Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Dead White Men

Some of my best friends are dead white guys!

This blog’s delivery problems had the silver lining of hearing from a lot of subscribers about your appreciation of its posts. Thank you!

But I received one negative comment, and of course, like Jesus’ parable of the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine to pay attention to the one, I felt compelled to respond. It stuck in my craw, as a grating grain of sand an oyster defensively covers with pearl. Well, this post ain’t no pearl.

This live white guy wrote, “Your blog is a real low point for ‘progressive.’ How about sourcing it with someone other than dead white men?”

He did not sign his name, but I had his e-mail, and could figure out who it was. I waited a day to respond, considering whether I should. But I wrote back that actually I did “source” it with other than dead white men, offering multiple sample names he could find using the blog’s search engine in its upper left corner. Then I wrote: 
I also think dead white men have much to offer, especially as I am nearly one myself. And they include Jews, gays, and other marginalized groups that have perspective on the spiritual life. 
I could have added the many who died of AIDS, perhaps my single largest source of contemporary spiritual wisdom and inspiration.

Of course he had struck a nerve. Believe me, I’ve noticed how much a product I am of my European/British/American heritage. But I read outside that genre, and sometimes others’ words and actions stick and sometimes they don’t.

I also think it’s a mistake to think of dead white men monolithically. It reminds me of my church during college years thinking the Chinese family and the Korean family would want to sit together at social functions—after all, both families were Asian! Church members were blissfully ignorant of their (sometimes hostile) differences historically, culturally and ethnically.

Neither are dead white men of one piece. I’m not even of one piece. My Irish ancestors were treated harshly when they immigrated to the U.S., giving me empathy for immigrants today. “The luck of the Irish” was among the ethnic slurs used to describe them—after all, an Irish man or woman could only achieve success through luck because we didn’t have the skills or brains to do it on our own.

My German ancestor left Germany in the 1800s, because, he wrote in a letter, Germany was becoming too militaristic and he did not want to serve in its armies. Given my last name, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that he was a Jew who felt compelled to assimilate when coming to the U.S.

My Swedish ancestor came to the U.S. because she fell in love and married someone of the “wrong” class, unacceptable to her family.

And I’m a gay man, meaning I have always viewed the dominant culture as an outsider and as one who doesn’t meet my gender “specs.”

Obviously the person I “source” most is Jesus. To some he’s just another dead white man. But for most of us, each of those designations is up for discussion.



P.S. The subscriber responded to my e-mail with a thoughtful and considerate one that included some thought-provoking questions about my beliefs, which I happily answered in kind. All’s well that ends well! (I know, quoting another dead white guy named Shakespeare!)

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12 comments:

  1. As an artist, my father Ted Schuyler in fact refused the designation "artist". He insisted, "An Artist is a person who has been dead for at least 100 years; I am a PAINTER." His point, of course, was that time and "survival of one's heritage" through a number of decades was required to validate one's contributions. The same is certainly true in the spiritual as well as the artistic realm. There are fads and fashions, but the truly excellent is what we cherish for posterity.

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    1. Your father was a remarkable man from this and other things you've shared. Thanks for this insight!

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  2. Chris, your forebears were not too different from mine. My mother's family came over in 1670 with Lord Baltimore's group - but unlike the Lord and his people, the Meeks family were lower class, come over to work. When the Wesleys turned up later in the 1700s, the Meeks of Maryland became Chapel and then Wesleyans, hence Methodists. My Dad's father came from a farm village in Germany about 1900. Wilhelm J. Stiefel was one of seven brothers and there wasn't enough farmland to divide among them as inheritance - and they were anti-military. Meanwhile, Marta (to to become my grandmother) was one of five daughters and there was money enough to provide doweries only for the two eldest. So she and young Wilhelm met in a Philadelphia bakery where they were apprentices. The Meeks and the Stiefels had nothing in common until my parents met and married. The two families never melded although on distantly friendly terms. So my dead white male forebears had in common only that they were white of Anglo and German origin and that they worked their way up into the middle class only to lose everything in the Great Depression and
    start over again. And now, of course, one adds that they are all dead white men (and women). As I knew them and as I remember them now, I see their rather "ordinary" experience as immigrants to this country and the lives they foraged as heroic. I inherited the benefits of their courage and hard work. And I'm a bit closer than you are to joining them in the CWM category.

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    1. Ha, I assume you mean DWM category! Thanks for telling about your ancestors, a good reminder that skin color and gender are not the whole story. What an interesting history!

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    2. Maybe CWM = Cremated White Men

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  3. I never knew that was the source of "the luck of the Irish." A lot of people are surprised to hear that Irish and German immigrants were once looked down upon and slurred with some of the same stereotypes as immigrants today: they had too many children, lived in crowded tenements which were not easy to keep clean, ate strange foods, went to heathen churches.

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    1. Thanks, Charlene. I have always fancied that if those down on immigrants today knew how their ancestors were treated, they would change their attitudes. I believe it was during WW I that those who ate sauerkraut (Germans) were treated as possible traitors.

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  4. The more you doth protest, the weaker your argument seems. The plight of Irish immigrants, even maybe-a-little-bit-Jewish ones, is no match for the historical and ongoing institutional oppression of racial and ethnic minorities. I think that was the mere point your original commenter was trying to make, that your worldview is of a fairly privileged gay white man.

    Yes, we have all suffered tragedies in our lives and growing up gay has its share of oppression. No one knows that more than me. And the AIDS deaths we have suffered have damaged us and given us an empathy we might never have had. But the charge that you represent the views of "dead white men" makes me think immediately of the perils of being a living black man or woman. And nothing in your history can approximate that.

    I know you to be empathetic and liberal minded. That's why I consider this posting a misstep. Rather than acknowledge your limited world view, you defend your own experience with oppression and, compared to that of people of color, for instance, or the history of the Jewish people, it's simply no contest. Neither is it evident in the well meaning posted comments of your similarly white, relatively privileged fans.

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    1. That was harsh! But you have misunderstood my post. I have never compared my experience to that of African Americans, not even the gay rights movement to the Civil Rights movement. I have always written that I was/am inspired by the Civil Rights movement in my own work and ministry, and I have quoted many in that movement and other human rights movements in my books and on my blog. The criticism was that I did not. At the same time, I think it inaccurate to assume all dead white men don't have something to offer, or that they haven't experienced hostility and suffering. (When you defend racial and ethnic minorities you should understand that "ethnic" also refers to the categories I mention in my heritage, though I never claimed them other than as examples of what a mixed bag I am.) Jews, Armenians, Serbs, Croats, Romas, to name a few--all have endured ethnic "cleansing" over the centuries and in modern times yet would be considered "white" by today's standards. To think monolithically about a continent is unwise, as we've seen in Africa, South America, Asia, North America, etc. I did acknowledge my "limited world view" when I wrote "I've noticed how much a product I am of my European/British/American heritage." I admitted that it "struck a nerve." I did not characterize my experience with the word you use, "oppression." Finally, suffering is not a contest, but an opportunity to relate to the suffering of others. As a fellow blog writer in the minefield of sexuality and AIDS, you must know that.

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    2. You got me to re-read your post! And yeah, I was harsh. I was struck by the original comment of "white" men and away I went. I'm glad, but not at all surprised, to see you handle my knee-jerk reaction with grace and a willingness to educate.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. The comment I accidentally placed here I intended as a reply to Mark King, which I meant to place as I have above.

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