Mormonism and White Supremacy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
American Christianity ◽  
White American ◽  
Mormon History ◽  
Moral Innocence

This book examines the role of white American Christianity in fostering and sustaining white supremacy. It draws from theology, critical race theory, and American religious history to make the argument that predominantly white Christian denominations have served as a venue for establishing white privilege and have conveyed to white believers a sense of moral innocence without requiring moral reckoning with the costs of anti-Black racism. To demonstrate these arguments, the book draws from Mormon history from the 1830s to the present, from an archive that includes speeches, historical documents, theological treatises, Sunday school curricula, and other documents of religious life.

American Christianity, White Supremacy, and Racial Innocence

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Joanna Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Moral Issue ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
White People ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
American Christianity ◽  
White American

Racism is not a simply a character flaw or extremist conduct; racism is the centuries-old system of social organization that has marked people with dark skin as available for exploitation—for advantage-taking of their lands, labor, bodies, cultures, and so forth. “White supremacy” refers not only to the grossest forms of racist terrorism but also to the entire system of ideas, beliefs, and practices that give white people better chances based on perceived skin color and ancestry. This chapter reviews American Christian theology, history, US law, and critical race theory to frame an assessment of white American Christianity’s failure to grapple with anti-Black racism as a moral issue.

Dismantling White Supremacy and Racial Innocence

2020 ◽  
pp. 199-206
Author(s):  
Joanna Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
P Systems ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
White American ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Communities Of Color

Systems as pervasive as white supremacy do not just transform quietly. They must be recognized, investigated, understood, and intentionally abandoned or dismantled, and their impacts to communities of color must be repaired. Predominantly white American Christian communities that wish to take moral responsibility for the advantage-taking that has yielded white privilege and Black suffering must engage with the concept of reparations. But how does a religious community—a predominantly white American Christian community—begin to conceive of reparations? This chapter assesses the pathways toward dismantling white supremacy open to predominantly white American Christian denominations, including Mormonism, through institutional and grassroots changes.

The Persistence of White Supremacy Beyond Desegregation

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-198
Author(s):  
Joanna Brooks
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
American Christianity ◽  
White American ◽  
Chattel Slavery ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
Voter Suppression

Systematic anti-Black racism did not end with the legal abolition of chattel slavery in the United States. It simply changed shape: into debt peonage, criminalization, mass incarceration, housing segregation, sexual predation, voter suppression, and discrimination of all kinds. The same holds true for systematic anti-Black racism in white American Christianity. This chapter examines how structures of everyday white supremacy persisted in everyday Mormonism beyond the end of the priesthood and temple ban, especially through rhetorical strategies on the part of LDS Church leaders that evaded historical facts or dismissed history as insignificant and demonstrated no commitment to responsibility, reconciliation, or reparations.

Desirablizing Whiteness: A Discursive Practice in Social Justice Leadership That Entrenches White Supremacy

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
pp. 656-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon I. Radd ◽  
Tanetha Jamay Grosland
Keyword(s):  
Urban Education ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Property Value ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
Practical Recommendations

This article conceptualizes “Desirablizing Whiteness” as a discursive practice. Desirablizing Whiteness occurs when equity efforts aim to include racially minoritized students in actions, situations, formats, and settings where they have been absent or underrepresented, and which have been the “property” of Whites. The literature on discourse, discursive practices, and emotions serve to explain the nature of Desirablizing Whiteness as a complicated and contradictory construct. Tenets from critical race theory highlight the fundamentally racist effect of this discursive practice. Because Whiteness’ property value is both tangible and psychic, the presence and role of emotions are key to understanding how Desirablizing Whiteness has a dialectical relationship with human interactions and decision making, ultimately undermining social justice efforts. Practical recommendations for school leaders and scholars concerned with urban education close the article.

