Flat minds. Flat world

"Humanity has its highest degree of perfection in the White race. " 
 Immanuel Kant

The European philosophers Locke, Hume, Kant, and Hegel argued for white supremacy, thereby laying the groundwork for chattel slavery and world colonization. Locke and Hume were involved in the slave trade. Kant and Hegel equated Africans and Native Americans to animals. They helped concoct the poison of racism that perverted America’s democracy and enabled Thomas Jefferson (president 1801-09) to perpetuate slavery and Woodrow Wilson (president 1913-21) to institutionalize racial segregation.

Locke, Hume, Kant, and Hegal knew the earth was round. But their minds were square and flat. They could not understand the roundness of the great circle of life.

As a white person, I continually lament the values of my Western background—the brutal exploitation of the earth’s resources, the money-driven enslavement of people. Looking back, I see 3 events in my life that helped me to choose a relationship with the living earth and escape Western’s culture’s cold inhumanity.

1. America—a democracy for white people

The 1st event, the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King Jr., revealed America’s cruel history to me. Growing up in the 1950s, in suburban middle-class Seattle where everyone was white, I was a shy happy child. In 1964, cracks appeared in my peaceful world when policemen with large dogs, attacking black protestors in Birmingham, Alabama appeared in the pages of Life Magazine. Nearly 200 years after the birth of American Democracy, black people were still segregated and could not vote in the southern United States.  

Reading about the civil rights marches in the news, I felt moved by the courage of the black marchers and their capacity for love. When King was assassinated in 1986, my faith in American society collapsed. Response to King’s death at my white high school was discouraging; teachers and students were either unaware or disinterested: “He was a communist.” I felt suffocated in a flat world of privileged white people interested only in money, clothes, cars, and big houses. I transferred to Garfield, a black high school downtown, the following year.

Black students were joyous, emotional, and warm-hearted. They were also angry and outspoken—they questioned everything. America, in their eyes, had always been a democracy for white people only.

2. Planting the seed of wonder

"How can the spirit of the Earth like the white man? Everywhere the white man has touched it, it is sore."  Woman of the Wintu tribe, 1876

The 2nd event, around the same time, was my friendship with a Native American of the Sioux people. He was a bright teenager with a loud laugh, always quick to find humor in absurdity. But when we were alone, he would become serious and say, almost in a whisper, “Listen to the world! It is always talking to us.” Though young, he was already deep in communion with the spirits of the earth. Through him, I came to feel how the ground was sacred (“The ground is our mother!”). He planted a seed of wonder in me that continues to grow and grow, even now.

3. Affection for nature: Japan

The 3rd event, needless to say, was moving to Japan. I quickly admired the way Japanese give “form” to their feelings of affection for nature. Wearing kimono, they cover themselves with patterns of seasonal plants and insects. They value seasonal greetings in personal relationships. Nature is given a presence in all aspects of life. Above all, I was impressed by Japan’s “culture of gratitude” towards nature, which echoed my experience of Native American beliefs.

These three events helped me escape the oppressive weight of Western values. Now, I am free to embrace the land purely. My church is the mountain, the river, the seashore.