Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see people here talking about a very important kind of white supremacy.

I do see people discussing discrimination, prejudice, bias, and structural forms of racism, discrimination, and privilege, and their histories, as well as overt and coded white supremacy.

But I don't see people discussing a third kind of white supremacy. I'm not sure what name to give it. Maybe you can help me. I would call it "bourgeois" white supremacy, because it's rooted…

Continue

A SHOCKING ALLEGATION

Quakers support one of the most aggressive visions of assimilation and white supremacy of all contemporary religions. Certainly, Quakers took a bold stand against slavery (even if this was much ambivalent than we like to think) and Quakers believe that all people have the light of God in them, and do try to think and act to an admirable degree with this conviction, even if more attention could be paid to this issue. There seems to be nothing white supremacist about…

Continue

A friend wrote and asked what I meant by the "tentacles" I sometimes feel when visiting a new place of worship such as a church. I just get a creepy vibe from some places but how can we avoid being cold without being creepy?



***



There is nothing wrong with honestly expressing a desire for someone to stay, or a sadness they wouldn't come back. I recall I went once to the Congregationalist church in Evanston, IL on Hinman and Lake. They mentioned during the sermon that they… Continue

A group of men and women with stone hatchets stoop in a shimmering field of wheat. Domesticated sheep baah grumpily in the distance.



*  * *  *  *  *  *  *  *

When today’s archeologists find sites of humanity’s first few thousand years of agriculture, the differences are stunning. The first humans to depend on farming suffered from more disease, fought more wars, and were shorter and less robust because of malnutrition, compared to humans today, or…

Continue

Final: part 3

I did church crawl the next week. I went to a yuppy church near my apartment. This is one of those churches were there's one old couple, but everyone else is 20-30 somethings. The opening hymns were played by a rock band. I had to give them credit for being great musicians--even if they were the type of Christians who creep me out. They seemed to be of a self-righteous bent. These are Christians who are frustrated because they limit themselves to tools and…

Continue

Here's part 2:

I went to the meeting the next week. I couldn't resist. Those three hours I'd spent at meeting the week before had been the shortest of my life. I felt completely at home. I had read everything I could find on the internet about the Quakers. I had to know if that was a fluke or if that experience was my home, at least for now.



I will say that the next meeting was less impressive than the first, but still excellent.



I managed to show up…

Continue

I had almost forgotten how I discovered the Quakers! So I'm grateful that I left detailed comments in my first blog post on this site. Here they are reproduced, from May 17th, 2009 (5th mo. 17, right?):

I'm considering expanding this blog a bit.



One day, I conceived the idea of doing a church crawl - a trip to a different church every week. After much hemming and hawing, I managed to drag a friend along. We went to a Catholic church in an up and coming…

Continue

Hi everyone,



This blog will be documenting my Quaker life, such as it is. I'm not really a Quaker - my parents aren't, and really, I've just been to one meeting in my life. But I was impressed.



This blog will be the thoughts I care to share - perhaps my attempt to clarify my own thinking. It may not be very sociable or agreeable to read. It's hard to say.



I have a background in philosophy of science, history, and applying that to philosophy of religion and other… Continue