Racism - It's a real thing.

[StPaulHusker]

38 minutes ago, Fru said:

They all appear to be pretty young teachers as well. They're likely all educated, some probably with Masters degrees, and yet not one of them thought "Hey, maybe this isn't a good idea." 

Educated doesn’t equal intelligent 

[BigRedBuster]

1 hour ago, Fru said:

They all appear to be pretty young teachers as well. They're likely all educated, some probably with Masters degrees, and yet not one of them thought "Hey, maybe this isn't a good idea." 

And, I'm not sure what "young" has to do with it.

[Fru]

27 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

And, I'm not sure what "young" has to do with it.

 

There's often a presumption that racists are older, uneducated hillbillies. 

[Fru]

1 hour ago, StPaulHusker said:

Educated doesn’t equal intelligent 

 

Very true. 

[BigRedBuster]

8 minutes ago, Fru said:

 

There's often a presumption that racists are older, uneducated hillbillies. 

You're leaving out one hell of a lot of racists with that stereotype.  

[Fru]

Just now, BigRedBuster said:

You're leaving out one hell of a lot of racists with that stereotype.  

 

That presumption is not an opinion I hold, in fact, I was trying to point out that Millennials, which is the generation I'm assuming most of these teachers fall into, are just as capable of racist opinions/actions as any other generation. There is another presumption that Millennials hold fewer prejudices than their grandparents and parents, and it's simply not the case. 

[Landlord]

I just worked a high school camp/retreat weekend that involved two MCs dressing up in ponchos and sombreros and throwing tacos as a pre-session dance attention grabbing thing. I thought to myself it seemed a little tone deaf and probably not a great idea. I also know the guys at least well as acquaintances and would not feel comfortable making any claims that they're racists or anything like that. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Also there were at least a handful of hispanic kids attending. But nobody seemed to say anything. Sometimes people are just uncomfortable socially that they have the thought and then just keep it inside because they don't want to be "that" person who comes across as aggressive/accusatory/overly dramatic towards their peers.

[StPaulHusker]

4 minutes ago, Landlord said:

I just worked a high school camp/retreat weekend that involved two MCs dressing up in ponchos and sombreros and throwing tacos as a pre-session dance attention grabbing thing. I thought to myself it seemed a little tone deaf and probably not a great idea. I also know the guys at least well as acquaintances and would not feel comfortable making any claims that they're racists or anything like that. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Also there were at least a handful of hispanic kids attending. But nobody seemed to say anything. Sometimes people are just uncomfortable socially that they have the thought and then just keep it inside because they don't want to be "that" person who comes across as aggressive/accusatory/overly dramatic towards their peers.

[BigRedBuster]

29 minutes ago, Landlord said:

I just worked a high school camp/retreat weekend that involved two MCs dressing up in ponchos and sombreros and throwing tacos as a pre-session dance attention grabbing thing. I thought to myself it seemed a little tone deaf and probably not a great idea. I also know the guys at least well as acquaintances and would not feel comfortable making any claims that they're racists or anything like that. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Also there were at least a handful of hispanic kids attending. But nobody seemed to say anything. Sometimes people are just uncomfortable socially that they have the thought and then just keep it inside because they don't want to be "that" person who comes across as aggressive/accusatory/overly dramatic towards their peers.

 

OK....I guess I will be the guy that asks.

 

Why is putting on a sombrero and poncho and handing out tacos racist?

 

I can clearly see why what the teachers did above is bad when you add in the wall....etc.  But.....

[Landlord]

8 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

OK....I guess I will be the guy that asks.

 

Why is putting on a sombrero and poncho and handing out tacos racist?

 

I can clearly see why what the teachers did above is bad when you add in the wall....etc.  But.....

 

 

It can just easily be viewed as poor taste in the realm of cultural appropriation. A dominant culture using a minority cultures' customs or traditions or elements for mindless or shallow entertainment or parody without thought towards the significance or history of struggle behind them. 

[BigRedBuster]

3 minutes ago, Landlord said:

 

 

It can just easily be viewed as poor taste in the realm of cultural appropriation. A dominant culture using a minority cultures' customs or traditions or elements for mindless or shallow entertainment or parody without thought towards the significance or history of struggle behind them. 

 

If that's what you have.....I guess I have the opinion that's an over sensitive opinion.  Is handing out tacos offensive, demeaning???  Do Mexicans not make and eat tacos?

If I dress up as a Mexican for a halloween party, I'm now being insensitive and racist?

 

What if I dress up as a Chinaman?  Russian??

 

I had a white friend dress up as Obama for halloween after he won his first election.  Was that racist?

