It's hard to say flatly "I see signs of White Christian Nationalism." It hides behind language and indirect statements. There is a lot of talk in my area about how "we need more police" and "we are being overwhelmed by crime" and "we must fund the police more and certainly not defund the police."
None of these three things are happening. I've tracked down the crime statistics for my immediate area and the region, and crime has been falling for 20 or more years. There are upticks now and again, and this year is an uptick -- but it is not extraordinary, and within the "wobble" of uncertainty where some crimes aren't recorded or are mislabeled or whatever. We have *not* defunded the police. An opening remained open and wasn't filled immediately, and that was used by the pro-police crowd here to argue that we were "short" an officer. But it was not the real story. There's been no reduction in the budget plan and leaving a position open & not paying a salary for a few months is not "defunding" the police.
And we certainly haven't seen "crime." What we do see is a rise in petty theft, and that is a concern. BUT that is being used to argue for a rise in "crime," and we don't need the police to manage this.
We already spent an enormous amount of our city and county budget on police forces. We do not need *more* police. But there is a movement in the media listened to by the pro-police allies who highlight every instance of a theft of shoes from the shoe store as "proof" we need more police (do we put police officers in every store?). And the police are frankly part of this movement as well, with their self-serving public service announcements and their PR about how they are "stopping crime."
From what I see, it is the fear of the outsider who is not like "us" -- the vagrants, the people from the Big City who come out here to our safe community, the many migrants who work for the high tech industries and who come out "here" to live in our small town in its beautiful valley. We had a ginormous community backlash when the local Muslims organized their own prayer room and sponsored an open house to explain who they were. The response from so many people was that "they" didn't belong "here."
Some, maybe a majority, of the expressed sentiment opposing outsiders comes from the conservative "Christians." But there are also quite a few people who are not identified with Christianity who are conservative and who are against the changing of the racial proportions that constitute the people of this town.
So is White Christian Nationalism rising here? Yes. Is it easily identifiable with the label? Not really. It's become what people are so much so that it's invisible to them.
The level of disinformation and mailing of facts is truly dismaying. And, as is so often the case, the underlying profession of Christianity that attends so much of this fear. Thank you for sharing!
It's hard to say flatly "I see signs of White Christian Nationalism." It hides behind language and indirect statements. There is a lot of talk in my area about how "we need more police" and "we are being overwhelmed by crime" and "we must fund the police more and certainly not defund the police."
None of these three things are happening. I've tracked down the crime statistics for my immediate area and the region, and crime has been falling for 20 or more years. There are upticks now and again, and this year is an uptick -- but it is not extraordinary, and within the "wobble" of uncertainty where some crimes aren't recorded or are mislabeled or whatever. We have *not* defunded the police. An opening remained open and wasn't filled immediately, and that was used by the pro-police crowd here to argue that we were "short" an officer. But it was not the real story. There's been no reduction in the budget plan and leaving a position open & not paying a salary for a few months is not "defunding" the police.
And we certainly haven't seen "crime." What we do see is a rise in petty theft, and that is a concern. BUT that is being used to argue for a rise in "crime," and we don't need the police to manage this.
We already spent an enormous amount of our city and county budget on police forces. We do not need *more* police. But there is a movement in the media listened to by the pro-police allies who highlight every instance of a theft of shoes from the shoe store as "proof" we need more police (do we put police officers in every store?). And the police are frankly part of this movement as well, with their self-serving public service announcements and their PR about how they are "stopping crime."
From what I see, it is the fear of the outsider who is not like "us" -- the vagrants, the people from the Big City who come out here to our safe community, the many migrants who work for the high tech industries and who come out "here" to live in our small town in its beautiful valley. We had a ginormous community backlash when the local Muslims organized their own prayer room and sponsored an open house to explain who they were. The response from so many people was that "they" didn't belong "here."
Some, maybe a majority, of the expressed sentiment opposing outsiders comes from the conservative "Christians." But there are also quite a few people who are not identified with Christianity who are conservative and who are against the changing of the racial proportions that constitute the people of this town.
So is White Christian Nationalism rising here? Yes. Is it easily identifiable with the label? Not really. It's become what people are so much so that it's invisible to them.
The level of disinformation and mailing of facts is truly dismaying. And, as is so often the case, the underlying profession of Christianity that attends so much of this fear. Thank you for sharing!