On religion and white supremacy and stuff

[gaudior]

When talking about religion, I've always said that I have no evidence of anything, including that there is no Hell. I've also said it doesn't matter. A God who would send people to Hell-- torture, forever, with no escape-- does not deserve to be worshipped. Even if I knew Hell were real, even if there were a prayer I could say and a church I could attend that would get me into Heaven, with the cost of spending eternity in Hell otherwise, I wouldn't do it. It would be caving into bullying; it would be fawning on someone who should be hated and fought, just because they (okay, "He") had power over me.

(I'm aware that very shortly into being tortured for eternity, I would regret this choice, because that's how torture works. But I still don't think I'm wrong.)

I think that this is also a good way to describe how I feel about white supremacy. White supremacy directly benefits me. It benefits my child, it benefits most of my family. It would be the pragmatic thing to do to go along with it.

It's just... it would be wrong. It does not deserve to be worshipped, even with that much power over my head. It deserves to be fought.

(Fortunately, a genuinely just society would be way, way better than an eternity of torture. :) In fact, I'd directly benefit from a society which was racially just. Even if you leave out of the question the people of color I love and worry about, if there were less racism, we would have such better public transit.* And public schools.** And infrastructure maintenance outside of the suburbs and gated communities.*** And probably medical care.**** )

Leaving that aside, though: I am resolved to fight against white supremacy, and this means that if I succeed, I will not automatically have it easier than other people in ways that I probably don't even realize yet, and that probably does mean my life will be a little harder in some ways. But it's so worth it.

--R




*Which, when it works well, can bring people from any neighborhood in a metropolitan area to any other area, and if you're going to do that, then why bother white flighting in the first place?

** If you want your privileged white child to only go to school with other privileged white children, sending them to private school is your best option, now that that pesky Brown vs. Board of Education is around.

*** Wealthy white people moving to the suburbs = their tax money goes to the suburbs = city streets, which see much much more use (significantly, from the people who now live in the suburbs, but work and drive in the city) have less available funding.

****I've heard very convincing arguments that the reason some white Americans are so opposed to national health care is that they don't like the idea of "lazy" or "undeserving" (these are racist dog whistles for Black and Latine people) people getting things "for free." Which cheerfully ignores that people of color pay taxes to pay for that care, and a much greater percentage than the very wealthy who make a sport of tax evasion.

Comments

[asakiyume]

I love this post. I agree with you entirely.

[sovay]

Fortunately, a genuinely just society would be way, way better than an eternity of torture.

Which is how you know this situation isn't a prisoner's dilemma, but an artifically inflicted zero-sum game. I too would like functional public transit. And justice.