Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Racism in Buddhist America
Vastmind
Memphis, TN Veteran
Lama Rod Owens and angel Kyodo williams discuss racism in Buddhist America.
They discuss the challenges of being teachers of color in predominantly white communities.
Please watch the dialogue before getting in the water to swim. 
Thank you.
Even if you don't want to partake in a conversation......understanding starts with deep listening and being aware of how others feel and live. Here is the 30 min video:
http://www.lionsroar.com/lama-rod-owens-angel-kyodo-williams-dialogue/
2
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
OP, you're going to have to post a question to discuss, or something to kick off a conversation. Because I don't know what you want us to discuss. The news? I haven't been following it, honestly. How different groups respond to the news? How society at large handles certain issues? Teachers of color in Western Buddhism, who aren't Asian? Racism in contemporary America? Give us some direction, please.
I didn't really want to steer it or direct it. There has been alot of racial tension here bec of a young black man being shot once again by police...in MO. As Lama said....we just want to feel like like we have a place to tell our story....or talk about it....or deal with the yuckiness of it all. It's everyday life for us.
I do not advocate violence to deal with anger ( riots have been going on down here)....but it seems like people don't honestly understand why black folks are angry. I dunno...... This forum is part of my Sangha....so I bring it here.....giving it the space. I guess I'm just sitting ......sharing the vulnerability....as he described it.
He responds to things I've heard/read here several times by people....and I just felt like he addressed some of those things....and other things...
Just sitting here....with my Sangha.....feeling the anger, disappointment, discouragement, fear....and a whole bunch of other stuff..... Sad to see self destruction in the name of anger..... It's just been rough .....![:\](https://newbuddhist.com/plugins/emojiextender/emoji/little/confused.png ":\")
And on top of that....my children being teased at school bec "African kids have Ebola"
It's hard being black as is.....Not a good time to be African either. Damn....
It's not even been in Ghana....but teaching them to deal with this kind of ignorance has been heartbreaking....It's just been rough lately....
Jon Stewart recently did a story about how FOX talking heads were saying racism isn't an issue any more. Jon told a story where one of his teams went on location in NY to do a piece, the white producer, wearing sandals, shorts, a casual shirt and unshaven walks right into the building no problem. Following him is the interviewer dressed up in a nice suit ready to be on camera and the guard stops him to ask what his business is there.
I personally don't see much discrimination but hear enough stories to know that it is still out there.
I'm even more upset by the police murder of the 12 year old Black kid in Cleveland!
Yes....the examples can go on and on......like I said...feeling pretty discouraged and just overall frustrated.....
Here is the video that @person is referring to...
OP, sorry I'm a little out of it regarding the Ferguson incident. I don't have a TV. I've seen discussion of it online, though.
Here's the thing. There are a lot of people in the US who want racial issues to just go away. So they try to convince themselves that because we have a Black President, everything's ok, and anyone who complains is just a whiner or trouble-maker.
Those people are more to the extreme, IMO. But there are a lot of (White) people in the US who just don't know how to talk about race. They feel awkward about it, so they've never really faced it, so they don't even have a vocabulary to discuss it with. And as the lama says, they've never looked deep inside themselves to reflect on their own hidden attitudes, their own subconscious attitudes. That doesn't make them Bad People, but really, the time is long overdue to do that reflection, face oneself and one's unconscious conditioning, and do something about it. Not only do something about one's own conditioning, but take responsibility for the collective reality we all create here in the US, and work to bring about change in whatever way we can as individuals.
The world is what we make of it. Problems aren't going to go away if we ignore them, or wait for the government to solve them. Each of us is a member of this society, and we each contribute to it. If we turn our backs on festering problems, or bury our heads in the sand, nothing will change. People will continue to suffer. This isn't about historical guilt, this is about contemporary reality and the role we all play in it.
So as Buddhists, it's part of our practice to look within, and figure out what each of us can do to help end suffering for our fellow citizens.
