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Calling out “White People”
I was on a bus in Seattle the other day sitting next to someone I met that day and will likely never meet again. We had gotten into a conversation about each other’s religious backgrounds. He went first.
“Yeah, back home I went to a Lutheran church [I’m not sure of the denomination, but it was something liturgical]. It sucked. I don’t like traditional stuff, and that’s all it was. Everyone was super old and like 90 percent white.”
“What was that?”
“Oh, just — everyone was white. It was terrible.”
Mind you, this is coming from a young, white man.
The exchange was weird, to say the least. I had met this guy not two hours ago, and he was already polemicizing about the evils of the white race. Maybe it was my fault for bringing up religion. I should know that topic can get contentious, and in today’s world, religious ideals stretch ever-farther beyond any reasonable understanding of any sacred text outside of The Communist Manifesto. But it still doesn’t seem appropriate to voice your disdain for a particular group to someone you’ve just met.
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I tend to be a little less brazen with my prejudices. Don’t get me wrong, I have my share of likely-unfair biases (to those of you who don’t: you do), but I cringe at the thought of sharing them with all but my closest friends, much less someone I barely know. Perhaps this is a new strategy for the left: strike first and strike emphatically.
I can’t help but wonder what he would have said if I had replied, “Yeah, my old church sucked. There were too many young, black people there. It was awful.” If he were reasonable, he likely would have reacted with scorn. So why does the think it fine to be not only racist but ageist, too? I know there’s supposedly no such thing as “reverse racism” (really, there isn’t, because racism is just that: racism), but even most leftists wouldn’t deny the ageism critique of this young man’s sentiment.
This type of story isn’t new and it certainly isn’t unique. Pile it on with the rest of the accounts of segregation on college campuses in the form of safe spaces, public anti-Semitic and anti-Christian statements from prominent left-wing individuals, and descriptions from oh, say, a sitting US president of “typical white people.” I still think it’s important to write about these. If a single person reads one of these stories, sees themselves in it, and begins to change their ways, the redundancy will have been worth it.
Cross-posted from my blog, One Restless Heart
Published in Culture
This depends upon the inflection of the speech, but I have found and I assume that when this person said white you could have substituted boring to be more accurate and clear. As in this Church was boring and mundane. He wanted some unique ice cream flavor, but in the end it just taste like vanilla…how disappointing.
Perhaps. But I think what we’re seeing now is that the bourgeois mouth those racist platitudes to protect themselves. They are saying What They Must Say to get along. For the upper classes What They Must Say is such a part of their identity, they give it no thought. They, too, are insulated.
Meanwhile the lower classes and rural classes of white people have no such protections, and they won’t say the magical incantations. Or they say the wrong incantation, like “All lives matter,” and are destroyed for what they thought was truly American sentiment of equality.
Unless they recited the proper mantra, they would be assumed to be the worst kind of white people. White supremacists.
I’m going to be contrary here and say the kid may not have expressed it well, but he might have a point. (And not an ageist or racist one.) When I moved to a new town a few years back, I visited a lot of different churches to find one I liked. I found some I loved and some I didn’t, and you could say that some of the ones I didn’t like were full of old, white people. But the problem wasn’t that the old, white people were there, it was that they were the only ones there.
A church that doesn’t have a strong youth program and lots of families with young children is going to have a harder time remaining outwardly focused and oriented to the future. This is not to say that a church that’s got a mostly older congregation is a bad church. Not at all. But it’s going to have a harder time growing and staying connected with the community, and even though I’m getting older myself it’s probably not the kind of church I want to attend.
In a town where 50% of the population is non-white, seeing an all-white congregation makes me wonder why it is that way. It doesn’t have to be racism, but a church that makes itself exclusive isn’t one that can spread the Word. There are churches that make it very clear that they’re “here for these people, not those people.” It can be class, race, or any of the many divisions we have. (Although excluding New England Patriot fans is completely legit.) I know that as conservatives, we often mock diversity programs and think affirmative action is just another form of racism. And that’s very true for government programs and publicly funded schools. But churches really should be encouraging diversity and reaching out to all different communities. Consider what happened when the Holy Spirit first worked through the early church. The apostles and their followers were given the ability to communicate with people from all different backgrounds and nationalities. God didn’t want the church to just be one kind of people, He wanted the whole world to know the Good News. It’s not racist to want to be in a church that reaches out and welcomes diversity. That’s actually how it’s supposed to work.
You mean like The Church of God on a Harley?
Yabbut, it has always been thus, or at least since the French Revolution it has. Ever since the French nobility got their heads lopped off, the bourgeois have adopted the fashions and cultural affectations of the mob, albeit slightly better-tailored versions thereof.
Look at the switch in men’s fashion from wigs, silks and stockings to the nondescript hats and tweed coats of the country gentleman, right around the period of the French Revolution. Look at the way men in the early 20th century are dressed basically the same, regardless of their social station. Look at The Beats, and The Hippies, and The Punks, and Heroin Chic, etc. Look at Edward VIII and Princess Margaret’s quixotic attempts to be more “egalitarian”. Look at the rise of jeans as acceptable businesswear. Hiding one’s class and/or adopting the fashions of the classes beneath one’s own has periodically been a pretty common trend ever since 1799. Only rarely does it go in the other direction (e.g. the Teddy Boys).
