 Hello friends and welcome to another session of the Association for Baha'i Studies virtual conference. This evening we have with us Elizabeth Allen. She'll be presenting on the subject of breaking free of an epistemology of white ignorance. Elizabeth is a PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and a white Baha'i critical race scholar and mother. Her research explores the ways in which teachers with varying teaching ideologies represent whiteness in education. She's committed to equity to racial justice and to achieving them through social transformation. As the presentation is taking place, you can add a question to the queue by clicking on the add comment button at the bottom of the screen. After the presentation is over, there will be a short question and answer session in which Elizabeth will have the opportunity to respond to some of the questions that the audience offers to her. So thank you and welcome to Elizabeth. I'm going to go ahead and thank you so much. Derek for the introduction. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. Okay. There we go. So, as you already heard, my name is Liz Allen, and I just would like to thank the Association for Baha'i Studies for the opportunity to present today. My parents answered the call to pioneering in the 1970s and dedicated their lives to serving the Baha'i Faith and created a strong spiritual heritage as a result. My sister was born in Togo and I was born in Gabon. So in this, in one of the pictures, you can see the first National Spiritual Assembly of Togo and my father is in the bottom right hand corner. You can also see the first National Spiritual Assembly of Gabon and my mother is actually in the top left hand corner. From birth, I was completely immersed within the Gabonese culture. We lived in a Gabonese neighborhood, attended their public schools and became part of the community to the extent that it was possible. My earliest memories are connected to being held, passed around from lap to lap, and just raised within the Gabonese community. And so from this context, I really wanted to share my positionality. Culturally, I strongly identify as Gabonese. Ethnically, I have mostly German and Irish roots and racially, I identify as white. As a second generation pioneer, I feel the need to pursue my own investigation of reality and ask difficult questions. Not for the purpose of creating this unity or to cause trouble, but really to investigate truth as it is. And so one of the difficult questions that I continue to wrestle with is the question about how my family could have potentially engaged in white saviorism and what that would have looked like in our case, right, for our specific family in Gabon. So when we would visit the United States, I struggled to find ways to convey to my non-Bahai grandparents the life experiences I had being raised in all black communities. I also became a witness to the ways in which my grandparents would say racial things and non-racial ways. So for example, they forbade us to go across the street to make friends in a mostly black neighborhood, stating that they didn't want neighbors knowing them, and when, and especially when they were gone for the winter. And so I myself had to piece together the implicit racial message that black equaled criminality. And so these experiences in some ways pushed me into academia, whereas a single mother scholar, I had to choose how to live my life. I had to decide which questions I was courageous enough to ask in order to pursue my own investigation of reality, so as to wrestle with my family history. And I have to teach my daughter to think critically, ask difficult questions and also develop a relationship with Bahá'u'lláh and the government. And so the questions I find myself asking within the context of the Bahá'í faith and the guardians call for pioneering are, how do we navigate our spiritual legacies with the understanding that we are all imperfect human beings. And for me specifically, how do I honor my family history of serving the cause, while simultaneously wrestling with the ways in which my family engaged in white saviorism. I am often asked why I spend my time and energy presenting on whiteness and white supremacy instead of focusing on oneness. How last says the purpose of justice is the appearance of unity, but we cannot achieve justice if we don't educate ourselves on the problems of the world that are the cause of injustice and inequity. The beloved Universal House of Justice and their most recent July 22, 2020 letter to the Bahá'ís of the United States, reminds us that the American Bahá'í community cannot hope to either escape the trials with which this nation is confronted, nor claim to be wholly immune from the evils that stain its character. And so I hope that through this presentation we can begin to explore what does that mean in practicality, that we cannot be wholly immune from these evils that stain the character of this nation. So the goal of today's presentation is to synthesize the Bahá'í writings with current critical whiteness studies research, so as to gain a deeper understanding of whiteness and whites false sense of superiority. I want to start the presentation with this question. Can you think of any situation where ignorance is knowledge? And so as I'm presenting, if you can just keep that question in the back of your mind, it is central to this presentation. The Guardian reminds us in the advent of divine justice, how great therefore, how staggering the responsibility the must weigh upon the present generation of the American believers. To weed out by every means in their power those false habits and tendencies which they have inherited from their own nation. White supremacy is a social, political and economic system that we have inherited as a nation for the purposes of preserving the land, wealth and power white men have accrued by colonizing North America with the use of slaves as its foundation. This system was developed based on the process of racialization, which is the hierarchical classification of people by the color of their skin and phenotypical differences. Dorothea Lang took this picture entitled There's No Way Like The American Way in 1937. It shows black men and women in Louisville, Kentucky lining up to seek help