And there's really no excuse for not being aware of how the deck is stacked against others. Most universities and colleges have ethnic studies courses, it's easy to inform oneself and reach an understanding of the complexities involved. I would urge anyone considering taking some kind of action to take a couple of classes, first. You can learn a lot just from listening to the other students, and the professor can provide guidance and answer questions. The wisdom to pursue skillful means comes from educating oneself, and learning to see the world through the eyes of others.
These are the kind of things that happen to us ... and all around us -- it's the reason I started studying up on Buddhism. It's why I feel I will stick with it -- it makes sense in this senseless world of ours.
It's all just so...predictable, isn't it? It makes me want to cry. We've been down this road so many times. The same voices saying the same things. The same sides being chosen. A huge, tangled mess of a problem being reduced to soundbites and platitudes.
I think the Lama underestimates his white Sangha, though. He talks about them coming to grips about white privilege for the first time, but I bet every single one of them is liberal and well understands how much of a difference race makes in a life. Race and gender and economic level. It's a pretty self-selected bunch.
If I could tell the Lama Owens one thing, it's that when the white members of his Sangha come up to him and tell him they love him, what they're actually doing is asking if he still loves them. They talk about how insufficient it is, and of course it is. But when I look at the face of this white cop saying his conscious is clear and he'd do it again with no words of slightest regret for a grieving family, I see the white face of many of my friends and family and acquaintances. It hurts. It hurts, knowing some of the young black men I meet see me as an enemy, someone on the side of the white privileged power structure that even refusees to admit it exists.
".....what they're actually doing is asking if he still loves them."
Wow. That was powerful...in more ways than one. My mouth dropped and my eye filled with a tear.
Thats why I love @Cinorjer.
........
It is an important dialogue because it addresses affiliation/attachment and the Dukkha associated with experience.
It strikes at the heart of our being. We are not the trauma, the felt, the up or down, the identity given, perceived or imposed. That we experience through that persona is inevitable but not at the core of our potential.
I would suggest that Dukkha is our friend. Integrity is noticing or allowing the space for sensitivities but being independent to the degree we can or obviously can't. So the insight into our personal situation gives us empathy and insight and inspiration from others struggle and transcendence.
We are pattern following creatures. We are also mould breakers. We can engage in the narrative of experiences of others through our unique pattern. I feel the value in our personal position.
Both these sangha leaders admit they are not enlightened and are therefore caught up and catching on their stories but potentially lifting others into non identity.
Being independent of our story is the point of the Middle Way. So the ending on the realization that the personal path is the connection to others but ultimately we have to go beyond our Dukkha. In essence we never leave our story but we do leave it behind . . .
Exactly. To be blunt (and I'm just speaking for me here), race is irrelevant in Buddhism. It's all about sentient beings. Colour doesn't matter.
I get the race issue but it's not a Buddhist issue, it's a people issue. Don't make it what it's not.
True @Dhammachick, but I see any people issue as a Dharma issue. I agree that within Buddhism as a 'way' there are no artificial distinctions like race, gender, age and whatever. But PEOPLE inevitably get it wrong.
I was watching some TV special where a Black dad spoke about his fear for his teenage sons, who were good kids but typically rowdy and impulsive boys. He said he had talks with them about them about the increased dangers from the police for Black boys. I had NEVER heard or thought of such a thing. I couldn't stop thinking about it. This was a middle class family, no ghetto or housing project in sight. This dad was just telling it like it was, he wasn't even angry seeming when he talked about it. That stuck with me as much as what he said. He spoke of it like it was plain reality like weather patterns. Not resigned or self pitying. He just didn't want one of his sons to get shot by police, and knew his sons were much more likely to be shot than young persons of lighter skin.
This dad made racism hit home in a way it never had before.
And what about the cops? See a kid waving a gun like object? What's a cop going to do? It's a terrible job, constant stress and adrenaline, sudden dangers.