The kid using “white” as a perjorative for boring and bourgeois is simply continuing two centuries of looking down one’s nose at one’s own folk as an amulet of protection against the revolution that’s sure to come at any moment now just you wait. Tis nothing new.
I think that’s my point. It’s not just a synonym for bourgeois, if it’s that at all. It’s a magical phrase. A “get out of guillotine free” card. Part of it may be “I don’t want to be a part of Group X,” but part of it is definitely “I must distance myself from Group X in order to protect myself.”
We are all Havel’s greengrocers, displaying the slogans we need to display in order to survive.
Leftists proclaim their slogans loudly. Conservatives who disagree and who do not feel compelled to announce their views, will still keep their views to themselves. That, too, is a means of survival.
I think it’s a bit of Column A and a bit of Column B. The kids always think they’re ever-so-much more hip and with it. Every generation has its own slang for the old-fashioned, the unhip, the square, the bougie, the fuddy-duddies, the conventional, the nerd, the preppy, the yuppie, the WASP, etc. etc. etc.
The current generation has chosen the word “white”. So be it.
I used to have a t-shirt with the words “Heaven Hath No Dresscode” printed on it.
One could argue that one difference between today’s youthful demographic bulge and the last time there was a large youthful demographic bulge (i.e. between 1968 and 1975) is that there doesn’t seem to be much of a 21st Century equivalent of the Jesus Freaks. Where the 21st Century version of Jesus Christ Superstar and/or Godspell? I mean, sure, plenty of youth pastors have hipster beards, but is that enough?
Well, twenty-three skidoo.
He might have a point if by “back home” he was talking about a large urban area. But if this Lutheran Church “back home” was northern Minnesota, what exactly did he expect to find but 90% (or more) white people?
True. A diverse church in Iowa will be very different than one in L.A.
Diversity is hard to do. We’re more segregated on Sunday mornings than we are at almost any other time. It’s not the kind of change that can be forced, but it’s change we can benefit from.
Agreed. It can also just be an antonym for “diverse.” Since diversity is celebrated as a great and noble virtue, presumably they see nothing controversial or offensive in criticizing a perceived lack of (racial) diversity.
Or the signature grey hoodie of one of the world’s richest and most powerful men: Mark Zuckerberg.
Just a few great, big, long, classic, callings-out of “white” people:
Say “I feel exactly the same way, except about boring, talkative fools.” Then put your headphones on and read a book.
The mistake was taking off the headphones in the first place…
Courtesy. T’was ever my downfall.
I agree. They probably didn’t understand the old church. It is evident that the young Seattle bus rider didn’t understand it enough to even know what synod he belonged to. Not a deep thinker making deep thoughts in public. You can fool some people when you talk about old, etc., but not those that know the subject. It is too bad the author couldn’t have sat next to this young man from Seattle:
from Steadfast Lutherans website author bio:
“Dr. Paul Edmon is from Seattle, Washington and now resides in Boston, Massachusetts. He has his B.S. in Physics from the University of Washington in 2004 and Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Minnesota in 2010. He is professional staff at Harvard University and acts as liaison between Center for Astrophysics and Research Computing. A life long Lutheran, he is formerly a member of Messiah Lutheran Church in Seattle and University Lutheran Chapel in Minneapolis. He now attends First Lutheran Church (FLC) of Boston where he teaches Lutheran Essentials. He sings bass in the FLC choir and Canto Armonico. He was elected to the Concordia Seminary St. Louis Board of Regents in 2016. He is single and among his manifold interests are scotch, football, anime, board games, mythology, history, philosophy, and general nerdiness. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent Harvard University or Concordia Seminary. Twitter: @pauledmon”
Wonder how many of those old white dudes were at Normandy. Or Chosan Reservoir. Or in Vietnam. Or manned the ramparts at the 50th parallel. Or sat in a tank at Checkpoint Charlie or in the Fulda Gap. How many of the dudes and dudettes built Liberty ships, or built B 29’s. Or nursed the wound. Or rolled bandages.
I wonder how many of those old white people wonder if what they did was all a waste?
I’m reminded of the Whittaker Chambers quote: It is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of western civilization. It is already a wreck from within. That is why we can hope to do little more now than snatch a fingernail of a saint from the rack or a handful of ashes from the faggots, and bury it secretly in some flowerpot against the day, ages hence, when a few men begin again to dare to believe that there was once something else, that something else is thinkable, and need some evidence of what it was, and the fortifying knowledge that there were those who, at the great nightfall, took loving thought to preserve the tokens of love and truth.
One of the problems with modern education is that people will read that quote, fixate on word “faggots,” and bring down the outrage chorus.
Yup. Because they don’t know that the word originally connotes “kindling” or “cigarettes”, in Brenglish [British English]. Indoctrinated fools.
I used to have a British colleague, a fellow smoker and fresh off the boat. He would from time to time stick his head in my office door and inquire if I “fancied popping out for a fag.” I knew what he meant, but I had to talk one of the ladies from HR off of the window ledge once.
“Niggardly” has its own Wikipedia entry outlining the various controversies surrounding its usage.
Boy, I started reading that, and clicking on other links, and it turned into a real black hole.
Remember the teacher who got in trouble by saying “niggardly”? You are probably correct.
You all beat me to it!
I was familiar with that use of the term, probably from watching old BBC comedies.
However I must admit I was surprised, then bemused, when I walked into an English Fish & Chips shop and found faggots on the menu.