We Must Not Lose the Drive to Strive for Racial Equality as Buddhists in the United States
By Rev. Tadao Koyama | Minister at Tacoma Buddhist Temple
Editor's note for Rev. Tadao: This article was written 2 months ago and is not a direct response to contemporary events.
This article is a direct reflection of the article from CNN’s website entitled, “Why Black Christians are bracing for a ‘Whitelash’” written by Daniel Burke, CNN Religion editor updated July 11th, 2020. Let me first address the elephant in the room.Yes, this article is coming from a Christian context or is told by members of the Christian faith. However, I believe that the problems and the issues faced by Black congregants and Black citizens outlined in this article are relevant to our community as well. After all, the Buddhist Church of America’s members still mostly live in the United States.
So while I kindly ask all of us not to immediately dismiss this issue as simply a Christian problem or that we somehow as another religion are not capable of making similar mistakes that hurt our fellow Black citizens and neighbors as opposed to helping them, I am also encouraging us to continue discussing about our own biases and privileges and not losing our will to continue the long fight to end police brutality and racism in the nation.
The article first talks about Trilla Newbell’s, a Christian author, experience in facing discrimination within her own religion. One of the most blatant examples of this discrimination is the beginning of the article, where she talks about God creating all human beings in his likeness. However, she was immediately challenged by a white man, who tried to use scripture to say that Black people were made to be less than white people.
“‘He explained that I was subhuman, that I was a different species’ recalled Newbell. ‘And he was trying to use Scripture as proof.’”
While many of us can’t imagine even thinking something so blatantly racist, we must not forget that there were a sizable amount of members who were trying to diminish the problem of racism within this society by using Buddhist scripture and text. Previously I wrote about how some within the BCA were trying to diminish the importance and necessity of the phrase “Black Lives Matter” by trying to use Buddha quotes and platitudes. So while we may not be able to cite examples within Buddhist scripture (and for all I know, scripture that justifies a sense of race superiority could exist) we can certainly take responsibility for trying to use quotes from sutras and commentaries to put forth an idea of color-blindness within ourselves.
Another issue that they bring up in this article is the issue they call “whitelash.” This is defined as, “the moment White Christians tire of talking about race and bristle when Black pastors or congregants want to continue the conversation.” The article continues to outline the problems of addressing racism and human rights within sermons and congregations because it is deemed as “too political.” In a nutshell, the article details that while it is nice to see white Christian allies participate in marches etc., how long does that support last?
After the death of George Floyd and the protests began, many Buddhists also marched with the Black Lives Matter protests in their robes and shouted their support.
The question we have to ask ourselves is; how long is this support going to last?
I am also not suggesting that support means going out to a march every time that there is one or that one has to be physically harmed by a police rubber bullet in order to prove their ally ship or even that every single dharma talk has to be about racism in this country. I am saying though that our support has to go beyond just the performative and words.
It’s hard for us to confront this issue for many of ourselves because in some part we have to look at ourselves as either Asian Americans Buddhists, or white Buddhists, and consider that we ourselves might be part of this problem. However, a friend once told me that if we fail, make a mistake, or come to a realization that we are part of the problem, it isn’t the end of the world. Failing, or coming to a realization right now isn’t the end of it. Nor is posting a “Black Lives Matter” picture on the facebook wall the end of it.
I suggest that there are warning signs we can start to identify within ourselves and throughout the congregations that we can pay attention to. The first warning sign that we must address or if we hear we must confront is the notion that “This issue is not our problem.” We live in a very diverse country in the world, so when there is a group of people within our country or society that is so obviously, and blatantly facing oppression, we have an obligation as a group to address it AND work really hard to correct it!
The next warning sign we must keep vigilant about is losing our drive to continue to fight for justice. While the media may not be covering the racial injustices within our society as heavily anymore since George Floyd’s murder, it does not mean that the racist attacks have stopped, nor has police brutality. If we are really sincere about being allies or supporters in this fight for racial justice and living through the teachings of Amida Buddha in this life, then we can’t just be responsive in our actions towards social justice. Racism and prejudice didn’t just pop up when George Floyd was murdered and sadly it has not yet ended either.
The last warning I must emphasize heavily is not forcing the spotlight back onto ourselves, or making acknowledgement about our own suffering a prerequisite to us doing our part in fighting for Black Lives Matter. What do I mean by this? It is true; Asian Americans still face discrimination today. There has even been a spike of anti-Asian discrimination since COVID-19 became a pandemic. This is also a problem, and should definitely be fought against, but if we are serious about being allies to the Black Lives Matter movement, we cannot monopolize the conversation and the narrative and force our suffering to shine in the limelight during this fight.
Lastly, we cannot become deluded about and too attached to our privilege. I believe many of us can agree that Japanese American immigrants have “succeeded” in many ways in terms of attaining access to various resources, opportunities and status. Our privilege can be quite comfortable. While I am not saying that even today Asian Americans are NOT experiencing racism and discrimination, Japanese Americans and Japanese American Jodo Shinshu Buddhists, generally speaking, have enjoyed a sizable amount of privilege within this country of ours. Some may argue with me on this point.
However, we cannot view this privilege with this idea that we have “pulled ourselves up from our bootstraps” to be where we are. Yes, our grandparents and great grandparents suffered through the concentration camps. Buddhists were discriminated against and also experienced violent aggression towards them. Yes many of our parents were able to go to UC Berkeley and other prestigious universities and made relatively nice lives for themselves. This isn’t to downplay the traumatizing experiences of the camps, nor to diminish the accomplishments of our parents. However, this attitude of “I earned this!” “I deserve this!” must be checked and corrected! I bring this example up because within the Asian American community, these examples have been used to justify the superiority of our culture, the superiority of Asians Americans by whites AND ourselves to perpetuate the model minority myth.
As Asian American Buddhists or just Buddhists, we can’t pass intolerance, bigotry, anti-Blackness as a white person problem or a Christian problem.
If we want to continue the fight against racial injustice, we must go beyond just words, or a casual acknowledgement of the racism in society. When the media attention dies down, we must not allow our attention to die down as well. We must continue to actively fight against injustice in the society we live in. If all we do is respond to things when they get media attention, what are we really accomplishing?
Do I have hope? Am I optimistic? I think so. Recently the Young Buddhist Editorial conducted its first workshop to confront the issue of anti-Blackness within our own community and to examine racism and what it means. Do we have a long way to go? Yes, absolutely. The fight to end racism doesn’t just end with workshops or talks. We need to continue educating ourselves about our own complicity and the various ways we can engage in a positive way for change in this society. Have we made progress? Only time will tell. I hesitate to stop and see progress because if we stay too long to look at it we get lazy and refuse to move forward. I think we must be very careful in terms of asking this question. We must not get too used to patting ourselves on the back. The fight continues and must go on.
Circling back to the original article, I ask that we as the Buddhist Churches of America members and temples, seriously look at the declaration of solidarity we publicly posted for all to see in standing with the Black Lives Matter movement. I sincerely hope that we as an organization and as Buddhists take this commitment seriously and really continue to fight against racial injustice in this country.
Further Reading:
Why Black Christians are bracing for a 'whitelash'
By Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor
Updated 9:37 AM ET, Sat July 11, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/us/white-black-christians-racism-burke/index.html
