Thomas Merton BLM and White Passivity

march 13

2020 briana taylor was shot and killed

inside her apartment by police officers

who had come

to serve a warrant to search for drugs

none of which were later found on the

property

following her deaths protests quickly

spread across her hometown

and later across the country and the

world following the death of george

floyd

protest leaders not only took to the

streets but also to social media to

express their grief

their anger and their frustration and as

a member of a generation which relies

heavily on social media as a source of

news

i was immersed in their words

at the same time i was also taking a

class on the spiritual author

thomas merton who was a trappist monk

at the abbey of near bardstown kentucky

while he’s best known for his

autobiography the seven story mountain

and his writings on contemplation and

interfaith dialogue

he also wrote extensively on social

issues

and specifically on race in response to

the first civil rights movement

of the nineteen sixties it was these

later writings on race which caught my

attention the most

because he so accurately described some

of the current social issues which we

are facing

that there were several times i actually

had to put the book down

just to process what he’d said in many

ways

he was so accurately describing our

situation

that it felt like the black lives matter

protesters were echoing his words

in his most famous piece on race letters

to a white liberal

merton directly addresses this titled

group

who he believed were more harmful to the

movement

than conservatives who openly opposed it

in it he describes white liberals as

those who support the movement because

they feel they have to

to maintain their image of themselves as

a liberal

but who value their material comforts

their security

and their congenial relations with the

establishment

over this volatile idealism

in essence those who say they support

the movement

but who will drop out the moment it

affects them in any way

perhaps the best example of this white

liberalism

in the past year was the trend of the

black squares

on social media in june 2020

for a few days it became the popular

thing to do

to post a black square on your social

media

as a show of support for the black lives

matter movement

and everyone was doing it from kids to

adults to major corporations

so it very quickly devolved from a show

of support

to what was essentially an i’m not

racist sticker

that people were putting on their feed

to make sure

that all the people who followed them

knew that they didn’t

actively oppose the movement

it was a very performative action it

didn’t force

anyone to face their white passivity or

privilege

and certainly didn’t make people fight

against racism

unfortunately in addition to being

performative

the squares actively harmed the blm

movement because they were being posted

using the same hashtags the protesters

were using to communicate

information quite literally blacking out

the voices of the movement

another example of the white liberalism

which merton would have disapproved of

came in the form of the leaders in

louisville and their response

to the protest following brianna

taylor’s death

people like the mayor issued official

statements of support for the movement

but quickly turned around to clarify on

social media that this support

was conditional on the protesters

remaining in certain areas of the city

and staying out of the way in essence

these leaders were asking the protesters

to make themselves ignorable

it is exactly this kind of behavior from

white liberals

which merton condemned because he

believed that it was leading to the

development of a revolution

in our country for as he describes it

revolutions are always the result of

situations in which the drive of an

underprivileged mass of humanity can no

longer be contained by token concessions

taking this to heart means that liberals

can no longer walk the fine line

between appeasing protesters with small

changes

while simultaneously trying to avoid

upset among conservative communities

who have opposed those changes since the

1960s and beyond

justice is long overdue and

african-american communities are getting

tired

tired of reforms like the ones following

brianna taylor’s death

which increased surveillance in their

neighborhoods by moving police officers

in

and tired of receiving government

payouts for their murdered brothers

sons sisters and daughters

when i’ve had the chance to talk to

local protest leaders over the past few

months

they have made it very clear that it is

by the grace

and the patience of african-american

communities alone

that we have not already had a

revolution

in a country which was founded on

slavery

and continues to imprison

disproportionate numbers

of african-american men and women into a

for-profit prison system

which benefits off of their free labor

compounding all of these injustices and

so many more that i don’t have time to

mention

is what merton calls the incredible

inhumanity

of our unwillingness to listen even for

a moment

to what the movement has to say

in brianna taylor’s louisville protests

occurred for hundreds of concurrent

nights following her death

and not much changed except a few token

concessions

so in this increasingly intense

situation

which merton so accurately described

what is the role of the white liberal if

we

actually want to play a part in the

movement and make a difference

martin offers us some solutions to this

question

first he makes it clear that we have to

listen

because if we do not understand why

people are protesting

and we do not know what they are

marching for they will never

believe that we are actually genuine in

our attempts to help

and there’s no excuse not to know

we have access to a larger glut of

resources than

ever known to man at any point in

history

every book and every film ever made on

the subject of racism

and news stories of the injustices in

our streets

crossing our screens every day

but educating ourselves is not enough

as local protest leader and wonderful

poet hannah drake says

white people just need to face

themselves

we aren’t going to study or netflix our

way out of racism

we need to admit and face our way out of

racism

and for white liberals there will be of

a lot of admitting that we

need to do we have to acknowledge

that our privilege comes from the fact

that we are in a society

that is designed for people who look

like me

from what is considered professional

dress and behavior

to what dialects of the english language

are correct

to who gets an entire year for their

history

and whose is relegated to a month and

who gets shot

in the nighttime police raid and who

gets to walk away with their life

once we have listened and admitted our

privilege

the next step merton says is to join

together

and look for a way to reform the social

systems

creating inequality as he wrote

join together in a creative political

experiment

not be alarmed at some of the sacrifices

that would necessarily be involved

ending inequality is going to require

changing the heart

and soul of our nation it will not be

fun

it will not be comfortable and it most

certainly won’t be

easy but as hannah drake reminds us

who said that this was going to feel

good

we have a chance now to actually

acknowledge

our white passivity and privilege

to make the decision to join the

movement

no matter the sacrifices and to heed

merton’s warnings to white liberals that

if we do not

change our performative ways there will

be a revolution

it’s time to take the challenge thank

you