Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.
By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.
What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.
You may have read about the tragic events this past weekend in Buffalo, New York, where a gunman shot down 10 black people at a supermarket. Before committing that heinous act, he had stated his intent was to “kill as many black people as possible.” He wrote these words in a 180-page manifesto published online before he carried out what investigators are calling a hate crime and a racist act of violent extremism.
The 18-year-old white man, who claimed to target a specific zip code in Buffalo because it “has the highest black percentage that is close enough to where I live,” repeatedly lamented about immigration, which he feared would result in “ethnic replacement,” “cultural replacement,” “racial replacement,” and ultimately, he wrote, “white genocide.”
This is the “white replacement theory” or the “Great Replacement” that has motivated similar mass killings in recent years. It is a racist conspiracy theory that holds that, through immigration, interracial marriage, integration, and violence, and at the behest of secret forces orchestrated by “global elites” (i.e., Jews), Christian whites are being disenfranchised, disempowered, and pushed out of “white nations.”
This notion, which serves as a justification for violence directed at Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, and Muslims, is being justified and promoted aggressively by the far right in the United States. At the same time, those on the right (and not just on the far right) are condemning teaching or discussing Critical Race Theory (CRT), which is an academic concept the core of which is the idea that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. In other words, it’s the study of how American racism has shaped public policy.
On the one hand, “white replacement theory promotes violence against any group that its proponents perceive as a threat to the purity, the supremacy, and even the survival of the white race. “Critical race theory,” on the other hand, is a non-violent way of trying to understand the systemic racism that pervades society in the United States.
My provocative question this week is a bit unusual in that I’m not looking for a specific answer as much as I am your reactions to, and thoughts about, what I have written above. So…
How do you feel about what is going on in the United States in regard to racism? Do you see any way of reconciling the concepts of White Replacement Theory and Critical Race Theory?
If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.
This, That, and the Other 
I think racism exists in other places, too, including institutional racism, but they have become more subtle about it.
In America, and as with e.g. guns, sufficient numbers of people believe in racism that I don’t think it is going away. I don’t see the US progressing as a society.
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Sadly, I see the U.S. regressing as a society.
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I think it’s stuck in reverse. Sadly…..
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I’m in the UK but you can read my take on it here….https://steviet3.wordpress.com/2022/05/18/fandangos-provocative-question/
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The white people who subscribe to the “replacement” concept obviously have more of a right to live on this continent (or these American continents) instead of the people who were native to the region before any white people got here and took over and propagated. Right? Isn’t that how it works?
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😠
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Tucker’s … [sleight of hand about] … Buffalo …
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What an asshole he is.
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Here’s my take: https://sparksfromacombustiblemind.wordpress.com/2022/05/18/fandangos-p-q-165-5-18-2022/
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Looking back far enough, it’s clear to see we all came from the same place, have the same origins, and then a group of wanderers near starvation sought to eat grain and lost melanin in their skin and became white so they could absorb enough vitamin D [because the body no longer produced enough of it] – that’s the real difference, and everything else is anti-social justification for fear of being unmasked/ungrouped/ex-communicated from their beliefs/enculturation. Or am I one of the uncivilised?
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You’re right, we all came from the same place and we’re all equal. But like the pigs in “Animal Farm,” some pigs believe they are better and more equal than other animals.
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Delusional dipsticks, is all I can say to those who behave like El Supremo Napoleon pig-shit.
My apologies for the mini-rant, but I don’t know a single person who could be called ‘pure’ of blood. Even the DNA tests prove the mix of genetics of (so far) all tests conducted for the purpose of discovering heritage.
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Torah Commandments as opposed by Torah Common Law.
What fundamentally separates and distinguishes Torah commandments from Torah as law/halachot? A similar question separates קידושין from Civil marriages. A Torah commandment does not qualify as law. Law learns by way of bringing comparative precedents, משנה תורה. This comparison by way of similar precedents defines Torah Law: המשפט המקובל – otherwise known as Common law. המשפט המקובל stands separate and apart from simple Torah commandments.
Torah law and Torah commandments, two completely distinct and separate types of mitzvot. The Torah, for example, commands the negative commandment not to do work on shabbot. Halachah defines this simple negative commandment through המשפט המקובל and learns the labors required to build the Mishkan as the avot work actions which define this simple negative commandment. The brush required to paint on canvass, human facial expressions — completely and totally different than the brush used to white-wash a picket fence. The prophet ישעיה cursed persons who called day night and night day.
The term Kabbalah most essentially learns from common law. To study the Torah oblivious of common law precedent learning, most essentially separates the Torah from the fraudulent counterfeit books: new testament and koran. These latter tumah replacement theologies base themselves upon a sham supposition premise which announces the false claim, that they base themselves upon the T’NaCH prophets.
All Torah commandments stand upon a mussar יסוד. This יסוד defines all T’NaCH prophecy. Neither JeZeus or Mohammad understood — their followers how much more so — this most basic fundamental. The apostle Paul for example: proclaimed that Goyim have no obligation to obey the law. Common law or Roman Statute-law he failed to differentiate; a day and night distinction separates the two. Consequently this failure to discern the basic fundamentals of Torah faith, relegates all his letters to gross religious rants, nothing more than rhetoric propaganda.
None of the new testament writers, nor the koran “dictation by an Angel”, teaches Torah faith – המשפט המקובל\משנה תורה. Consequently both this and that define the worship of avodah zarah, the belief in foreign alien Gods. Gods totally unknown by the Avot and Moshe.
The Torah commands a negative commandment: do no recognize faces in judgment. Do not show pity to the poor or deference to the rich. The Roman statute law “assimilation” practiced by the Rambam’s code, by the Tur’s code, and by the Shulkan Aruch code places them all upon the bar of judgment. Did their actions ie writing these assimilated Roman law codes of law violate the negative commandment not to pursue the manners and customs practiced by foreign peoples who never accepted the revelation of the Torah @ Sinai @ Horev?
Torah Law rejects cults of personality. Because these authorities the vast majority of Observant Jews learn and respect, like my mother used to say to me as a child … “If Joe jumps off the roof and breaks his leg, does that mean that you too should jump of the roof and break your leg?” The negative commandment not to pursue or follow the customs of people who reject the Torah revelation – this Case – has a rule: the 2nd Commandment of the Torah revelation @ Sinai. Torah common law/משנה תורה\המשפט המקובל — Torah law/RULE judges all the 613 commandments/CASES.
Herein separates and distinguishes Torah commandments: CASES from Torah law: משנה תורה/המשפט המקובל – RULE. All Torah law bases itself upon a common law system of reaching a din/conclusion by means of similar precedents. Roman Statute Law, the law practiced by the 3 famous Codifications of Halachah questioned, these latter codes base their legal rulings NOT upon common law Jewish logic but rather Roman statute law Greek logic. Therefore these codes of Halachah exist, in my opinion, on the exact same plane of tumah as an idol that people bow down and worship as JeZeus. The latter foreign God, too worshiped as a Cult of Personality – a direct violation of Torah Law.
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To put it succinctly? No. If we have made this little progress in this amount of time, I don’t see a future that will be much better. We may “tamp it down,” but we won’t get rid of it. But I’ll give you a better version tomorrow — or maybe Friday. This one, for obvious reasons, needs a bit of thought.
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I look forward, Marilyn, to reading your further thoughts.
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