Our Call Against Denialism
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“Every disaster movie starts with the government ignoring a scientist” — social media meme, unknown origin
In times of collective stress in a society, people often turn to humor for relief. Social media has been full of pandemic-related memes for months, but the one above particularly hit home for me as both funny and naming a painful truth. The same meme could apply to both the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change; in both cases, so many people in the US and around the world deny a reality that mainstream scientists have confirmed over and over again. Our climate is really changing, and climate chaos is already harming marginalized communities all around the world. We know that more disaster is imminent if those in wealthy countries don’t make drastic changes to the structures of our lives and economies, but in a lot of US political discourse, there is still ‘disagreement’ about something that is factual.
The COVID-19 pandemic is very much real, and it continues to rage on throughout the US with a devastating toll on already marginalized communities, especially those held in jails and prisons. There has been evidence for a long time that wearing masks works to slow its spread, and that this fast-moving virus could have been much more contained if people in power acted quickly enough and believed what experts named.
There’s a pattern here: on the whole, the US seems to be exceptionally good at denying reality, and having widespread rejection of truth and facts resulting in dangerous consequences.
One of the most recent distressing recent examples of this pattern was the attack on our nation’s Capitol Building on January 6th, 2021. A group of armed insurrectionists, encouraged and supported by our former President, attempted to overthrow an election because of denialism. They have continued to deny that the presidential election was free and fair, despite overwhelming evidence that it was.
Our Unitarian Universalist faith continually calls us to examine what we think we know. We are called to reject denialism and embrace a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, as named in our fourth principle. I’ve always appreciated that the fourth principle particularly names that our search for truth and meaning in the world must both be free and responsible. Our faith espouses that revelation is not sealed, that the search for truth and meaning always continues. What does it mean to engage in an ongoing and responsible search for truth?
I believe in part that it means we must always keep in mind our responsibility to each other as we search for what is true. We have a responsibility to make sure our understanding of the world always takes into account the experiences of those who have been most targeted and oppressed throughout our his tory, including understanding how differently Black, brown, and white people experience this country.
Mass Moral Monday March and rally for voting rights, on the occasion of the start of the federal court’s consideration of “North Carolina NAACP v. McCrory”
After the January 6th attack, I saw many UUs express shock and anger on social media that the facts of the election were being denied by the insurrectionists. Though the magnitude of the facts being denied are particularly striking, to anyone who has experienced marginalization or listened deeply to those who have, the pattern of denialism was familiar. To white UUs in particular: I want to invite you to consider how you may have also participated in denialism at different points in your life. Has your culture taught you to listen only to one set of experiences, one set of facts? Have you ever questioned (or seen other white people question) the truths of people of color when they have named their experiences of racism and white supremacy?
Denialism is nothing new; it’s baked into the history of white supremacy and the history of the US. As Unitarian Universalists, our faith calls us to something different, something more. We must continue to search for what is true, and to center our responsibility to each other in our search.
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