leading with white feelings. “I’m so angry…I feel so bad…I’m just so upset…” While it may be true that we are feeling angry, sad and upset, this is not the time be centering our own responses because it displaces culpability and personal accountability.  This shifts the focus away from the issue itself for the sake of addressing our feelings about it. Channel those feelings into learning, changing and acting.
Amplify “own voices” that speak about racial oppression from its center rather than our own white voices of allyship from the periphery of the issue. Do the work they’ve asked, but don’t speak on their behalf.
Expect to see white supremacy everywhere we look. Avoid articulating “outrage, surprise, horror, aghast” responses when we encounter another head from the Hydra beast. Responding with shock to the pain caused by white supremacy telegraphs to the injured person that we don’t understand the depths that white supremacy has plumbed, and that we see their lived reality as unbelievable, fantastical or too-fictional to be real. The obliviousness of being shocked is painful to those who wish we had been more attentive all along.
Develop our racial literacy by studying terminology and history. Use Google, and DON’T slide into the DM’s of BIPOC to pepper them with questions about what we can do, or where we should go to learn xyz, or to process our feelings of white guilt.
Avoid apologizing for whiteness as a whole, or for white people in general, but do apologize with specific, personal accountability. No culture is a monolith, and no one person can absolve an entire group with a single apology. By shifting the blame to the whole racial group, we displace the personal accountability we should otherwise own and speak from.
Support BIPOC scholars, educators, writers, artists, musicians and influencers who are fully intersectional in their approach. Do not expect their labor for free – buy their books, albums and courses, subscribe to their patreon and podcasts.

In our own discussions or social media postings, we can avoid sharing content which is “recklessly harmful yet well intentioned” by running it through a filter:

Am I using an intersectional lens?

What or who is the center of this narrative?

Am I perpetuating harm?

Whose comfort and safety is prioritized and whose is threatened?

What is my intention with posting, and will my framing achieve that intention?

Blessings to us all in this marathon work – may we be buoyed up with stamina to stay the course of justice that its ends may be achieved ever sooner because of our action and not delayed by our inaction or errors.

Lesson Plan: Overcoming Racism, Starting Within Our Own Latter-day Saint Culture

Last week, the  Come Follow Me weekly reading assignment for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) was the sermon of Alma in Alma 5-7.  It is one of the most introspective sermons in our cannon, inviting us to ask ourselves probing questions that seem particularly important now, in light of current events that have brought renewed awareness to the problem of racism in American society:

And now behold, I ask of you, my [sisters and] brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

…I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?

…And again I say unto you, is there one among you that doth make a mock of his brother [or sister], or that heapeth upon him [or her] persecutions?

-Alma 5:14, 19, 30

When my local Sunday School class discussed these questions (via Zoom, due to ongoing COVID-19 quarantines), many of us talked about the recent episodes of police brutality and racism afflicting our black brothers and sisters, and wondered aloud how we could do our part to change our hearts, clean our hands, and alleviate the persecutions of communities afflicted by systemic racism.

I also wondered, when we imagine ourselves engraving the image of God in our countenances, are we picturing a white man?  How does our own church culture make us complicit?

After Sunday School, I decided to focus my Family Home Evening on racism, with a particular emphasis on how racism permeates our own culture as LDS church members. I am sharing my lesson plan here. While my family used this lesson for Family Home Evening, it could be adapted to a church setting for a Relief Society, Young Women or Priesthood class.

Healing the Wounds of Racism

In the article,  Healing the Wounds of Racism, Darius Gray, a founding member and former president of Genesis, an LDS Church-sponsored group that serves the needs of African-American church members, listed four steps we should follow:

1. Acknowledge the Problem

…We cannot fix that which we overlook or deny. Our attitudes toward others of a different race or of a different culture should not be considered a minor matter. Viewing them as such only affirms a willingness to stay unchanged…

2. Recognize It in Ourselves

Some people acknowledge the problem but may not recognize it in themselves. Sometimes racism is so subtle, we may not realize we’re expressing it…

3. Learn a New Approach

4. Listen

…We are a community of talkers. We talk about ourselves, our historical families, our children, and often our faith. And while all of that is a form of sharing, it would be beneficial if we became a community of listeners. If we first endeavored to truly hear from those we consider as “the other,” and if our honest focus was to let them share of their lives, their histories, their families, their hopes, and their pains, not only would we gain a greater understanding, but this practice would go a long way toward healing the wounds of racism.

– Darius Gray, Healing the Wounds of Racism

Bias

We all have biases, which is part of the reason following Bro. Gray’s counsel to recognize the problem in ourselves is so important. If we don’t do the hard work of looking for bias within our own hearts, we cannot affirmatively answer Alma’s question, “Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?”

