Mennonite Church USA statement on racial injustice

[Judas Maccabeus]

When you post verbatim the same factually incorrect and misleading meme that I’m seeing all over Facebook, then no, I don’t think you really researched it.

http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php ... =10#p93545

http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php ... =10#p93547

I guess you were wrong.

Ok. You researched it, but not deeply. This meme takes truth and twists it.

If you had researched more deeply, you would have quickly realized that one of the first claims of the FB meme you posted is factually incorrect. Here’s a list of proclamations James I made in 1625 (he died in May):

https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com ... 726-work-1

By the King. A Proclamation for proroguing the Parliament. [Newmarket 19 January 1625]

By the King. A Proclamation for restraint of killing, dressing, and eating of Flesh in Lent, or on Fish daies, appointed by the Law, to be hereafter strictly observed by all sorts of people. [Newmarket 7 February 1625]

By the King. A Proclamation touching the Surveying of the Seacoales of Newcastle, Sunderland, and Blythe. [Newmarket 16 February 1625]

By the King. A Proclamation for the utter prohibiting the importation and use of all Tobacco, which is not of the proper growth of the Colonies of Virginia and the Summer Islands, or one of them. [Theobalds 2 March 1625]

By the King. A Proclamation for Proroguing the Parliament. [Theobalds 3 March 1625]

By the King. A Proclamation for better furnishing the Navy, and Shipping of the Realm, with able and skilfull Mariners. [Theobalds 20 March 1625]

There’s nothing here about enslaving the Irish.

You would have also found that this meme is connected to white supremacy and that the comparison between indentured servants and slaves is hotly disputed by historians.

Two things can be true:

1) The Irish were brutally oppressed by the English and indentured servitude was brutal and inhumane.

2) White supremacist groups are using and twisting this history in order to downplay and minimize the transatlantic African slave trade as well as the impact of Jim Crow, segregation, police brutality, etc.

I’m not sure why else someone would bring this up in response to MCUSA’s statement.

Because "I" think is a racial injustice that should be owned and addressed. If you do not, that is okay. I am allowed to have my opinions.

I did not know the thread was limited to only the racial injustices that you approved of. Yes, sarcasm, but weighted with truth.

If the descendants of Irish indentured servants were talking about generational trauma and protesting about police brutality, then I would like MCUSA to make a statement that addressed that. MCC, for example, was involved for years in reconciliation efforts in Northern Island.

But context matters. The reason why Irish indentured servants are being brought up now is in response to Black Lives Matter and the ongoing conversation about race in America. Bringing this up in response to a denominational statement on racism is not dealing with the history of the Irish in America — it’s deflection from history of blacks in America. You have repeatedly stated you don’t believe in systematic racism — you went as far as declaring that we’ve been bamboozled — so calling indentured servitude systematic racism feels disingenuous to me, regardless of your intentions.

You are entitled to your opinions, of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that you posted a meme here that is closely tied to whites supremacist groups and forums.

My Irish grandfather tried to teach me hatred of the English. He had a “Derry Can” for contribution to Northern Ireland relief (purchase of weapons for the IRA)

J.M.

[temporal1]

My Irish grandfather tried to teach me hatred of the English. He had a “Derry Can” for contribution to Northern Ireland relief (purchase of weapons for the IRA)
J.M.

After posting earlier today, i began remembering how my father would warn me about different ones, the Irish, the Italians, etc. Not together, not rambling on .. but, short messages/warnings .. to his young daughter. They struck me as kind of mysterious, as well as peculiar, because i really didn’t know what he was getting at. He loathed Mussolini. i remember that part.

Later, as an adult, i realized, “ah-ha!”
From HIS pov, NOBODY was ok for his daughters. He had a roundabout way of delivering the message, pointing out shortcomings in each one, rather than being so obvious as to say, “NONE!”

[JimFoxvog]

I do think people are trying to use Irish indentured servitude as deflection and minimization regarding the African slavery in America and the history of racial oppression in the US. I’m not sure why else someone would bring this up in response to MCUSA’s statement.

Exactly! This is only deflection from the issue of racism. In today's US society, the Irish do not experience racism. If someone is trying to claim people with apparent African ancestry don't experience racism, they are either terribly uninformed or in support of racism.

[temporal1]

.. If someone is trying to claim people with apparent African ancestry don't experience racism, they are either terribly uninformed or in support of racism.

Who on this forum has suggested anything like this? i won’t presume to know your intentions (as you and jeremy are doing on this topic) but, i ask the questions, “who?” and “where?”
One more, “why?” would you approach others on this forum with such accusations/judgments?

[Robert]

Exactly! This is only deflection from the issue of racism. In today's US society, the Irish do not experience racism. If someone is trying to claim people with apparent African ancestry don't experience racism, they are either terribly uninformed or in support of racism.

Everyone experiences racism because we are tribal by nature. I was turned down for two positions because I was not Latino. I understood the reasons, so I was not real upset, but I was still out of a job.

When we started MDS work in south Little Rock, we experienced it too. After 6 months which included 4 trips down to help, that pretty much disappeared.

Neither case was systematic.

Some humans are just hateful. I accept that. A statement from MCUSA is nice, but they have a statement on abortion too. The absolutely condemn it and that is as far as it goes. Words on a page.

Maybe I am a bit bitter and racist against MCUSA right now since they pretty much ran me off. I am trying to set that aside and speak to the inconsistency I see and have experienced in MCUSA. Maybe my history is tainting my view. I don't think they really care, so no harm done.

[JimFoxvog]

Maybe I am a bit bitter and racist against MCUSA right now since they pretty much ran me off.

Thank you for sharing a bit of your history with MC-USA, Robert. That is sad. I don't understand how it's racist. Can you tell us more of the story?

[Szdfan]

Fascinating. So if I understand you correctly, the Bible doesn't serve as evidence that the Hebrews were ever in Egypt, but someone digs up another ancient inscription that mentions the Hebrews in Egypt, that would serve as evidence?

Sorta.

Since the 19th Century, there have been efforts to prove the historicity of Scripture through archeology. In order to prove that a historical event happened in the Bible, there needs to be external proof that validates its claims, otherwise you can’t really say with certainty that something happened from a historical or archeological perspective. It’s not dissimilar from how creationists attempt to use scientific observation to prove that the Genesis account is true.

In Exodus, the liberation of the Hebrews is a central, foundational event that forms the core of who they are. There’s no mention of any of this in any Egyptian artifacts. It would reason that if God killed all the Egyptian first-born and drowned their army in the Red Sea, some Egyptian somewhere would have recorded it. But nada.

So there a couple of options: 1) the Exodus didn’t happen 2) the Exodus did happen, but while it was a significant event for the Hebrews, it wasn’t one for the Egyptians and the Bible is written from the Hebrew perspective.

I think the most honest answer is that we simply don’t know. While I find these questions intellectually interesting, I don’t think they’re relevant to faith or what I believe.

Maybe Robert is writing the way you believe the biblical writers wrote. Maybe he is telling stories letting you know what various purported events mean, and you're doing him a dis-service by insisting on fact-checking the specifics of his stories....

This is a much bigger issue than I want to get into right now, but I don’t think you’re wrong. We are not just talking facts, we are also talking about narrative and the kinds of stories that we tell about history and the meaning we derive from it. I think stories really matter, but I don’t think all stories are equally good.