[Ulty]

14 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

If that's what you have.....I guess I have the opinion that's an over sensitive opinion.  Is handing out tacos offensive, demeaning???  Do Mexicans not make and eat tacos?

If I dress up as a Mexican for a halloween party, I'm now being insensitive and racist?

 

What if I dress up as a Chinaman?  Russian??

 

I had a white friend dress up as Obama for halloween after he won his first election.  Was that racist?

 

There is a big difference between dressing up like a specific politician or celebrity vs dressing up like a caricature of an entire race/ethnicity based on stereotypical imagery. 

[TGHusker]

This is an excellent article on the topic of Evangelical support of Trump's  immigration & boarder wall policies.  I think the author does a good job of stating how

blind support of Trump's policies go contrary to true evangelical faith principles.   The author is no small figure in the evangelical policy wonk circles.

 

It also ties into my thought that The best thing to happen to the republican party in the last 1/2 century was the Moral Majority.  The worse thing to happen to

Christian evangelical faith in the last 1/2 century was the Moral Majority. 

 

The author sites a poll of evangelicals on the topic of immigration as the basis of the article.

 

Ok I was going to only post a small portion but as I was reading it again, I decided to post a good portion (not all of the article) too many important points not to include. 

 

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/6/18066116/trump-caravan-evangelical-voters

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President Donald Trump is trying to fool evangelicals like me. This time, it’s using a false threat of an invasion from a “caravan” of poor people marching through Mexico to seek asylum legally. It should be obvious to everyone. But it isn’t — research shows that evangelicals tend to have strong political opinions when it comes to immigration, so they are distinctly open to this fear-driven message.

I’m a professor, pastor, and writer who serves at the flagship school of institutional evangelicalism, Wheaton College. I’ve spoken and researched the topic of evangelicals and immigration for five years, due to my concern about how this community seems to reject their deeply held values when it comes to welcoming refugees into our country. As I’ve seen the anti-immigration fervor rise among evangelicals, I’ve hosted an evangelical leaders summit and rallied evangelicals to the engage on these issues.

 

 

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We then asked these evangelicals what they thought of the Trump administration’s actions on immigration since he took office. We found that two out of three evangelicals said they support the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce illegal immigration, while 63 percent support recent reductions in the number of legal immigrants to the United States.

However, we found the most significant splits within evangelical responses on these questions when we broke it down by race and ethnicity. White evangelicals overwhelmingly back more hardline positions on immigration, with three-fourths wanting a reduction in legal immigration and 82 percent supporting the administration’s efforts on illegal immigration.

But few evangelical people of color agreed. Only one-third of African-American evangelicals and half of Hispanics supported reductions in legal immigration, with slightly smaller percentages supporting the administration’s efforts on illegal immigration — 35 and 47 percent respectively.

It is hard not to conclude that far too many white evangelicals are motivated by racial anxiety and xenophobia compared to evangelicals of color. More research certainly is needed, but undoubtedly white evangelicals would do well to turn off cable news and listen to their sisters and brothers in the increasingly diverse pews of evangelical churches for a different view.

When it comes to immigration, evangelicals tend to be more anti-immigration, supporting reductions in immigration, tightening of borders, and (as other studies show) positions on refugees. How should Christians respond to these numbers and, more importantly, how should Christians think about immigration and refugees?

 

 

 

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First, the Christian faith demands we love immigrants and refugees.

These numbers tell me is that many evangelicals are not particularly good at loving strangers, aliens, and pilgrims. Yet throughout scripture we find this value is a central pillar of the Christian faith. In what Christians call the Old Testament, God places hospitality and protection of foreigners at the core of Israel’s ethical identity.In two passages, God gives us the justification for why this is so important. In Leviticus 19:34, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God,” while in Deuteronomy 10:19, “So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

Notice this commandment is conditioned by Israel’s history: They were to welcome the foreigner because they too had been foreigners in a strange land. This same conditional theme is picked up in the New Testament, this time in relation to how Christians are supposed to live in light of Christ’s love for us. At its most basic level we are called to love others unconditionally and sacrificially because Christ first loved us in the same way.

Political and media narratives tell you that distrusting, fearing, or even hating immigrants and refugees is a justified feeling. But scripture calls us to see ourselves in the immigrant and to love others as Christ first loved us.

 

 

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Second, evangelicals need to be taught to love the stranger

Despite this “loving your neighbor” phrase, people do not naturally love the stranger. They do not naturally open their homes, their dinner tables, their churches, and, yes, their countries to others. We have an instinct to hoard, to protect what we have, and to insist others go find their own security and provisions.

