Now we are starting to see that there was an intentional campaign to take over the American Evangelical movement and use it as a political weapon. Religion has been used to control populations for as long as it has existed, but people of faith and intentional communities have also continually reformed and countered these forces. It is radically irresponsible to not be able to acknowledge the harm that has been done, not only by the church but by every organized faith system at some point.
Restorative justice is hard, intimidating. We are used to a retributive model, wherein crimes are punished, criminals become marked as separate, and punishment is harsh. We have dallied in this country with some rehabilitative justice models, and those are of course more effective than the retributive, but less politically popular, rarely fully funded, and still missing the mark.
The Trifecta of Evil: White Supremacy, Heteronormativity, and Patriarchy
We live in a very broken but beautiful world. One of the ways in which it is most broken can be seen through the existence, perpetuation, and multivalent effects of oppressive systems. While some think of capitalism or misogyny or racism as the worst-thing-ever, I believe that we are made less human, and deny the humanity of others, through three primary mechanisms: White Supremacy, Heteronormativity, and Patriarchy.
I am speaking only in an American context, as that is all I truly know. However, that is one that I know well. I earned a Master’s studying the city and I have lived in 4 very different urban areas in the US over the last 25 years: Memphis, Chicago, Oakland, and Denver. I named these oppressive systems long ago, and have been looking for them actively.
I intend to dismantle them, overturn them, stand against these things. Some of the most beautiful pieces of our world evolve from the human response to this Trifecta of Evil as a resounding “Hell no!” For we are bound and intertwined, equal and different, diverse and common. These forces battle each other for prominence, nurture each other in rebounding waves of increasing violence, and erode community, common cause, and coalition depth. I’ll be looking at these three things over the next couple weeks –how they interact around some common themes and how they can be dismantled.
White Supremacy -White Supremacy undergirds and shores up everything in America. It enables us to perpetuate slavery via our criminal “justice” system. It rationalizes economic coercion and apartheid as typical. The police were first formed to catch & return enslaved peoples, clear out indigenous peoples, and “protect” white women from all nonwhite men. Traditionally, white men and women have worked as teammates in these endeavors, with white women regularly undermining and appropriating nonwhite cultural resources while men keep the institutional systems of white control well oiled via the momentum of their privilege.
Heteronormativity -Heteronormativity declares the cis straight binary as the only normal sexual and gender expression. Heteronormativity strangles the wild diversity of creation as it says IN and OUT and ONLY THIS to a species that requires more. Heteronormativity limits the definition of family, names a child as legitimate or not (!!!), constrains access to housing, legal parity, medical care, and declares as aberrant for humans sexual behavior that is common throughout the animal world.
Patriarchy -Patriarchy forms our basic structure of worth and value, of inherent primacy, and control. Patriarchy makes typical the idea that men are necessary to the success of a thing, and always have a right to speak. Patriarchy says that the boundaries and borders are just for clarity or your own good. While white women have ceded much power and authority to men in exchange for their ‘protection’, Patriarchy will always place the needs, expectations, and rights of men above women.