The apostle Paul described the limitations of our own, human perspectives this way:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

-1 Corinthians 13:12

How are we known by the Lord? How does the Lord’s perspective differ from ours? Consider what the Lord told the Biblical prophet Samuel:

But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature…for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

-1 Samuel 16:7

Note that Samuel was not a bad person, and yet, he had biases, like we all do. We should not assume that biases are only found among bad people.  This belief prevents us from recognizing our own biases.

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Image by Sean Tierney

Paul’s observation that we “know in part” is often described this way in modern vernacular:

What we know
What we don’t know
What we don’t know we don’t know

For example, I know that my home appliances are operated by electricity.  I know that I don’t know how to repair an electric appliance, so I wisely seek help from an electrician for those services. The part that I don’t know that I don’t know is the most dangerous.  Once, I didn’t know that I didn’t know that an electric appliance in my household had broken and so I tried to turn it on and shocked myself.

This is where Bro. Gray’s counsel to listen becomes so important. For those of us from privileged racial backgrounds, there will be many things we don’t know about the racism others experience unless we listen to them.

Our own biases often fall into the “unknown unknowns” category. Others may see us act in ways that reveal biases we didn’t know that we had. This can be hard to hear, especially when we are trying to be good allies,  but our awareness and capacity to confront racism will grow as we listen when people tell us the things we didn’t know we didn’t know. (I will confess here that I internally debated whether to share my FHE lesson on this website, because it is highly likely that an alert reader will notice that I said something wrong, and I don’t know which thing it was that was wrong.  This is hard for me.)

Systemic Racism

To fight racism, introspection is not enough.  We must disband systemic racism, which requires changing policies and rectifying decades-old wrongs. Systemic racism is an unlevel playing field that permeates society.

“Systemic racism”, or “institutional racism”, refers to how ideas of white superiority are captured in everyday thinking at a systems level: taking in the big picture of how society operates, rather than looking at one-on-one interactions. These systems can include laws and regulations, but also unquestioned social systems.

-Mary Frances O’Dawd, Explainer: what is systemic racism and institutional racism?

In Time magazine, Justin Worland listed several examples of systemic racism in the United States of America:

Systemic racism also found its way, more insidiously, into the institutions many Americans revere and seek to safe-guard. Established in the 1930s, Social Security helped ensure a stable old age for most Americans, but it initially excluded domestic and agricultural workers, leaving behind two-thirds of black Americans. Federal mortgage lending programs helped white Americans buy homes after World War II, but black Americans suffered from a shameful catch-22. Federal policy said that the very presence of a black resident in a neighborhood reduced the value of the homes there, effectively prohibiting African-American residents from borrowing money to buy a home. And sentencing laws of the past several decades meant that poor black Americans were thrown in prison for decades-long terms for consuming one type of cocaine while their wealthier white counterparts got a slap on the wrist for consuming another.

There’s a straight line between these policies and the state of black America today. The lack of Social Security kept black Americans toiling in old age or forced them to the streets. The obstruction of black homeownership, among other factors, has left African Americans poorer and more economically vulnerable, with the average black household worth $17,000 in 2016 while the average white household was worth 10 times that. “Tough on crime” sentencing policies have ballooned the black prison population, torn apart families and left millions of children to grow up in single-parent homes.

-Justin Worland, America’s Long Overdue Awakening to Systemic Racism

Systemic Racism within the LDS Church

While I was serving as a missionary in the Dominican Republic, my mission president held a meeting for American missionaries to address racism he had noticed among American missionaries toward our Dominican peers. He gave us an introductory lesson on privilege by describing his own.  Yes, he had worked hard to educate himself and build a profitable business, but those opportunities had only been available to him because of the circumstances of his birth; he was born to a privileged race, in a wealthy country, with access to free, high quality education and numerous job opportunities.

In the context of the LDS church, my Dominican peers were disadvantaged in additional ways. As missionaries, they were operating within a system based on and catering to American culture, not their own, and had few if any of their own countrymen represented in church leadership. Nearly all of them were first generation members of the church. Their ancestors never had the opportunity to join the LDS Church because the Dominican Republic was one of several countries with a predominantly black population which the LDS Church excluded from missionary efforts until 1978. From 1852 until 1978, the LDS Church banned people of black African descent from holding the priesthood or attending the temple.

LDS scriptures teach that racism does not come from the Lord:

For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.