More to the point, it is hard for American Christians to grasp the depth of suffering in the world when the grocery store is fully stocked and the emergency room is just down the road for many of us. This is not to say there are not real challenges and real needs in our country. Yet, within our bubble of American evangelicalism, we often lose sight of how much suffering there is in the world.

But teaching people to love and show hospitality toward immigrants and refugees isn’t just about getting our own house in order — we must fight the counter-narratives at work both in and out of the church.

We live in a culture where many political and religious leaders are teaching believers to fear the stranger. What is clear from the data is that this counter-discipling narrative is winning in the church, particularly among white evangelicals.

 

 

Quote

 

One recent infamous example was the Fox News guest who claimed immigrants in the caravan traveling through Mexico was carrying leprosy, smallpox, and tuberculosis and were going to “infect our people in the United States.” Despite having no evidence of this claim — and the fact that the last known case of smallpox was in Somalia in 1977 — this claim was given airtime on a major news network. These kinds of reports are not simply false but designed to provoke animosity, leading audiences in a culture of fear toward these people.

In other words, Christians are being conditioned to see threats where we would otherwise see suffering and a window to preach the gospel; to trade-in our gospel mission for a false sense of personal security.

 

 

 

Quote

 

Love for immigrants and refugees is not at odds with sensible immigration reform

I have been, along with many other evangelical leaders, a strong proponent of US immigration reform. The system as currently constituted is not working and needs to be addressed. But too often politicians seem more interested in using immigration as a means of galvanizing their base and demonizing their opponents than actually coming up with solutions.When I and other evangelicals speak up on the importance of opening our arms to refugees and immigrants, I get a flood of complaints about open borders and references to George Soros. In emails and on social media, Christians whose profiles lead with tags such as “sinner redeemed by grace,” unleash anger that often surprises me.

Love for immigrants and refugees does not mean we ignore immigration reform. Rather, it makes demands on the way we structure new immigration policy, the way we treat those who seek refuge and safety, and how we treat those already in our country.

My views — like many evangelical leaders who are part of the Evangelical Immigration Table — have more in common with former President George W. Bush’s views than George Soros’s. But in today’s world, Bush is often painted as an immigration radical by my fellow evangelicals.

 

 

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How, then, shall we live?

In future generations, I think our evangelical heirs will look back in disappointment on our response to the refugee crisis of our time. How could we have seen the suffering, heard the cries of anguish, and done so little? For evangelicals living today, it is easy to look back and say we would have fought slavery or marched along with civil rights leaders. It is altogether harder to actually make those sacrifices today in the face of suffering.

If this is indeed the “election of the caravan,” my prayer is that evangelicals will recognize the opportunity it affords us to speak about how these refugees are made in the image of God. As Christians, we should be driven by compassion for those men, women, and children. And as Americans, we should value a system that treats them fairly, in accordance with just laws.

I suspect that Christians will wake up this Wednesday morning and the so-called dangerous, filthy caravan of invading barbarian criminals will suddenly be gone from the political coverage. Oh, the asylum seekers will still be there. But the ads, the campaign speeches, and the tweets trying to stoke fears will magically disappear when polls close.

And white evangelical Christians will be able to go back to their lives, safe once again. That is, until politicians need us to be afraid again.

There will always be another caravan, another group of marginalized or suffering people.

Our evangelical witness would be in a better place if we were less easily fooled.

Ed Stetzer leads the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. His most recent book is Christians in the Age of Outrage: How to Bring Our Best When the World Is at Its Worst, which addresses how often Christians now are driven by fear rather than faith.

 

 

[Ulty]

Wearing traditional garb of a certain culture for a festival or something is also different than using that culture as a mascot or for entertainment purposes. It's not always a black and white issue (no pun intended). In Landlord's situation, why were these guys dressed up in sombreros and throwing tacos? Was this part of a theme? Was it a traditional Dia De Muertos celebration last week? Or were they simply being insensitive pricks?

 

And I love tacos - but they do not hold up structurally if you throw them. Why the hell would you throw a taco? Just hand it to me politely.

[BigRedBuster]

13 minutes ago, Ulty said:

 

There is a big difference between dressing up like a specific politician or celebrity vs dressing up like a caricature of an entire race/ethnicity based on stereotypical imagery. 

 

So, if I dress up as a Japanese man and bring sushi to the party, I'm being racist?

 

 A few years ago, I dressed up as a hula dancer complete with a grass skirt and bikini top, was I being racist towards native Hawaiians?

 

BTW...I looked stunning.