from a relief station in front of a billboard proclaiming world's highest standard of living. This was taken during the Great Ohio River flood of 1937. What I find interesting about this picture is how clearly it shows the advantages and resources the white collective are encouraged to accrue at the expense of the lives of people of color. Given the historical context of 1937 and Jim Crow laws, it is clear that this billboard encourages or brainwashes whites to believe that they need to achieve the world's highest standard of living. But what isn't stated is that it was impossible to achieve this world's standard of living without buying into this white supremacist system, which was built on the backs of chattel slavery, land stolen from indigenous people, using the legal system to determine who was white and who could therefore be paid less or not at all so that a white minority could be paid more. James Baldwin reminds us that white men became white by slaughtering the cattle poisoning the wells, torching the houses, massacring Native Americans and raping black women. As we all know, resources and land are limited and so every unearned advantage and privilege we as whites have benefited from have been advantages and resources taken away from people of color. This stark difference that we can see in what the billboard is advertising to the white collective versus the reality of people of color on the ground after the Great Ohio River flood of 1937 is something to think about. These unearned privileges and advantages have historically accrued and continue to perpetuate inequities in our nation today, as it pertains to job opportunity, income, healthcare, housing, schooling and so on. So what I've mentioned is just a tip of the iceberg. My point here is that structural and institutional racism is inherent to this white supremacist economic system, because it was built to advantage one group over another for the purposes of economic growth and power. And I use this as a backdrop to my presentation because I want to acknowledge that our current system is based on white supremacy and perpetuated through the dominant racial ideology of our time, which I'm going to talk about which is whiteness. And so I'm not here to prove this to you because this has been substantiated through a lot of research right and so my goal here today is really to synthesize the critical whiteness literature on the critical whiteness discourse on whiteness and white supremacy in parallel with the high writings so as to better understand where we stand as a nation and specifically as white people in order to deconstruct what this false sense of white superiority comes from. So what have we inherited from our nation. I like to use this chart, which is taken from Cheryl Machas' book Feeling White, to give you a visual of this white supremacist framework. So I framed this discussion with the understanding that whiteness and white supremacy are the disease and racism is the symptom. And so often we like to focus on racism, but today in this presentation, I'm going to focus on the disease and not so much this symptom. So my focus is on whiteness and white supremacy. And as you can see from this chart, white supremacy impacts people of color, impacts people of color differently than it impacts whites. It impacts people of color through racism and whites through whiteness. But whiteness can also impact people of color in a variety of ways. And so because it is difficult to have conversations about race without defining terms, I'm just going to spend one minute just talking about specific terms. So the first one is I've already defined white supremacy as this system white. But I also want to emphasize that the difference between racism and prejudice. So prejudice is a preconceived negative notion that is not based on reason or actual experience towards a specific racial or ethnic group for as it pertains to racial prejudice. So whites can be prejudiced towards people of color, people of color can be prejudiced towards whites. Now racism is any prejudice against someone because of their race, when those views are reinforced by systems of power. And so that's key here, right? The difference between prejudice and racism is power. And the fact that one group believes that they are superior over an editor, because they believe they possess specific distinct characteristics or abilities or qualities that are used to justify who should have access to these resources and to this wealth. And I'm going to talk about whiteness in a minute and define it. But what I do want to emphasize here is that whiteness is synonymous with white racial ideology. And I'll define it in a second. So what is racial ideology? So Benila Silva, who's an academic, defines ideology as these broad mental or you could say moral frameworks that social groups use to make sense of the world. For example, to decide what is right and wrong, true or false, important or unimportant. And so ideologies are not explicit guides, but they're really basic guidelines with which people filter through often very confusing and conflicting information to make sense of their social reality. And so that's what ideologies are used to do, right? And so racial ideologies specifically are racially based frameworks that are either used to justify the dominant narrative or to challenge the dominant narrative. So for example, critical race theory and critical whiteness studies would be examples of racial ideologies that resist or challenge the dominant narratives of our current society. And so specifically, Omi and Renant, who are also academics, emphasize this collective nature of racial ideology and explains that the ways in which it functions affects our consciousness in our daily life. And so we have to think about how does that happen, right? And it's specifically in our daily life, it affects the way we choose who we're going to have as friends, who we are going to marry, what neighborhood we want to live in, and what is considered knowledge and truth. Moral or not moral, deserving or not deserving in order to maintain the racialized social structure. And so whiteness as an ideology, right, as this white dominant racial ideology of our time is used to justify this dominant narrative. And so it can also be