You could educate your children like the father above, and risk what that truth will cause to arise in them. So heartbreaking.
>
A Hispanic kid in a town in my area this year was playing around on the sidewalk in front of his house with a toy gun. A cop saw it and thought it was real, and told him to drop it. The kid got scared and confused and didn't know what was going on. For not dropping the gun, the cop shot him dead. Turned out he was a star student in his school and a leader in his church's youth group.
Automatic assumptions of innocence or guilt of individuals simply because you share the same skin pigmentation is anachronistic.
This is extremely tricky. Some kids who were raised without a thought to their race ended up resenting their parents for not telling them what they'd be up against as adults. Our society isn't there yet, where someone can be oblivious to tendencies out there, and become a success without encountering setbacks that are at first bewildering if that person doesn't know about these undercurrents.
I think there's got to be a middle path, where one can raise kids to be anything they want to be, but at some point you also tell them that some people aren't going to judge them fairly, so they need to put their best foot forward and maybe have some skills to disarm someone who might be judgmental for the wrong reason. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Skillful means can then come into play.
Apparently it's not a "terrible job". They chose it. They continue working in the field.
But in the case of the 12 year old shot a couple of days ago in Cleveland, the police car pulled into the park, the cop opened the door, and within 4 seconds shot the kid dead. How hard do you think the cop tried to defuse the situation...in 4 seconds? I'd say that's piss poor police work.
Now, if every kid in my hometown back in the 1950s had been shot on sight if they had a bee bee gun (which shoots metal pellets; this kid had a toy gun that shot plastic pellets), half the boys in my home town would have been dead.
But, as a principal -- just once-- I had to take a real gun away from a kid. I didn't have a police car to hide behind, or a partner, or a bullet proof vest, or a Glock, or mace, or a taser, or a billy club. I also apparently didn't have the cowardice that cop in Cleveland had.
What the heck is with parents allowing their child to take a toy gun outside of the house?
I know you can't be on your kid 24/7, but if families need to teach their boys about how to not get killed by the cops, not waving a toy gun around should be lesson number one.
Part of the problem is widespread gun ownership.
Police have good reasons to expect guns in the hands of kids in the USA. Owning guns is the national hobby.
Where I live it is not paradise, but police don’t feel threatened so easily and kids can play with toy guns all they want.
Indeed. Excellent, useful, illuminating dialogue. That is where it begins . . .
Would you attend a sangha where the head was an alcoholic, drug addict, black, a woman, disabled, gorgeous, gay, an embezzler, practicing Christian, a sex offender, a racist, a soldier, an aristocrat, a sexist, child abandoner or spoke another language?
Some of us do. In fact a few might have noticed the Buddha had some of those attributes. Wether that is relevant and referred to is up to the teacher and sangha. Would you invite members of [insert person type of choice] to sit with your sangha?
Personally I find those potential resources of personal circumstances a rich source of dharma and therefore teaching. Women molesting Buddhist priests who never face up to their hypocrisy, feelings and actions are facilitators of unskillfulness in the very groups they lead. The issue needs addressing, as does the craziness of the gay FWBO (another thread) who are frankly trying to get others into a closet not of their experience. Face it FWBO gay dharma or straight is not the issue. Twisted justification and unskilfulness is apparent . . .
A black community leader or Asian leader may not wish to describe their experiences of racism to a predominatly white community. That is up to them.
We are who we are, it is not all we are. Racism exists in society and dharma. We have a spectrum of potential applicability.
Let me give you an example: I was on retreat, sitting on a bench reserved for smokers (where the accursed sat).
Someone came along and felt sitting there was an invitation to idle chatter. To be polite, I engaged. I was about to leave, when I saw a black person I did not know coming for a smoke. In a few seconds I had to decide do I leave and possibly offend them, giving the impression I did not wish to sit with them. I did not particularly want to sit or talk with anyone. I decided to leave. I know this was taken personally, frankly because it happens so often in other contexts. As they were on a different retreat I never spoke to them, nor do I feel the situation called for it. I am not super boddhisatva, nor do I have to be. Maybe one day I will do better . . .