-2 Nephi 26:33

However, paradoxically, our scriptures also reflect the biases of the men who wrote them, including their racist sentiments. The prophet Nephi admitted that the spiritual power of his words were limited by his own weaknesses (2 Nephi 4:14-35, 33:1-4). Likewise, there are many examples of racist teachings by modern LDS church leaders. In 2013, the LDS Church made the following statement:

Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.

-Gospel Topics Essays: Race and the Priesthood

Modern LDS church members cannot complacently assume that racism is only a relic of our past.  Unlearning decades of racism requires constant vigilance. Our church today remains predominantly white because racist policies and teachings excluded people of color for so long, and this lack of diversity makes change all the more difficult because the people we need to listen to are often missing, especially within the leadership positions that continue to define policy and doctrine.

My family concluded Family Home Evening by rewatching the Be One Celebration. As the title implies, the tone of this video is celebratory and hopeful, with a focus on the joy that comes from ending racist policies more than the pain they cause while in place. But it does acknowledge the problem in ways that I have not seen many other church-sponsored media do.

[image error] Gladys Knight, Alex Boyé and other Latter-day Saint performers at the Be One Celebration on June 1, 2018. Photos by Christina Smith.

 

The Be One Celebration was presented and broadcast by the LDS Church in 2018, commemorating 40 years since the LDS Church revoked racist policies barring people of African descent from holding the priesthood or attending the temple.  The video also touches on other racist policies, such as refusing to send missionaries or build churches in predominantly black countries.

For Family Home Evening, we started at Time Stamp 24:00 of the video, which is when the musical production begins (after the introductions and speeches that proceed it) and watched through to the end (about 1 hour).

If you share this video in a church classroom setting, you will not have time for the whole show. I recommend watching the 15-minute section between Time Stamps 35:40-50:20. This section of the video discusses black Latter-day Saint history, highlighting the stories of notable black Latter-day Saints, including both their important contributions to the LDS Church and the discrimination they faced as a result of racism within the LDS Church.

2020 Exponent II Retreat Cancelled

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Photo by Alan Levine via flickr.com

We have been monitoring the ever-changing situation with Covid-19. The health and safety of our Retreat attendees is paramount. Due to ongoing risks and restrictions, our 2020 Exponent II Retreat will not be going ahead. We hope you will join us at next year’s Retreat.

Please stay tuned for further opportunities to support Exponent II this year.

–Exponent II Board

Save the date for next year’s Retreat: September 17-19, 2021

Step in front, then step aside

[image error]Photo courtesy of Jeremy Yap

In 2015 I had the pleasure to attend a Sunstone Education Foundation event, “Theology from the Margins Conference” where the keynote speech was given by Rev. Dr. Fatimah Salleh. Her sermon was one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life. She spoke about the Canaanite woman who sought out Jesus to receive a healing for her daughter (Mark 7:24-30). Christ’s disciples tried to turn her away because they found her cries annoying, yet she persisted. Even Jesus tells her that he didn’t come here to teach her and she replied, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Christ declared her faith mighty and healed her daughter within the hour. Dr. Salleh asked the audience to reflect about those on the margins of our faith that we turn away from the Savior because they make us uncomfortable. Who are we denying access to the Savior because we think the Gospel isn’t for them? Dr. Salleh also spoke to the mostly white (heterosexual, able-bodied, middle class) audience about using our privilege to step to the front and then step aside to hand the spotlight over to a marginalized voice. A voice on the margins. I have thought about this sermon hundreds of times over the last few years. I even spoke about this sermon recently in one of my Masters classes while we discussed the Black Lives Matter movement about what we can do with our privilege to affect change.

To take Dr. Salleh’s wisdom and put it into action, I would like “step in front, then step aside” and use this space to highlight remarkable women putting their bodies and lives on the line to speak out about systemic and institutional racism.

[image error]Rev. Dr. Fatimah Salleh via Twitter

Reverend Dr. Fatimah Salleh received her PhD in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a Master’s Degree in Public Communications from Syracuse University, and a Master’s degree in Divinity from Duke University. She served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Campinas, Brazil. She is the founder of A Certain Work, an organization dedicated to educating on issues of faith, diversity, equity, and inclusion. She co-authored the book, The Book of Mormon for the Least of These, Volume 1, with Margaret Olsen Hemming, which was published in 2020. Her Twitter handle is @timasalleh

“I had to endure my own faith shattering. As I result, I have learned to hold my faith very tenderly; I allow it to fall apart, to grow, and to morph in ways that are unexpected because I have learned that I don’t want to hold it so tight that I can’t grow it with God.” —Rev. Dr. Fatimah Salleh, Dialogue, Vol. 53, No. 1