thought of in many different ways, right, the term whiteness. And so I just want to specify that this is how I'm using it. It refers to this white racial ideology. So how is whiteness or white racial ideology perpetuated? If white supremacy as a system and whiteness as the racial ideology is inherited, right, and the Guardian talks to us about what is inherited, then it is only logical to begin to ask how it is perpetuated to sustain the white supremacist system. And so I'm going to give you an example of another billboard that was taken, a picture of this billboard was taken in 1940. So let's think about the historical context of this billboard in 1940. This billboard perpetuates this idea of the American way that, you know, the American way includes opportunity, private enterprise, freedom of religion and speech, representative democracy. But this was also the time of Jim Crow, right. And so what is missing in this picture? What this billboard is really saying is that it's the white American way. Because during Jim Crow, they didn't have access to the kinds of opportunity and private enterprise this billboard is trying to make us believe we had access to, right, white people had access to it, but people of color didn't. And so we often omit, and this is how racial ideology is perpetuated, we often omit the word white when we really mean white. And so for those who have watched the documentary, The Color of Fear, it clearly portrays the frustration and anger that black Americans feel when whites assume that they have the same opportunities because it's the American way. The billboard perpetuates the myth that it is possible for the black American to truly assimilate into white spaces. And we know for a fact that in 1940 that wasn't true. When the backbone structure of this country was based on racialization and whiteness. And so if you think of this type of racial ideology is not being used anymore. If you think this is not being used anymore to brainwash the public. Let's think again. On July 16, 2020. So this was less than 15 days ago. The Washington Post published this news article titled Pompeo says protesters and mainstream media are attacking the American way of life. Okay. And I'm just going to pause because I want you to see the comparison right we're still talking about the same ideology here. And so in his speech when he reminds the public of the American way of life and his founding principles. It was to stir up the emotion of white nostalgia of remembering the past as it was and wishing that things were the way they used to be. That is the semblance of white America. And our president does this through as well through the use of the phrase make American great again, make America great again. And so Pompeo goes on to state and yet today, the very core of what it means to be an American, indeed the American way of life itself is under attack. Instead of seeking to improve America, leading voices promulgate hatred of our founding principles. So we see a political figure employing a specific type of rhetoric using historical narratives to manipulate white emotions and spread misinformation to instill fear in the American public, and insight the white collective to project their fear onto protesters and the mainstream media. This is just how many us citizens are brainwashed and truth is masked. And so in this instance, we need to determine whose narratives are dominant, and whose narratives are being oppressed. So, I'd like you to just take a minute, you know, in your own mind and to think about this, the common storylines that you've been taught to repeat for the purposes of masking reality. So let's emphasize here, this is what we have inherited as a nation. So one way white racial ideology is perpetuated is through this idea of colorblind ideology which I'm just quickly going to to to hit. So colorblind ideology from an academic perspective so I'm going to give you just a quick overview is designed. So we're thinking about ways I just want to emphasize here we're thinking about ways in which this whiteness or this white racial ideology is perpetuated within our social spaces. And so colorblind ideology is designed to mask inequity, but making it seem like race doesn't matter anymore. We've been taught, right, to spread false knowledge by saying things like race doesn't matter anymore we are all equal, or I don't see color, which is ironic right because for someone to feel the need to proclaim that they don't need to see they don't see color. They have to foresee color. So, I want to emphasize that we've been taught these techniques and these strategies. And so another one of these to say things and to say racial things and non racial thing a non racial ways and another aspect of colorblind ideology is this idea of storylines. And so I use this very common storyline that are that is documented right so we think that they're individual stories but they've been documented through research, and we're taught to tell them to emphasize this idea that race doesn't matter anymore. And so the immigrant storyline is a common one which I'm sure a lot of you have heard. I don't understand my family came from family of immigrants, they work they had nothing they arrived in this country they worked hard and they made something out of themselves. So I don't understand why black people can't make something out of themselves. This is a common storyline that we repeat for the purposes of masking reality, and to pretend like race doesn't matter anymore. This is insidious about whiteness, and the way these storylines are passed on is that we believe that we are sharing this story as an individual, when oftentimes we're not realizing that we're taught to repeat them for a very specific purpose, which is to perpetuate the myth that race doesn't matter anymore, and therefore inequities exist. So if inequities exist, then it must be the fault of people of color because race doesn't matter anymore. We're done with that. And so the purpose of these storylines is to mask the systemic, the structural and institutional racism in this country. And semantic moves are another way right that colorblind ideology is perpetuated. So we've seen this we've done it I've done it right. There are specific types of moves that we create with