This might seem like a trivial incident where I choose to act knowing the potential misconstruing. This is life. We live in personal bubbles but we can often choose what we do. We can not always choose how others perceive us.
Most of us are not independent enough to be treated honestly because we are not true to our experience. I am very aware of racism through choice, not daily hurt, but not everyone wants awareness from a perspective that confronts their unawareness and experience, which by the nature of our humanity is limited but I hope also expanding . . .
. . . oh gosh must end there for now . . .
@dhammachick said: "I get the race issue but it's not a Buddhist issue, it's a people issue. Don't make it what it's not."
Could Buddhism even exist without people? I doubt it and therefore doubt that Buddhism can be somehow exempted from the issue of racism.
**deleted
Not worth the energy
Thanks to everyone who opened up and has posted. This conversation takes alot of courage.....This is Sangha I can be proud of.
..... Any people problem can be hard to confront
In a Sangha context.....but we're wonderful warriors, it seems.
When I was a kid, growing up in what could be described as a "gun culture", we played outside with toy guns all the time. These guns were made to look like the real deal. I had a toy Thompson submachine gun made by Mattel. Fired caps. My brother had a toy by Mattel called the Sonic Blaster. Shot a big wad of air. Looks an awful lot like a LAWS rcoket tube. I had a gun by Daisey that fired cork peas and was nearly identical to a Winchester Model 94.
We had to play outside with them cause our mothers couldn't stand all the racket.
We also had slingshots, bows and arrows, knives, axes, hachets and spears.
Then we got BB guns and .22s.
I never once had a cop shoot me for carrying one, nor did anyone in my home town.
What we need it to do is something about the cops. They are too eager to shoot to kill. A few years ago a couple kids up the in the mountains west of here, "stole" their dad's car. A cop stopped them. The kids tried to take off, and the cop drew his gun and fired. 30 rounds. Both kids died. The cop emptied more than 2 clips into that car.
Yes, I know, the kids shouldn't have stolen the car. Right. Tell it to their Mom. Police carry sidearms that are powerfull enough to pentrate metal bodywork, strike the engine block, cracking it, and cause it to stop running in less than a mile. Why shoot 30 times, and kill two children when a couple well-placed rounds will immonbilize their vehicle and you can take them to jail. And even if they did "get away"? where would they go? The cops had their names and knew where they live, went to school, etc. They were going nowhere.
In Denver, a swat team broke into a house and killed an inhabitant. Wrong house. Wrong guy. So sorry.
A mentally challenged guy whips out a knife and the cop unloads a clip into him.
Some guy on PCP charges a cop and gets mowed down. Dude, ever hear of a Tazer? Pepper Spray? A nightstick. A fist?
This kinda shit happens all the time. And you suggest that we keep our kids and their toys indoors and teach them how not to get shot by cops? What kind of fucked-up world is that? A unacceptable one, that's what I think. We pay those cops to protect our children not kill them. They are public servants, not executioners.
We used to have a name for cops who shot first and asked questions later: "trigger happy". Also any cop that emptied the clip with multiple shots when they were not actually in a gunfight would have been accused of panicing and needing more training or put behind a desk.
But now, it seems that's what they've been trained to do. The actual number of cops that are shot in the line of duty are at an all time low, by the way, as are criminals arrested while carrying a gun. Violent crime has been declining for the past decade.
But the number of unarmed men shot and killed by police, almost always black, is at an all-time high.
It's been pointed out that one contributing problem is, the "buddy system" has been eliminated in patrols. While before they tried to have two cops in the car to back each other up, now due to budgets they are always alone. A lone man is a scared man. And no cop wants to get the reputation of calling for backup each time he has to handle a situation. It's something to think about.
But sticking two cops in a car instead of one isn't the solution, of course. A young black man might not get shot then, but he's more likely to get the crap beat out of him.
