I belong to many spiritually oriented groups. I have for a very long time. I know an exceptionally large number of people who consider themselves to be anywhere from moderately to significantly “spiritual.” Many of these people do not talk about or even acknowledge racism in their everyday and and in some cases voluminous writings, discourses and “satsangas.” Even fewer talk about or even acknowledge white privilege. Why is this? I believe a large part of the answer lies in the concept of liberation as defined and employed by a large and diverse cross section of spiritual seekers.
More specifically, many so called spiritual seekers have a concept of liberation that is heavily weighted toward personal liberation. In other words it is a liberation that places emphasis on individual enlightenment and achievement. Meaning it de-emphasizes, de-legitimizes and in its more extreme cases effectively disappears the understanding of liberation as a direct result of the combination of spiritual practice and social justice action. Though many who view themselves as “highly spiritual” will also often give superficial and for them, adequate lip service to some of the more basic ideas that find a much more distilled and developed expression in such teachings as Engaged Buddhism as taught by spiritual masters such as Thich Nhat Hanh and others.
Second, being a spiritual seeker/person does not unfortunately automatically exempt one from being a human being. And we human beings notoriously avoid things that make us uncomfortable. Racism and white privilege are exceedingly uncomfortable conversations in this culture. This is why Tim Wise, antiracism and white privilege teacher and essayist extraordinaire, receives so many death threats and on a very regular basis. Oddly, it is this very type of avoidance that many spiritual practices and teachings would have us deeply explore, investigate and come to terms with. Habit energy however, is oftentimes stronger and more influential than even the most sublime and beautiful spiritual teachings. So when habit energy, especially when enhanced with a certain type of abstract intellectualism, exist in a spiritual seeker, denial and avoidance are often the result.
So, for those keeping score, we so far have concern with and the primacy of personal liberation and habit energy as reasons why more spiritual people do not talk about and try to actively impact social understanding and social change around the issues of racism and white privilege. To these we can now add what I like to call “above the fray-ism.” Above the fray-ism is when so called spiritual or religious people make a distinction and draw lines of demarcation between their psycho-emotional lives, their social observation and participation and their spiritual aspirations. The so called spiritual aspirations become the locus of focus while psycho-emotional and social observation and participation become the frays one must effectively rise above. Certain strains of neo-advitin (with an ostensibly Hindu foundation) philosophy but also numerous strains of fundamental Christianity and other fundamental religious/spiritual expressions are good examples of systems that employ above the fray-ism an an integral aspect of their belief systems. Above the fray-ism of course does not just nullify discussions of racism and white privilege it nullifies pretty much all discussions of anything that could be considered a social ill, problem or concern. Another, more basic understanding of above the fray-ism is to simply call it denial. Though it is a type of denial that includes some elements that are not necessarily found in plain ole, run of the mill denial. There are expressions of self righteousness and bullying here that don't always show up in plain ole, run of the mill denial. One can, for example, believe global warming simply does not exist with no other energy maintaining that belief other than ignorance, environmental blindness and perhaps a certain level of naiveté. The type of denial I am speaking of here has all the elements of run of the mill denial with the additional strong belief that others simply are not as smart, evolved, aware or conscious with the added strong need to convince those others of all of that.
Finally, there is probably privilege and perhaps even racism experienced by some of the spiritual people in question here and that prevents such spiritual people from speaking out against and about white privilege and racism. Aside from politicians and the CEOs of many large corporations and certain large non-profits, I have not observed too many people who are able to expertly talk out of both sides of their mouths with extreme and pathological proficiency while simultaneously convincing the masses (or their constituency) of their sincerity. In other words, some spiritual people probably don't speak out too much about racism and white privilege because they are consciously or unconsciously, actively or passively--psychologically, emotionally, financially and/or in other ways, participants in and beneficiaries of both.
No comments:
Post a Comment