language to say racial things and non-racial ways. A very common one is, I'm not racist, but, and then it's followed with a very racist comment. That's a that's a semantic move and it's done over and over again right. Another one that we hear is, I think diversity is important, but I don't want to move into this diverse neighborhood because it's a high crime neighborhood. Right, that's another way of perpetuating and something saying something racial, without ever actually using the term race and pretending like it doesn't have to do what race when it does. And so this is how racial knowledge is perpetuated. I believe we should all all learn to live together, but I think that it's a bad idea to marry a black man, because our cultures will clash. That's another way that we pass on racial knowledge without actually saying that race matters. And so these are these are just specific examples that we see in our day to day of the ways colorblind ideology is used to mask the fact that race still matters. Another one, another way that racial ideology is perpetuated is through this idea of white emotions. So I'm going to give you a background information of this video, probably most of you have seen this video by now. Amy and Chris Cooper were having so Amy is the white woman and Chris Cooper is the one taking the video. He's a black man. They were having an altercation as a dog owner and a birder in the Rambo so Amy is the dog owner. The Rambo is a space in Central Park that's designed to protect endangered vegetation. And so dogs are expected to be leashed because they destroy the endangered vegetation. In the birder, there was a movement to document dog owners breaking the dog on leash rules. And so when Chris Cooper encountered Amy Cooper in the park, he started recording the video to the video to document this dog off leash. What happened, right, Amy took Amy to Amy Cooper took what would have been just an altercation between two people and escalated it and made it about race. And so I'm going to show you this video. Please stop. Please don't come close to me. Sir, I'm asking you to stop recording me. Please don't come close to me. Please take your phone off. Please don't come close to me. Please call the cops. Please call the cops. I'm going to tell them there's an African-American man threatening my life. Please tell them whatever you like. Excuse me? Now she's making it about race. I'm sorry, I'm in a Rambo and there is a man African-American who has a bicycle helmet. He is recording me and threatening me and my dog. There is an African-American man. I am in Central Park. He is recording me and threatening myself and my dog. I know there's a person who is threatening me and my dog. I'm sorry, I can't hear you either. I'm being threatened by a man in the Rambo. Please send the cops immediately. I'm in Central Park in the Rambo. I don't know. Thank you. So notice that when she leashes his dog, he stops recording because the purpose of the recording was to document dogs off leash. Now, I want us to think about this video from a white historical perspective. Right? So I'm thinking when I say these words, I'm thinking from a white person's perspective. A black man dares to put a white woman in her place by asking her to follow the rules she thinks she's entitled to break. Right? We see white entitlement happening here in the space of the Rambo where dogs are supposed to be on leash and they're not. Right? And so viewed from this historical perspective and the way she employs race, right, and she escalates this altercation to race. Amy Cooper is outraged that a black man would ask her to leash her dog and believes that she's entitled to unleash her dog and use her white authority to call the cops, right? She has the sense of authority that she has the right to call the cops because historically cops were designed, right? The whole system was designed to police and control black and brown bodies. And so she's weaponizing her emotions to put him in his place from a historical perspective. And so this is how white supremacist framework works. We employ white emotions to put black people in their place. And so we've been taught to do this as white women. We see it all the time. And it is an effective way to control black and brown bodies when we think that they are getting out of line because historically this is what we've done. We've been taught to surveil, right? We've been taught to pay attention and we've been taught that we have entitlement. We're entitled to things that other people aren't entitled to. We're entitled to breaking the law. And so thank God that it didn't work out this time. And because of the video recording, he was able to record this video. And so these white emotions are weaponized, right? So we often employ these white emotions because we do not want to take responsibility for the shame that we experience at knowing that we did something wrong. And we've been taught to suppress the shame and the guilt with white rage, white fear, white anger, so that we can then go move on and project it onto people of color without ever dealing with our own suppressed emotions and shame. And so imagine a world where white people would start working through their shame. It would probably start breaking down this white supremacist system that has taught us to suppress it so that we can continue perpetuating and controlling black bodies in a very specific way, right? So this is how research has shown us that white women have weaponized their emotions. And so I'd like to emphasize that white supremacy is the cause of death. It's dangerous and it's deadly. People would even go as far to say that Amy Cooper attempted second degree murder because had she been able to utilize and call on the cops and had the cops shown up, right? She was weaponizing her white emotions in a very specific and strategic way to put this black man back in his place because this is what she believed he deserved. And so this is what we have inherited as a nation. This is part of this white racial ideology that we're taught to perpetuate through our systems. And so there are many other ways in which we perpetuate white racial ideology. I just wanted to touch on colorblind ideology, white emotions. There's also white authority, white entitlement. This