#objectively the reason is Probably just because i have 23 followers and post almost exclusively about a niche group!

[sillyabtmusic]

not gonna lie its sucks a little to have Had the mindset of not caring about the note count and just making gifs for fun but then over time shifting to caring about the note count a little bit -_-

[revlyncox]

Building A New Way: White Supremacy, Environmental Racism, and the Rising Generation

This sermon was written for the #UUWhiteSupremacyTeachIn and delivered on April 23, 2017, by Rev. Lyn Cox

When I was a kid, every summer morning, Monday through Saturday, seven a.m., June to August, I was at the municipal swimming pool. I wasn’t a great athlete, but I was able to contribute in my small way to the team.

The year I turned fourteen, my coach asked me to swim backstroke in the divisional meet at the end of the season. This was very exciting, because it meant that I was invited to the end-of-season high school youth dinner party. We all dressed up in fancy clothes, ate dinner at a table with a tablecloth and candles and real silverware, and tried to be civilized.

The city where our public pool was based was fairly racially diverse, and the public school we all attended was even more diverse. There were some families of color involved in our swim team, but swim team was not quite as diverse as our city.

I remember sitting at the youth dinner party, in my nice dress, trying to act as grownup as possible. That’s when the oldest boy on the team, the tall one with blond hair and broad shoulders who reminded me of Fred Jones from the Scooby-Doo cartoon, asked a question. He pointed out that all of us at the table were white, and wondered why that was. He connected that with wondering about racism in general.

I just froze. The last thing I wanted to do was to talk about racism. The older boy asked me directly what I thought. I haltingly said something about how I didn’t think I was qualified to talk about race. He disagreed. I was so shocked at the idea of racism as polite conversation that I don’t think I said anything at all after that.

Now I know he was right. Racism is a cancer that negatively affects all of us, with the most life-threatening damage to our friends and family who are People of Color. White people can and should talk with each other about racism, and about what we can do to dismantle racism in society and within ourselves.

What most of the youth at that table probably didn’t know at the time was that racism has a particular history in the sport of swimming. Desegregating swimming pools took longer even than desegregating schools. When municipal pools were forced to integrate, it led almost instantly to growth in exclusive, private swim clubs, and to a sudden decrease in the willingness of governments to provide adequate funding for public pools. Even today, black youth at many swimming pools are vulnerable to harassment from both patrons and police. When Simone Manuel won an individual gold medal in swimming at the Rio Olympics last year, many of us following the news had an opportunity to learn or review the especially virulent strain of racism that has affected swimming as sport and recreation.

This is part of how I know that, growing up, I was soaked in the culture of white supremacy. That I didn’t think to wonder what could be keeping People of Color from joining or staying on our swim team; that I didn’t know that the sport had been so deeply affected by intentional, government sponsored discrimination; and that I was totally committed to silence on the issue of race, being more shocked by what I thought of as a breach in etiquette than I was by the reality of racism. These are just a few of the things that speak to the way white supremacy affected that one moment.

I tell you this story by way of saying that I have always struggled with facing up to white supremacy. Even though I came up through diverse public schools, even when I have hoped to be on the side of justice throughout my life, even when I keep going to anti-racism training, I still struggle. I make mistakes. I get embarrassed. I find myself reacting out of my anxiety and discomfort instead of moving toward learning and accountability. At the same time, I find that confronting white supremacy means wearing down my own perfectionism, overturning my own sense of helplessness, and bringing me into greater alignment with my values. Most things worth doing are not easy. I would like to invite you to join me in this uncomfortable and spiritually fulfilling journey.

Confronting the white supremacy that is woven throughout American culture and history is awkward and difficult. For those of us who are white, this work is guaranteed to make our ignorance and other less attractive character traits obvious to others. We are called to do it anyway. A faith that holds, as its first principle, “the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” can do no other than to commit to confronting and dismantling white supremacy in our hearts, in our congregations, and in society at large.