[image error]Austin Channing Brown via Twitter

Austin Channing Brown is a bestselling author, public speaker, and producer whose work centers the Black experience in America. Brown holds space for racial justice and celebrates the dignity of Blackness. She is an inspired leader on racial justice and anti-racism work. She is the author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness and the executive producer of the web series, The Next Question. Brown’s interview on Brené Brown’s podcast is required listening for everyone attempting to engage in anti-racism work. Her Twitter handle is @austinchanning

“Our only chance at dismantling racial injustice is being more curious about its origins than we are worried about our comfort. It’s not a comfortable conversation for any of us. It is risky and messy. It is haunting work to recall the sins of our past. But is this not the work we have been called to anyway? Is this not the work of the Holy Spirit to illuminate truth and inspire transformation? It’s haunting. But it’s also holy.” —Austin Channing Brown on Unlocking Us podcast

[image error]Ijeoma Oluo via Wikipedia

Ijeoma Oluo is a New York Times bestselling author of So you want to talk about race, which the National Review of Books described as “much-needed and timely” when it was published in 2017. Oluo has written essays for The Establishment, The Guardian, TIME, Jezebel, The Stranger, and many more. Oluo was named of The Root‘s 100 Most Influential African Americans in 2017, named one of the most influential women in Seattle by Seattle Met, and is the 2018 winner of the Feminist Humanist Award by the American Humanist Society. Oluo’s work calls attention to race and identity and the intersections of that with feminism, mental and social justice. Her writing is blunt, sharp, intelligent, and stirs my soul. I’ve been following her public posts on Facebook for years and she describes herself as “a queer, fat, black woman with ADD and chronic anxiety” and an “internet yeller”. Her Twitter handle is @IjeomaOluo

“When somebody asks you to “check your privilege” they are asking you to pause and consider how the advantages you’ve had in life are contributing to your opinions and actions, and how the lack of disadvantages in certain areas is keeping you from fully understanding the struggles others are facing and may in fact be contributing to those struggles. It is a big ask, to check your privilege. It is hard and often painful, but it’s not nearly as painful as living with the pain caused by the unexamined privilege of others. You may right now be saying “but it’s not my privilege that is hurting someone, it’s their lack of privilege. Don’t blame me, blame the people telling them that what they have isn’t as good as what I have.” And in a way, that is true, but know this, a privilege has to come with somebody else’s disadvantage—otherwise, it’s not a privilege.”

― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

[image error]Layla F. Saad via laylaf.saad.com

Layla F. Saad is an author and a teacher who teaches on topics of leadership, social change, identify, race, and personal transformation. Saad is the bestselling author of the book Me and White Supremacy published in 2020. Saad also hosts the Good Ancestor Podcast, and the found of the Good Ancestor Academy. Saad says that her desire to be a good ancestor drives her work to leave a legacy of healing and liberation for black girls and women. Saad’s work confronts all systems of oppression, including white supremacy and patriarchy. Saad was raised in the U.K, Tanzania, and Swindon and currently resides in Doha, Qatar.

“White silence is white violence.”

“Pain and shame are neither desirable nor sustainable as long-term strategies for transformational change. It is my hope that love is what initially brought you to this work. It is my conviction that love is what will keep you going.”

― Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

[image error]Ally Henny via Facebook

Ally Henny is a writer and speaker who focuses on issues on America’s race issues, racial healing, and racial conciliation from a faith-based perspective. Henny is currently pursuing her Masters in Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary. She writes “The Armchair Commentary” blog about the intersection of race, culture, and faith. Henny hosts the “Combing the Roots” podcast, which can be found on iTunes, Spotify, and Google. On the podcast Henny uses her Christian worldview and perspective as a black woman to address contentious issues surrounding the history and culture of racism in America. Henny is a regular contributor for The Witness: A Black Christian Collective, where she writes about black motherhood. Her Twitter handle is @thearmchaircom

“Part of laying down your privilege is listening to oppressed people without arguing, interrogating, minimizing, or gaslighting them.” -Ally Henny via Facebook

[image error]Dr. Mica McGriggs via amishheritage.org

Dr. Mica McGriggs earned a PhD in Counseling Psychology from Brigham Young University. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University in New York City. She is the Director of Diversity Equity & Inclusion at The Ethical Culture Fieldston School. Dr. McGriggs’ research focuses on multicultural sensitivity, intersectional feminism, and the somatic embodiment of racial trauma. Dr. McGriggs’ writing often calls attention to white fragility and white supremacy within Mormonism. Dr. McGriggs’ writing has been featured in The Huffington Post, Teen Vogue, The Sunstone Magazine, Salt Lake Tribune, and she is a regular speaker at many events addressing racial equality and Mormonism. She is currently teaching a course “Racial Equity & Social Impact Course with Dr. Mica McGriggs” online, the first session of which is sold out. You can register for the second session starting July 20th here. Her Twitter handle is @Mica_McGriggs