idea of white gays and surveillance, which also was happening, right? And has happened in the case of the murder of Mr. George Floyd. It was eight minutes and 46 seconds of white supremacy being imposed on a black body, right? And the ways that we surveil and ensure that the system holds black people down. And so all of these elements, there are a lot of other ones that I'm not going to get into them. There's reverse racism and victimization, who gets to decide what is and what isn't racism. And the fact that white people think that they can just turn around and say, ah, you're just making a really big deal out of this. That's not racist. You know, so this idea that we can determine it is a way in which to suppress what is happening. And all of these elements, right, interlock to suppress, to really support this system and keep it going. And so I just kind of want to transition to another piece of the literature, which talks about ignorance. So the definition, the dictionary definition of ignorance is lack of knowledge or information. Now Charles Mills, who's also an academic wrote this book called The Racial Contract. And he defines the racial contract as a contract forged between whites, who present a way of being in the world that ignores racial subordination. So let me just, let me just repeat that. It's a contract, it's often an informal contract that's forged between whites, who to present a way of being in the world that ignores, right racial support subordination. So this creates a certain normativity so that we're taught not to ask questions. We don't, we don't question the stories that were taught to repeat like the immigrant story. And we're taught to feign ignorance. So this is the individual right and group as individuals and as the group, the white collective. We suppress this collective knowledge of racial subordination and, and, and feign ignorance. And so colorblind ideology, which I just talked about is a really great way in which is a really great example in which this is done by saying things like we're all equal, I don't see color right it ignores the racial subordination that is happening in our communities. And, and we see, for example, how we say racial things in non racial ways, and we pass on this racial knowledge and ignore that ignores the racial subordination. And so, you know, and I've given some examples but I don't want you marrying this man, because our cultural differences will cause this unity, referring to a black man. I don't want you living in this neighborhood, because it's high crime, referring to a black neighborhood. I don't like the idea of diversity, diversifying this neighborhood, because it's going to bring the value of my house down, referring to a black, referring to a black person, putting into the neighborhood. Other stereotypes right that are happening. And so, another one is I didn't get the job I applied for because a black person applied and got it because of affirmative action. Like, these are all ways in which we perpetuate this, this, this racial contract and ignore the racial the actual racial subordination this collection of knowledge, we ignore it and we suppress it. And so I just want to kind of put it out there how are we as white people expected to react in these instances, and part of the contract is to act white and not to break this invisible contract and I'm going to give you an example in a minute. But we do have a choice, we can choose to act white, or we can choose not to act white. And so here's, here's a video of Haley Clark, maybe some of you have seen this video before. And this is an example of Haley Clark breaking the social contract with her parents we're not going to watch the whole video, but you can Google it and you can get it and access it. And I just want you to pay attention to the storylines that are being perpetuated individual individual, the specific semantic moves that are being used and also just her breaking the social contract. Do you know how I actually know shut up. No, can you shut your mouth for me. No, because I actually work in the ghetto. I see the people. Do you know why they're in that position. I see these people. Do you understand the systematic and historical reason for why they're in that position. They don't care. All they want to do is be ghetto. No. Yes, there's some that don't and there's good people. No. Most of them just want to suck off the system or do something bad like drugs or gangs. And that's all they have. They have been oppressed. They have not been given the same opportunities you have had. And there's plenty of black people. No, they don't. And you're not recognizing that as an issue is the reason why it's still continuing today. I see them all over it. There's all kinds of successful people that are of color. It doesn't matter what color, brown, white. But it's a lot harder for them to get to that position. It doesn't matter when they do, they're fine. But there's always filthy animals. You're calling people of color black animals. You're calling them animals. Are you kidding me? You didn't let me finish. That's not okay. No, no matter what that's not okay. No matter what it's not okay. Racism is not okay. So we can start, let me just go back a bit. We could listen to the whole video, but we don't have time to do that. You can Google Haley Clark and it should pop up. But I think you get the point, right? You have Haley Clark who's breaking this racial contract within a white space in her home, pushing back on her parents. And she outed them by posting it on social media. I did hear a rumor that she ended up in jail. And I wouldn't be surprised. I was never able to substantiate it online. But we wouldn't be surprised if she did end up in jail for outing her parents in some way, right? Because she was breaking the social contract. And so I just wanted to share another story that my friend experienced at the dental's office. And she was in a hospital. Where the dental hygienist after cleaning his teeth made the following statement. I wish the police had some kind of device that would shut down cell phones around them so that these recordings would not be made. Okay. So she's referring to the, to, to all the recordings happening around policing, right? And specifically to the murder of