Those of us who are white have a greater responsibility to work on unmasking and disrupting white supremacy. I’m not suggesting that we should feel guilty for being white. I’m saying that most of us who are white have been shielded from the realities of white supremacy, and we have years of learning to catch up on. I’m also saying that the people who have the most power in any oppressive system have a duty to work on restructuring the system toward liberation for all. Even when we have disadvantages in terms of gender, class, disability, sexual orientation, or some other axis, when we have white privilege we have benefits and leverage that we did not earn that can be put to use in creating justice.

The term “white supremacy” may be jarring for some, and that’s one of the reasons I’m using it. Business as usual is hurting our loved ones, including loved ones in this congregation. We need to awaken from the haze of the way things have always been done, and the term, “white supremacy,” helps us to pay attention. Another reason is because it reminds us that the purpose of racism as a system is to benefit some groups of people to the detriment of others. With this clarification in mind, we don’t waste as much time arguing about individual acts or about personal biases that are not tied to greater oppressive trends in history and institutional practice.

At the workshop on April 12, we talked about the culture of white supremacy. I can email the notes to anyone who missed it. We learned from the characteristics of white supremacy as they were described by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun in a resource called Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups. There’s a lot more to discuss than we can get into within the length of a worship service, but there are two characteristics that I’d like to lift up briefly: fear of open conflict and perfectionism.

White supremacy thrives in an atmosphere where there is a fear of open conflict. Conflict can be healthy and productive, especially when we manage it with covenantal behavior and a commitment to love and justice. Love means we tell each other the truth, compassionately, yet directly. Love means we listen when people share their personal experiences. When we fear conflict–even in its loving, productive forms–things that are harmful can never be challenged. In that kind of culture, those who object to being hurt are punished for rudely bringing up conflict. When healthy conflict is allowed, hurts can be addressed and rectified.  

Back at my swim team dinner, I was terrified of the possibility of a conflict over the topic of racism. Enforcing silence through etiquette and social conventions is part of how oppression operates.

As this congregation continues to work on living your covenant, you will create more openings for difficult and necessary conversations that lead to greater liberation from white supremacy and other forms of oppression. Preparing for productive and loving conflict is always ongoing work, it is not a project you complete and put in a drawer.

Another characteristic of white supremacy is perfectionism. I preached on perfectionism not that long ago, so I'll just review briefly. One way perfectionism manifests is through an attitude of despair, the feeling that facing and dismantling oppression is not worth doing if it can’t be done perfectly and completed within a foreseeable time frame.

In addition, perfectionism leads to an idea that people are fused with their mistakes, that mistakes become our entire being. An individual who has made a mistake might overly identify with it and let shame keep them from taking their learning into the future. Even a liberation-minded, well-meaning person can do something racist. What makes the difference is being able to admit our mistakes. Maladaptive behaviors can be un-learned. Congregations can fight perfectionism by cultivating a culture of appreciation and by building structures that support learning from experience.

As a 14-year-old, I worried that I was not “qualified” to discuss racism. I thought that I had to be instantly competent with something, right out of the gate, before I could engage with it. That’s perfectionism talking. People and congregations sometimes have to try something and not be good at it immediately before we can learn how to do it better. Now I know I will never be a perfect anti-racist ally. With practice, I can perpetuate less harm than I used to, and I can assist with confronting and disrupting white supremacy in new ways as I learn more.

Unitarian Universalism as a faith movement is engaging in a national conversation on white supremacy. I believe we have more strength now for facing our shortcomings and increasing our accountability than we have had in decades. This is an opportunity. The Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism organizing collective asked all UU congregations to consider changing their worship and religious education plans to make room for a white supremacy teach-in in the next few weeks. Almost 500 have said yes. If you are going to post to social media about today’s service, you can use the hashtag #WhiteSupremacyTeachIn or #UUWhiteSupremacyTeachIn to join that conversation.

In leading up to the white supremacy teach-in, some white UU’s have expressed concern about losing momentum for efforts such as women’s health or transgender equality. I believe that our beloveds are sincere in their commitment to justice, and yet I also believe that these are false dichotomies. We can talk about more than one thing at a time. Talking about white supremacy does not preclude talking about how sexism or homophobia or cissexism or ableism or any other oppression is compounded by racism.