“The impact of the priesthood and temple ban is not just social; it is personal. Many hearts have been broken over it. Many still ache. Many more will break in the future. [The LDS church’s essay “Race and the Priesthood”] should offer a balm instead of an apologetic. It should open the way for repentance, forgiveness, and atonement rather than rationalizing the issue. It should show its trust that the hearts of its members are open, good, and convertible.” —Dr. Mica McGriggs, Sunstone Magazine, “The Continuing Effects of the Priesthood ban

There are thousands more Black activist women whose work, writing, and voices who could be included in the space. I would encourage white readers to engage in the work of women like Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” Tressie McMillan Cottom, author of “Thick: And Other Essays,” Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross, authors of “A Black Women’s History of The United States,” Claudia Rankine, author of “Citizen: An American Lyric,” Imbolo Mbue, the author of “Behold the Dreamers,” and every book in the literary canon of women like Toni Morison, Maya Angelou, Octavia Butler, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Zora Neale Hurston, and more.

And if you’re not already, you need to be following Tamu Smith and Zandra Vranes at Sistas in Zion on Facebook, Twitter, and read their book Diary of Two Mad Black Mormons: Finding the Lord’s Lessons in Everyday Life.

Guest Post: A Few Questions about the Sacrament and Single Sisters #CopingWithCOVID19

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By Maren C.

Recently President Russell M. Nelson caused quite a stir when he—or whoever administers his social media accounts—posted a few photos to Facebook, along with a lengthy quote by Sister Wendy N. Nelson, describing how they prepare for and hold home church during the pandemic. As might be expected, the post garnered a lot of attention, most especially for the photo depicting the Prophet vacuuming. However I would like to draw attention to another aspect of the post. President Nelson said, “I am especially concerned for those who desire to partake of the sacrament but do not have a worthy priesthood-bearer in their home. They should let their bishop know that they would like to have his delegated representatives come to their home to administer the sacrament. If they wish to provide their own bread and water, based on their specific needs, they may do so.”

This is an enlightening statement, and certainly more specific instructions then we have yet heard regarding those members (read: general women) without a priesthood-holder (read: always a man) in the home. And yet it brings up a plethora of further questions for me.

If the “specific needs” of the single sister include not exposing herself or anyone else to a potentially deadly virus, than yes, she may provide her own bread and water. Given the high degree of importance we can presumably attach to the above-stated need, then may we presume that the word “provide” in this instance can be extended to also mean “prepare?” Are single sisters authorized to break their own bread into little pieces and pour their own water into a cup, in preparation for it to be blessed as sacrament bread and water? Also, assuming the single sister had contacted her Bishop and arranged to have his delegated representatives come to her home to administer the sacrament, we might there run into another problem. What if the delegated representative of God’s priesthood on earth does not want to come into the single sister’s home, for fear of contacting or possibly spreading a potentially deadly virus?

President Nelson’s statement said “to their home” not “in their home,” so this may provide us with a loophole that will allow the single sister to partake of the sacrament while also keeping everyone safe. Allow me to explain:

The single sister would remain in her home and hold the non-blessed but prior-prepared bread and water up to her front door. The priesthood-holder would then say the sacrament prayers (perhaps a bit more loudly than usual) while standing exactly on the other side of the door.

Of course this raises another questions: Can the power of the priesthood travel through solid surfaces? I do not know, so just to be on the safe side, I will present an alternative that I thought of.

The single sister, having already completed the non-priesthood job of *preparing* the sacrament bread and water, could then open a window somewhere in her home. She could place the plate containing the bread and water on a table right next to the open window. The priesthood-holder would then stand on her front lawn, at a safe distance of at least six feet away, and say (again, perhaps slightly louder than usual) the required sacrament blessings.

This should work, right? The single sister can partake of the sacrament in her own home, without putting anyone’s life in danger. But again, more questions arise.

What if there is a screen on the window? What if it’s one of those really old screens that can’t be removed? What if the woman lives in an apartment complex several floors up, and the priesthood-holder is reluctant to enter and expose himself to the aforementioned potentially deadly virus? Can the sacrament prayers be shouted from the street facing her open window? Perhaps through a bullhorn?

Come to think of it, maybe there’s a reason President Nelson declined to get into the specifics on administering the sacrament to single women during a pandemic . . .

Maren C. is an ESL teacher by training and an aspiring poet, currently trying to survive the pandemic with her husband and two kids in the Utah suburbs.