Journalistic Whiteout

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-172
Author(s):  
Carlos Alamo-Pastrana ◽  
William Hoynes
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Racial Dynamics ◽  
Institutional Forces ◽  
Journalistic Field

This chapter explores the persistent racialization of professional journalism, explaining the overwhelming whiteness of US news as emanating from cultural practices of professional journalism and institutional forces shaping the journalistic field rather than simply the demographic characteristics of the newsroom workforce. The authors focus on the role of objectivity in defining professional journalism as a supposedly “unraced” space in a way that renders invisible its foundational whiteness. In situating professional journalism as white media, they provide a conceptual framework that distinguishes among white privilege, white nationalism, and white supremacy. These concepts help to analyze the newly resurgent white-nationalist media as a case that highlights the structural limitations of professional journalism and its dissemination to the public. Ultimately, the authors seek to understand the racial dynamics of the journalistic field, highlighting the emergent white racial subjectivity within white-nationalist media as both critique of and an alternative to the objectivity of professional journalism.

scholarly journals The fear of multiple truths: On teaching about racism in a predominantly white school

2021 ◽  
Vol 102 (5) ◽  
pp. 18-23
Author(s):  
Antony Farag
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Predominately White ◽  
Current Events ◽  
Elective Course ◽  
White School

In a post-truth world, it is imperative for educators to help students sift through the various views of both historical and current events. Critical race theory (CRT), a controversial theoretical framework directly critiquing white supremacy and incorporating the histories of historically marginalized communities, is a useful tool for helping students develop their own understanding of history and the world. However, research shows that social studies educators of white students are unprepared to use CRT. Antony Farag shares his research into white teachers’ use of CRT and describes what happened when his predominately white school attempted to launch an elective course build on critical race theory.

A Jim Crow State of Mind: The Racialization of Space in the McKinney, Texas Pool Party Incident

2019 ◽  
pp. 000276421985961
Author(s):  
Barbara Harris Combs
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
Brown Bodies

Violence against Black bodies is not new, but contemporary discussions of these matters often focus on police or other state-sanctioned violence against male Black bodies. While this is important, it ignores the perils all Black bodies face as they navigate White spaces. In this article, I utilize an analytical framework, which highlights intersectional bodies in order to expose the extent to which a Jim Crow-like mentality about where people belong still persists in U.S. society. I examine the 2015 McKinney, Texas, pool party incident as a case study to demonstrate how gender and the social status of children operated to imperil Black (and Brown) bodies in the social environment of a predominantly White upper middle-class suburban neighborhood. I offer a counternarrative reading of the incident utilizing a framework I term bodies out of place, a critical extension on critical race theory scholarship and the work of Nirmal Puwar (2004). The article makes an important contribution toward understanding White epistemologies of ignorance with respect to the existence and maintenance of continuing racial oppression and White supremacy in society.

White Privilege, Racial Innocence, and the Costs of Anti-Racist Dissent, Mormon Examples

2020 ◽  
pp. 111-160
Author(s):  
Joanna Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Predominantly White ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Political Capital ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
Gender Belief

Just as white Christians develop silent agreements among themselves to define morality in individual terms that take no responsibility for systematic anti-Black racism, white Christian churches develop means for managing and disciplining adherents who do take on anti-Black racism in a serious and discomfiting way. This chapter reconstructs a lost archive of dissent by LDS Church members against white supremacy in Mormonism, including public criticisms by national figures like Stewart Udall. It analyzes the calculus of identity, race, class, gender, belief, belonging, and social and political capital that condition dissent in religious communities, observing that white privilege and status in predominantly white Christian churches allow some to dissent more publicly and with lesser costs than others.

Sonic Counterspaces: The Role of Music in the Latino College Experience at a Predominantly White Institution

2020 ◽  
pp. 153819272090580
Author(s):  
José G. Anguiano ◽  
Marbella Uriostegui ◽  
Melissa Gussman ◽  
Claudia Kouyoumdjian
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Academic Experience ◽  
Latino Identity ◽  
Predominantly White Institution ◽  
White Institution

A critical race theory framework was used to examine the role of music listening practices in the academic and social contexts of Latino college students enrolled at a predominantly White institution. An inductive thematic analysis examined themes in participants’ open-ended responses. Awareness of their Latino identity in music and the use of digital music players served to construct sonic counterspaces, an affirming auditory realm that is comprised of emotional, psychological, and physical space activated through intentional listening practices. Sonic counterspaces facilitated their academic experience and helped them navigate negative social encounters.

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