Mr. Mr. Floyd. She thinks that my friend that she was speaking to was a safe white person, right? Someone who had signed this white invisible contract and she was expecting this white person to then agree with her, right? And so at this point, my friend had a choice. Do I choose to act white? So as not to put myself in an uncomfortable position, maybe smile nervously, laugh. Or do I choose not to act white? Which is to push back, right? And to say, and to say, actually, I think it is important that videos are, the video recordings are made so that we can, we can talk about racism in our country or whatever, right? And then follow up with the dentist itself in this business and say, hey, this person, you know, was racist and you need to do something about it or I'm going to go to the media. Right? You need, you need to do some kind of race training. And so there are many options in which we have a choice is what I'm trying to say. We always have to have a choice on how we're going to act. And so, and we have a choice whether we want to act white or we want to act not white based on how we're expected to act. And so Charles Mills wrote this chapter called white ignorance. And this is the poem at the beginning of his chapter. And I'm going to read it. White ignorance, it's a big subject. How much time do you have? It's not enough. Ignorance is usually thought of as the passive of verse to knowledge, the darkness retreating before the spread of enlightenment. But imagine an ignorance that resists and imagine an ignorance that fights back. Imagine an ignorance militant, aggressive, not to be intimidated, an ignorance that is active, dynamic, that refuses to go quietly. Not at all confined to the illiterate and uneducated, but propagated at the highest levels of the land, indeed presenting itself unblushingly as knowledge. And so when we think about the word ignorance and the dictionary definition that I talked about earlier, which was the lack of knowledge, we know that white ignorance is not this. White ignorance is knowledge, right? Right ignorance is violence. White ignorance is perpetuating this false belief or the absence of true belief. It's the spreading of misinformation to repress truth, to repress the actual truth of racial subordination. And so white ignorance doesn't need to be based on bad faith. So for example, through the suppression of collective knowledge about certain historical facts, right? Who decides what story is going to be told historically? Individuals can engage in white ignorance by suppressing certain historical facts, even though they may not have prejudicial views themselves, right? When we think about prejudice and the prejudicial views, they may not have them, but they may still be engaging in white ignorance when you're suppressing this kind of collective knowledge. And so this is how white ignorance functions. And so with critical whiteness research as a backdrop, let's read the words of Shoghi Effendi together. As to racial prejudice, Shoghi Effendi tells us in the advent of divine justice, the corrosion of which for well-nigh of century has bitten into the fiber and attacked the whole social structure of American society. It should be regarded as constituting the most vital and challenging issue confronting the Baha'i community at the present stage of its evolution. And so thinking about his words has the corrosion which has bitten into the fiber and attacked the whole social structure of American society, we can really begin to appreciate what the literature is telling us and to better understand what Shoghi Effendi is saying when he talks about this being attacked, that racial prejudice attacks the whole social structure of American society. And we can also better understand why he urges us to focus our attention for the present on our own selves, on our own individual needs, our personal deficiencies and weaknesses. And so from a white supremacist and whiteness perspective, we get a glimpse of the work that we have to do at an individual level to begin to unpack and entangle all of these ideologies. And I like to think of them as vain imaginings when we think about the writings, these vain imaginings and the white imagination. All of these things that we've inherited as a nation, how do we begin to unpack them? And so the Guardian asks us to cultivate patiently and prayerfully distinctive characteristics that are indispensable for the work of the faith. And two of them are a rectitude of conduct, which is also an abiding sense of un-deviating justice and freedom from racial prejudice. And so when, and I'm not going to talk about the chase and holy life because it's not applicable here, but when we're thinking about a rectitude of conduct, we know that it's absolutely necessary if we want to achieve freedom from prejudice, because they go hand in hand, especially when we hear the words of Shoghi Effendi talking about justice and equity in terms of, as it regards a rectitude of conduct. And so he says, be fair to yourselves and to others, that the evidences of justice may be revealed through your deeds among our faithful servants. Equity is the most fundamental among human virtues. The evaluation of all things must needs depend on them. So if we think about the deeds that were asked, to make, as it regards this most challenging issue, then maybe we need to think about this literature, the current discourses on what does it mean to act right? What does it mean not to act right? And in this context, start thinking about justice. And so in Shoghi Effendi's work, he brings up as it regards a rectitude of conduct, he talks about equity, he talks about justice, he talks about truthfulness, he talks about equity, honesty. And what regards to these virtues, I challenge you to think about these two questions and to take them home and really meditate and pray about them. And so the first one is, are we being truthful to ourselves concerning the ways we own up or not to our false sense of superiority? What would a rectitude of conduct look like in the face of the most challenging issue? How are we addressing our complicity when we feign ignorance of the ways whiteness affects people of color through racism in our Baha'i and broader communities? And so I encourage us to really think about these