The Gordon Sisters did not have 'a complicated past'. They were racist.

Check it out: liberals use the word ‘complicated’ to ignore unforgivable issues they have in their own past. For example, take this great story:

SISTERS IMMORTALIZED IN STAINED GLASS AT FIRST UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH HAVE COMPLICATED PAST

Normally, I wouldn’t read this story. I didn’t know about this code word and care little about stained glass. However, this was on twitter a few times. I have a search filter up for the word ‘Unitarian’ and was intrigued. Unitarian Universalists hardly make the news for honorifics of their forebears.

The article starts off about how the movement traditionally dislikes stained glass; harking back to the ideal of being able to see the outside as it is and the outside seeing the people inside worshipping. Then the article goes onto say how the Gordon sisters honor the first principle in our movement, the inherent worth and dignity of every person. (Nevermind that this principle wasn’t around when the Gordon sisters were alive. Who decided that they represent the first principle? I hope it was the author of the article and not this church or there is going to be a lot more anger as you’ll see explained below)

Then the R-word: ”I won’t say, ‘They were racists!’ ” said the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger, waving her arms in mock alarm. “But I won’t lie about that in my teaching about them.”

I’m sorry, what is it called when someone advocated Eugenics - the belief that other people are ‘undesirables’ and should be killed - for blacks?

What is it called when a Gordon sister would not attend a banquet at the White House because a notable black person would be there?

What is it called when the Kate Gordon wanted white women to vote in order to neutralize the black vote?

What is it called when an expert on the subject calls the Gordon sisters ‘white supremacists’?

I think, particularly from the vantage point of our religion and that church, we should affirm them for exactly who they were. Racist. The Gordon sisters were racist Unitarians. Yes, they fought and did worthy things. The article takes careful note of all their achievements. But what the article does - and what it sounds like the church does not do - is acknowledge them for exactly what they were, detailing their immoral positions in society.

I am certain they did great things. I am also certain that many Ku Klux Klan members or Hitler did a lot of good amongst the horrors they committed. The point is that as members of the privileged class in power we acknowledge what our forebears did in painful detail. Saying things like ‘complicated past’, ‘common attitudes of the time’, and ‘I won’t say, ‘They were racists!’, hides white privilege. It hides the history and whitewashes the past to our liking.

The article also lists how many schools and other public buildings have had name changes from oppressive white heros to civil rights heros. Perhaps suggesting that the time for honoring racists is in the past, and this liberal church is taking a step backwards?

For Unitarian Universalists, this denial is particularly troubling. Our movement is the most educated and 95% white. What a contradiction for this church to uplift these two sisters as embodiment of the first principle when they clearly did not believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. What a difference one word in a principle makes.

Reading the minister’s words, you can see the denial at work from the first sentence. Their ‘dark history’ is not exactly hidden but not pondered upon either. She is right, when towards the end she says there is no such thing as perfection. If she truly believed this, then she’d refuse to have this article have such an apologetic tone: ‘that’s what others during the time thought too!’.

She’d come right out from the get-go and say “Yes, they were racist. We acknowledge this terrible part of our history, that we did believe in eugenics. That we did shun people with different skin colors, and that we did not follow our own principle. That is part of this, a remembrance to those oppressed peoples that we were privileged and took a part in oppression. We recognize this because today, we strive to acknowledge our power and that it should be shared. Today, unlike the past, we do believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.”

And here’s the further rub: nothing in the blogosphere, UUA, or UU world about this at all. What does that say about our movement and racism? Well, I guess we won’t exactly hide it.