This being the weekend of Earth Day, one of the issues that might be on your mind is the condition of the planet we share, the only home we know of that can sustain life like ours. I would invite us to consider how white supremacy has contributed to ecological destruction. Examples of environmental racism can be found in Black and Latino neighborhoods all over the country.

Most of us have heard about the situation in Flint, Michigan, where a racist state law allowed the Governor to override the elected governments of majority-Black cities, ending up with a non-elected city manager making a decision that ended up poisoning the municipal water supply in order to save money. We can decry the city manager’s decision, but we also need to be vigilant about these paternalistic takeover schemes in the first place. When local communities, especially poor communities of color, do not have a voice or political power to protect the soil, water, and air where they live, the result is that we have more pollution and less accountability for polluters.

Confronting and dismantling white supremacy will result in greater liberation for the people who are most immediately impacted by ecological destruction, and that will result in unleashing energy for healing the planet. White supremacy enforces silence. It keeps communities apart and convinced that their struggles are separate. It forces People of Color to do extra work before white people can be persuaded that their direct experience of something like poisoned soil or water is valid. Disrupting white supremacy is not a distraction from fighting climate change, it is essential to ecological justice. Those of us in majority-white institutions need to learn to listen to and follow leaders from the communities most deeply impacted by environmental destruction.

Learning to listen and to follow brings me to my last point for today, and that is honoring the leadership of the rising generation. Earlier, Molly read from an essay by a UU Young Adult named Nic Cable, who writes, “We have faith in a world that celebrates the diversity and sacredness of life and works ­toward the liberation and happiness of all.”

Just as UU congregations need to work to overcome our cultural conditioning so that we can be better listeners to UU’s who are People of Color, we also can do some work on listening to the wisdom of young people. These things are related. In many UU congregations, programs for children and youth are more racially diverse than the adult population. When we cultivate multigenerational unity in our congregations, that is likely to bring us face-to-face with racial and cultural differences as well. Unlearning the habits of white supremacy is a necessary part of creating faith communities that are vibrant, relevant, and sustainable for future generations.

Furthermore, UU youth of all races are often more experienced than their elders at navigating a multicultural world. Those of us who are beyond the youth and young adult age demographic may be able to learn some cultural competency from younger UU’s. As our Bridgers, Mia and David, join the larger circle of Unitarian Universalism, I pray that their talents and leadership will continue to help our faith to change and grow, and that the rest of us will listen to what they have to teach.

Building a new way will involve heeding more voices and learning new disciplines of followership. Building a new way may lead to changes in how we worship, where we locate our ministries, how we understand membership, how we develop lay leaders, or how we partner with other institutions in the community. All of these are outward forms. The core of our faith movement is still committed to collective liberation, deep and truthful learning, and connecting with the sources that sustain us and bring us together. May we move ever closer to right relationship with each other, with the planet, and with the Spirit of Life.

So be it. Blessed be. Amen.

[bewareofchris]

writer woes

so i’ve had several days off because i’m trying to cope with stress and anxiety that feels like its trying to kill me.  And in those days off I”ve been all over tumblr and read all kinds of posts about how terrible writing fanfiction is, and how difficult it is when nobody reviews your things, and how there’s no point in writing if someone isn’t around to tell you that you did a good job.  I mean, I’ve read a few books worth of this at this point.

1. writing fanfiction is hard. 2. wanting validation/praise for doing hard work makes complete and total sense 3. spending time creating something you love and finding nobody else to love it sucks. 4. no, not all writers write for the sake of writing.   5. like no.  I never once wrote a single damn word because i was inspired by the deep, personal love of the craft.  i have written for the following reasons:

a school assignment

to prove i was better than my brother

to make someone like me

to make someone happy

to piss off someone

because my teacher pissed me off

because someone said i couldn’t

because i didn’t think i could

because someone asked me to

because i couldn’t sleep for days

to show off

for the notes

i was angry

nobody else had written what i wanted to read

my best friend told me i was emotionless

my best friend wrote better than i did

i didn’t want to become an alcoholic

to cope with anxiety 

i disagreed with the interpretation of a trope/character

i thought it was a funny idea

6.  I love writing and it’s hell.  It’s constant hell.  I mean, I love it.  I wouldn’t give it up but literal constant hell.  I’ve got scars on my hands and my arm because I can’t cope with the things in my head.  but I can write them out.  so writing is constant, self-inflicted hell.

