About 6 months ago I was asked by my Nigerian friend Father M if I would take part in an online conversation about faith in the public square. It was based in Nigeria and there were about 200 participants. I was the only white woman. After the event, Fr M shared with me some messages that he had received by way of encouragement. They went along the lines of "that white woman was on fire" and "I didn’t know what to expect from your white friend but she was brilliant."
I say this not to blow my own trumpet (capable as I am of doing so) but as a way in to examine what happened on 30th November when Lady Susan Hussey made the unforgiveable mistake of repeatedly asking a Black British woman, Ms Ngozi Fulani, about her heritage. The row <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63850466">continues</a> and it was reported yesterday that the King has now invited Ms Fulani back to Buckingham Palace.
I took no offence at reference to my whiteness, but then I was not looking to take offence.
I’m less interested in a discussion about whether the remarks were prudent or not, and more interested in asking why we are so keen to eviscerate people for nothing more than an Overton Window blunder.
What Lady Susan said may have been out of touch with contemporary social etiquette (let’s face it, what isn’t?), but she posed no threat to this woman, who had been invited to a royal reception.
There was a bit of the old game-playing going on. The black woman was British but her ancestry clearly was not. The first line on her website is "my parents came to London from the Carribean". So proud is she of her heritage that she chooses to illuminate it at every opportunity, except when asked about it by an elderly white aristocrat.
One can’t help thinking that a point was being made. But what was the point?
The point seemed to be that black people face racism from white people wherever they go. This is the narrative pumped into schools, including our own Catholic schools. A narrative rooted in Critical Race Theory (CRT), a narrative that says white people are always and everywhere racist whether they are aware of it or not, that says black people are always and everywhere victims of racism whether they are aware of it or not.
That racism isn’t a deeply held belief that some people, by virtue of their race, are inferior to others, but is instead some new-fangled idea that<em> "</em>a positive white identity is an impossible goal because white identity is inherently racist and white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy,<em>"</em> writes Robin DiAngelo in her book <em>White Fragility</em>.
As Christians we must be careful not to buy into this nonsense, as nonsense it surely is, because at the heart of it is division, antagonism and vengeance, not unity, love and forgiveness. We are warned against such divisive rhetoric by St Paul, who says "I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions" (Romans 16:17-18).
Activists like Ms Fulani look at the world through the lens of Critical Race Theory, which is how she could come to describe a benign encounter with an elderly woman as abuse, a violation, and as being trapped.
The worst thing about all of this is that while some people sob on national television about the violation of not unreasonable inquisition into their heritage, there are millions of people being targeted and killed for being Uyghur, for being Christian, for being gay, for being a pre-born inconvenience.
There are real problems that flow from a failure to see our brothers and sisters as having inherent value and dignity, made as each of us are in the image and likeness of God. There are problems that lead to people being singled out for unjust punishment and death. These problems are advanced by the rhetoric of Critical Race Theory as pointed out by Ed Feser in his book <em>All one in Christ: A Catholic critique of racism and CRT</em>.
"Though there are important differences between National Socialism and Critical Race Theory, it is disturbing how closely the characterisation of the 'Nazi conscience' parallels the CRT worldview […] if you substitute 'white people' for 'Jews' and 'people of colour' for 'Germans' the resemblance is eerie. [DiAngelo]'s claim that 'anti-blackness' is inherent to 'white identity' parallels the Nazi view that the Jews were inherently a threat to the German nation, and [Ibram] Kendi’s comparison of omnipresent white supremacy to 'stage 4 metastatic cancer' calls to mind the Nazi claim that certain races were 'parasites' that threatened the health of the German people."
The danger of looking at everything through a racial lens is that we bring about the very thing we claim to be against. We don’t need advocates of CRT to tell us what to say and how to behave, we simply need to plug ourselves into the blood transfusion offered to us by Christ and let Him change us. The final word on this must go to Feser.
"Catholics must resolutely oppose Critical Race Theory […] not in spite of being opposed to racism, but precisely because they are opposed to it. The church’s condemnation of racism is grounded both in our common nature as rational beings capable of knowledge and of charity, and in the redemption from sin made possible for all by grace. And this entails not CRTs ‘cancel culture’ and hermeneutic of suspicion […] not the endless ferreting out of ever more esoteric grounds for bitter grievance and recrimination, but the forgiveness and mercy that, as Pope Francis has emphasised, is 'the true face of love'."