That's all true @Chaz. It was definetly a different world then. And for sure there were less guns. Especially in the hands of teenagers and kids.
When we were young we went barefoot most of the time in summer. The chances of stepping on a used syringe, or catching a drug resistant infection were much less too.
Six years ago my daughter made a solo trip to Syria and had a great time. Do we have to not take holidays to Syria because there is a war there now? Damn!
Too bad, things have changed. More cops are assholes now. More people carry guns.
Kids need to be raised differently.
Here, we still use the term trigger happy....or we say he had an itchy trigger finger.
Or....he was lookin for action and my dude friend looked like the right kind to have
It with.....anyway.....i agree...the problem starts with the cops and what/how they come
into the situation.
Exactly! Right now, all to often it's a shoot first, ask questions later mentality. And, it is -- quite literally -- overkill. A term @Vastmind used is perfect -- trigger happy.
@Chaz: Yes, I grew up in a small PA town on 10 acres, we had replicas/toy guns that looked a lot like a .22, which we also had (real .22's) about 3 of - one for dad, one for each of 2 brothers, bb guns ... It was as normal as apple pie! My dad taught me to shoot his .9 mm Luger, a .22, and my b/f helped me hold and shoot a double-barrel shotgun which did end up hurting my shoulder. We also had bows n arrows - which I was absolutely no good at.
I hate to agree that cops seem to be incredibly trigger-happy and/or paranoid -- it would seem that's the way they're trained these days.
Ban guns for the public who have no justifiable cause or excuse to own one.
It works here, see?
Sorted.
I'd like to think it's that simple -- also, diff'rent strokes for diff'rent countries - ?
It brings to mind how the posterchild for racism here, Rodney King, wasn't shot, but beaten with all the other weapons at their disposal - hands, feet, elbows, batons, flashlights - who knows what all! Oh yeah, it's all on tape!
Tape can be a great weapon, as well -- it's just what do people usually do with that kind of devastating and inflammatory message? They usually react and over-react, instead of reflect like the Buddha taught.
That town a grew up in had about 5000 people. I'm guessing here, but I believe about 4000 had guns in the house. Sporting weapons (rifles, shotguns) mostly but some houses had pistols and a few even had contrband automatic weapons from WW2.
Most kids I know had BB guns, but loved up to .22 rifles and light shotguns by age 14. We started big game hunting (using .30 caliber rifles and larger) at 16. Do, by 16 I had a .22 for target practice, a 16ga shotgun for bird hunting, and a .30-30 for deer hunting.
Any one of those guns could be used as a man-killer, but shootings never happened. There were plenty of guns around. Even the cops didn't shoot people
But how?
The big difference between my hometown days and now is community. Everyone knew everyone. There were generations raised there. You were related to many of the people. That included the cops. You can't educate people to build community. It just had=s to be there. There's been a steady decline in community in the US since the end of WW2. That's our biggest problem. Not guns.
Can't do that, here. We have rights to own guns and we need no reason or cause. You can't take that away from people.
But we're not Great Britain. It's a fine country. But we don't want to be Great Britain. And you folks have your problems as well. I was just reading about your new terror law bill before Parliament. Scary.
@Federica, history plays a very important part in the unfortunate gun culture of the United States. A good and fairly short summary of that history can be found at http://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/bioterrorism/8military/milita01.htm.
In terms of how British history led us to that point can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(Great_Britain).
And after all, our militias were initially developed for two purposes -- to fight American Indians and British colonial rule.
Your ancestors were good teachers.
It's too bad an ambiguous paragraph in our Constitution let it all get out of hand. But, history is history, and that's a tough tradition to undo when you live in a nation of elected representatives.
If it were up to me, no one other than the proper authorities would have guns. But that just ain't gonna happen.
On more than one occasion, white armed robbers were thwarted and shot by black citizens near where I lived.