7.  I actually started out in originals.  I began my long career in fandom by writing terrible gay vampire novels and various other stories involving boys that liked to kiss one another.  I was an uppity little shit, obsessed with death/murder and writing almost exclusively with all male casts.  

8.  in my writing class we had to write fanfiction off a book, no joke.  and since my BFF at the time was like LOOK AT THE GAY ASS GUNDUM BOYS, and I discovered the internet and people who would read my stupid stories, I basically started writing fanfiction for 100 years

9.  i have literally only ever once tried to get something published.  and it was bad and I’m actually very happy it got rejected.

(9a. i have never won a writing contest, ever.  Not in fandom*, not in school, not in professional writing magazines.  *that i intentionally entered, I believe.)

10.  it’s been like my entire life, and everyone i talk to about my writing is like: “oh you should get published, you’re really good” and that’s always a nice pat on the back.  Its uplifting.

11.  but i don’t believe them.  I know I”m a lazy fuck, I know i’m hanging on by a thread here.

12. I also oscillate violently between wanting to be published and giving up before I try.

13. which I tell myself is perfectly okay.  I’ll either get there or I won’t.

14. but wouldn’t it be amazing if I did get published, and became a best-seller and they made a mini-series out of my story.  And I could go online and people would be writing literally the worst fanfiction ever about my characters?

(14a. also, so I could be like: OK HOLLYWOOD YOU CAN HAVE THIS AMAZING CAST OF CHARACTERS AND MY BADASS STORY LINE BUT REMEMBER THERE’S LIKE 3 white people and like 1 straight person and you can’t change their race or sexual orientation for any reason.)

15. I’ve written millions of words of fanfiction since I started and I can name probably 4? fanfics out of that list?  Inertia (or the laws of motion), Sass-Badger Vs. The-Son-of-No-One, Immovable, unbreakable and Underbelly (an RPS fic don’t go looking for it).  

16.  so if I were to look at this objectively, I would say that it’s basically half my life that i’ve wasted writing useless trash for the internet.  i’m no closer today to getting published than I was when i was writing gay vampire novels at age 14.  

(16a. I do have a much better understanding of sex though.  So there’s a plus.)

17. but it would be unfair to the struggle of actually writing those millions of words, and of the worry that i wasn’t good enough, and of the progress I’ve made as a writer, and of the connections and moments I’ve shared with readers to call any of those millions of words a waste.  (I mean, realistically I could have not written some of them.)

18. despite all this, and despite having spent most of my fanfiction career actively vying to be popular enough to be recognized, i just want to throw it out there on the internet

19. you can write for the notes, or for the love of it, or because your girlfriend was like “hey, why not write a star trek fic set in the wild west” that one time before she was even your girlfriend and you were like “i bet I could impress her if I just wrote that wild west fic despite knowing nothing about the genre or the actual wild west”.  You can write whatever you want, however you want, whenever you want and that’s 100% fine

20. but nobody has to read it.  nobody has to like it.  nobody has to comment on it.  nobody has to leave a kudos.  your success and your well-being is not the responsibility of the reader.  

21. i’m not trying to be mean, and i’m not trying to start fights.  but even if you’re writing for the notes, and the comments, and the praise (which is 100% ok, we all want those things), you will never get enough notes, enough comments and enough praise if you walk in thinking that is owed to you.  

22. its hard to be discouraged, and its hard to work for no reward, and it’s shitty to feel underwhelmed and shitty and go on the internet and have people tell you that you’re wrong for feeling that way and you should write for the love of it and not because you want praise.

23.  i’m not saying develop sudden full enlightenment and ascend to a higher plane of existence where you require nothing and no longer have human weaknesses or needs.

24.  i’m saying, be proud of your work, be proud of your notes, and keep working.  it gets easier, it gets better, you get better as a writer.  When you’re down, reread your favorite story you’ve ever written and think of how amazing it is that this story exists because you wrote it.