questions. And he goes on to say, it is through your deeds that you can distinguish yourselves from others. And so with this quote in mind, how are we going to distinguish ourselves from others through our deeds? How are you going to distinguish yourself from others through your deeds as it regards this most challenging issue? And to reflect upon that, and this is really a challenge, you know, and I challenge you to think about that. He also goes on to talk about this idea that the canopy of existence rested upon the pull of justice and not a forgiveness and that the life of mankind depended on justice and not on forgiveness. And so I want to bring this to light because oftentimes in my own work, people come up to me and say, but he had good intentions. He had good intentions, right? And so they want me to think about forgiveness, which at an individual level, we're all responsible to develop our own spiritual qualities, including forgiveness. But if we think of impact, which is what Shogivenna is really talking about, right? When we think of the impact that our actions, especially racist actions have had on people of color that are damaging, right? Psychologically, physically, they could even be the cause of death. When we think of this impact, then it makes us think about justice and not necessarily forgiveness, right? Because from a just perspective, if the life of mankind depended on justice and not on forgiveness, what does that mean as it regards this most challenging issue, right? When we think about our institutions and the purpose. And even when we think about policing, right? If we know that the very life of mankind depends on justice and not on forgiveness, then we can perceive the violent and deadly crimes committed by cops through the eyes of justice and not forgiveness, right? And so Shogivenna says, small wonder therefore that the author of the Baha'i Revelation should have chosen to associate the name and title of that house, which is to be the crowning glory of his administrative institutions, not with forgiveness, but with justice. And to have made justice the only basis and the permanent foundation of his most great peace. So from this context, thinking about this idea of justice and what does that mean when we're thinking about our own deeds in our own lives, but also when we're thinking holistically at the collective level in our institutions, if we know that justice is the only basis and the permanent foundation of this most great peace, what does that mean on an individual level? And everybody is familiar I think with this quote when he says to let the white make a supreme effort in their resolve to contribute to their share of the solution to this problem, to abandon once for all their usually inherent and at times subconscious sense of superiority. And so reading these words now we can better appreciate with critical whiteness studies as a background to understand where these inherent and at times subconscious sense of superiority comes from. And he urges us, right? Specifically to bring ourselves to account each day so that we can give account of our deeds. And so to think about that from, for example, a race-trader perspective where we're really thinking about how are we going to engage with our social contract today? Am I going to choose to act white or am I going to choose not to act white? Am I going to perpetuate the storylines that I've been taught or am I going to really reflect on what I'm saying and understand the historical perspective that has taught me to say these things? And so I just want to end, I know we're running out of time. I just want to end with this question. So can you now think of a situation in your own life where ignorance was knowledge? And this is just something for you to reflect on as you move through and think about the presentation. And I put my email address at the bottom in case anybody has questions. I know we're not going to get to all of them. So I just want to thank everybody. Thank you very much Liz for the presentation. I really appreciated myself. And we have a few questions that are going to come in from the audience. One thing that I thought I might ask as the questions come in here. And this is perhaps a little bit sort of challenging or difficult, but what do you think the implications of some of your research and this presentation are for our work within the institute process and so forth? Like how do we kind of maybe apply this or bring this right into the work of advancing the plans? Do you have any thoughts about that dynamic? Sure. And I just want to state that this presentation was a synthesis based on my own understanding, very humble understanding. And so anything that I say here is really just based on my own individual perspective and just personal experiences. And I think that's a really great question. And I think here in the Durham community, we wrestle with this question all the time, right? How do we engage in the institute process? And I think what's happening is that human nature is to create these dichotomies, right? These dichotomies where we have race here and then we have the institute process here. And one thing that the conversations that we've been having here in this community is how do we put race at the forefront of every activity that we do, right? So if we're, for example, going into a neighborhood, how are we thinking about the ways in which we're presenting ourselves? How are we bringing a patronizing attitude? Are we bringing, and this is not to reflect on, like I said, we're individuals and we're imperfect. The Baha'i faith is perfect. The Baha'i writings are truth and they're perfect. But the way we manifest them sometimes reflects just Baha'i culture in our own very limited and humble understandings of the writings. And so when we think about how do we integrate in every aspect of our lives, right? Whether it's in a meeting, are we asking the questions we don't even think to ask? So instead of saying why aren't black people coming into our space, we should be asking why are black people not coming to our space, right? What is it about the space that we're creating that is potentially not a welcoming space? And so in these activities, in the Ruhi Institute, in the discourses that we're having with in