Some of us live in occasionally unpleasant places, whether it's violent criminals, bull moose, or grizzly bears. At least where I live, guns are a fact of life near the Arctic Circle.
Seemingly so. But there's always that powerful slogan the gun lobby uses: "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." So the result is to make everyone an outlaw, I guess. Even the little toddlers who accidentally shoot a sibling or friend, or most recently--their own mom.
These are very sad accidental events, but the vast majority of them could easily be prevented, not only by proper and readily available training in the handling of guns, but more importantly by having a society that isn't so easily distracted by whatever (and that ain't easy in this modern world with cell phones glued to one's ear (not me!) and all the other stuff we got goin' on, and the sobriety that existed once upon a time -- I think maybe my generation was the last one to have that overall sobriety - maybe you understand what I'm saying here - I dunno. (Speaking to the audience)
If you could share, what's so scary about it?
Pretty well outlined here: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-30217964
But I meant the overall terror situation in GB, as well as the need for rather draconian laws, is scary.
There are elements of British society that I find rather Orwellian now when I read about it. For instance, we might have the government snooping into our phone calls over here in the Colonies, but you blokes apparently have government surveillance cameras everywhere actually watching what you're doing. I understand you have your own history of terrorism to make you paranoid, from the IRA to Islamic bombing. You also have actual mass transit everywhere that is vulnerable, unlike us. Still, knowing it's the government who actually has a camera on that pole for the purpose of watching what you're doing...
Umm "Person of Interest" comes to mind.....Maybe I've been watching too many US action dramas....
I'd rather have too many cameras than too many guns.
I've never understood the issue with surveillance cameras in public places.
Now you know I'm not talking about BB guns and hunting rifles. I'm talking about handguns, Uzis,
Mac10 type weapons in the hands of young men in gangs.
Also, there is a hundred million more people living in the US now than when we were kids. Surely that has some bearing on how many guns are actually out there on the street now.
More people, more guns= more cops with a bad attitude.
I hate it that cops are killing young people down there, but dammit, it's wall to wall guns in some of your neighbourhoods.
Give a child a toy gun in the city and how long before he wants or needs a real one?
I'm not talking about hunting here.
Most of the UK cameras are run by local councils, so it's hardly MI5.
@Vastmind, the Jon Stewart piece you included above speaks volumes.
Racism, or ethnicism —whatever it is, is sadly probably unable to be annihilated in even the best of us when we are at our worst in some situations. Thanks for posting! Although I am given to believe that the need for reevaluation of police lethal force protocol is long overdue, I understand that even "professionals" do panic. I guess the art of living would consist in not letting the wound be inflicted twice. In other words, so far as in us lies and in whatever timeframe some form of Grace allows, to forgive what is past, for that cannot be undone. Which is not to say that remedies should not be sought.
It is very hard to have to suffer the companionship of people who either won't or can't feel any of our pain. St Paul counsels people of The Way to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice. I believe that the Buddha taught that too, but not in that same economy of words.
Rom 12
Good. I'm so glad. I'm unimportant, have nothing to hide, and welcome the so-called 'intrusion'. I have never in my life done anything that might cause anyone else concerns.
Frankly, the Government is not sufficiently interested in watching Joe Public, UNLESS said 'Joe' is brought to their attention for some good reason.
For example, abuse and cruelty in a residential home for elderly patients, and other institutes for the educationally-challenged, would never have come to light, or been punished, had it not been for surveillance...
Much public security footage is destroyed after a month, max.
But ya know, they don't only watch me, though. And trust me, we're not half as paranoid as some American citizens are...
I'd rather have intrusion than ignorance. As they say, "what have you got to hide?"
Well, it's that whole privacy thing. Supposedly, the government is not allowed here in the USA to invade our privacy including searching our pockets without cause. Granted, the horse seems to have bolted from the barn on that one, even here in the good old USA. Cameras bring visions of "Big Brother is Watching You!" posters and computers are increasingly capable of sorting through billions of bytes of info in real time.