society, through social action, I think for me, I just have these questions, you know, how is this decision, how is this action going to impact, impact people of color, indigenous people, you know, marginalized populations, minoritized populations? And asking the questions rather than having a deficit perspective and projecting that is potentially their fault or they're not interested or something like that, really thinking and reflecting on our own actions and thinking about the spaces that we're creating or maybe this false sense of superiority that we're kind of projecting into the world that pushes people away because and they don't want to be, they don't want to be part of that. I don't know if that was helpful for you. Thank you very much, Liz. I have another question coming in here from the audience and I think it speaks to some of the things that you were trying to get at, but maybe if you come at it from some new angles, it may help this address this question. The question is nowadays it seems like we are going further by assuming malicious intent from the majority of white people who say these awkward things, which is unfair from my non-white immigrant family perspective. Isn't there something to be said for close dine eyes to racial differences? There's a quotation. We all have the capacity to see someone's humanity without having to see their literal skin color. Aren't we being presumptive to act as though the superficial colorblind statements uphold white supremacy? So I just want to thank you. This is a really good question and I get various aspects of this question a lot. And so the first thing I want to say is this is what I've shared today is not just my own personal opinion. I mean it is my own personal opinion, but what I've synthesized is actual research, right? And so one of my mentors, Cheryl Machia, she was talking, giving a talk once and she said, you know, when we're in math class and we're being taught the unit circle, the math unit circle, students are like, oh my God, this is not true. You know, this is totally not true. You know, what kind of research is this? You know, because we were taught to believe that math is fact, right? And so anything that comes out of that literature is fact. And so this colorblind ideology, the framework that I presented is actually substantiated through a lot of research, right? That we continue to perpetuate these storylines. And so we have to be very careful in the ways in which we say the things that we say, because we're taught, this is how whiteness is insidious and teaches us to be, to expect the fact that we're normal or normative, right? We're taught not to question it. We're taught not to question these stories. But if I were to sit down, and I've done this a couple of times when someone tells me, sits me down and says seriously, like, I really do think that I don't want to move into this neighborhood because I think it's a high crime neighborhood. But when you start to ask questions and begin to unpack, what do they really mean by that? How do, first of all, how do they even know that this is a high crime neighborhood? Or how do they even know that cultures are going to clash? Ultimately, they can never get out of their explanation without bringing race into the equation, right? And so what I want to emphasize here is that this is not just me. This is a synthesis of a body of research that has been documented and substantiated over time. And I highly encourage everyone to really, to really start digging into the literature. There's a lot out there. And another aspect of whiteness and part of this insidiousness is that as white people, we're taught to think that we know it. We're experts on race or we know things when the reality is that we don't necessarily know it. You know, it's just one, one part of, it's just one perception. Yeah. And the ways within very much. We're running up this time here, but I'd like to ask one more question. Maybe if you can fit this in just a couple of minutes. The question is how can individual Baha'is effectively break the white social contract in a way that inspires others rather than causes defensiveness. So I really love this question. And I think this is a question that all of us wrestle with. So I, I as personally and, you know, friends watching know that I asked this question a lot and I struggle with this ideal, this perception that I'm creating this unity whenever I talk about whiteness because of the way people react defensively. So first thing I just want to say that we are part of whiteness and white emotions. Historically, we've been taught, specifically taught to react defensively so that we can respond to racial racial subordination, right? This idea structurally, we're taught to react defensively. We're taught to these moves is has been documented in the research. And so for you to, to, to hope. I can say the nicest. Most subtle statement, peaceful statement. And I could be the reaction that I get is not equal to the right. It can be extremely defensive, extremely hateful, extremely violent. And so what I have to say to that is that because of the way whiteness functions, we can't always control how the other person is going to react. And MLK is a really great example, right? Because MLK had peaceful tactics. But back in the day during the civil rights movement, he wasn't seen as peaceful, right? The reaction of white people were extremely angry, right? It was an extremely violent reaction, an extremely defensive reaction to a very peaceful, to very peaceful strategies. And so we need to also give ourselves credit that I can always control the way someone is going to react because of the way, because of the nature of whiteness and how it functions. Did I answer that whole question? I feel like I missed apartment. No, I mean, I think that was a good beginning to the answer. We're, unfortunately, we're out of time. And I'm sure that you could expand on a lot of these ideas even more. But thankfully, you've left your email for everyone. And if they want to contact you, they can do that. I think it was, what is it, raced reality? Yeah, racedreality at gmail.com. Okay. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. Really appreciate this and look forward to seeing you in the future. Thank you. Thanks.