Alas, the past two summers at camp have been a bit bumpy. In 2018, I arrived two weeks to the day after my sweetheart Tom died. It was a hard week, but camp was where I needed to be, especially since it was where Tom and I had fallen in love five years before--and where I had so many good people looking after me and my stepchildren and Tom's first wife, who were also there.
Last year was tough for other reasons. Our 2019 speaker had to leave part way through the week as a family member was near death. I remember with pain how, a day earlier, a young adult friend passionately and publicly called out the speaker (who had cluelessly appropriated a phrase and intonation used mostly by Black people) on his middle-age privileged white guy-ness. Later that day, I told my friend that when someone needs to be corrected, it might be kinder to do so in private rather than in the heat of the moment. One of my favorite quotes comes to mind: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
It was a wearying week in several other ways, and by the end of last year's camp, I had decided it was time to take a year off--a decision cemented by the idea that the July 2020 theme was going to be how our faith's failures to address systemic
racism were failing us. My July 2019 mindset was "I've done this work.
This isn't why I come to camp." Instead, I signed up for the more lighthearted August arts camp, eager for a sort of reset button.
Now we're all living through much more of a reset than we ever imagined. The 2020 arts camp was canceled altogether, the July camp is online, and I have belatedly signed up. Systemic racism is no longer the topic; as the pandemic took hold and it was still uncertain whether we could gather in person, camp leadership wisely decided to defer that topic to 2022 when we can give it the attention it merits. (Next year's speaker had already been booked.) But in light of this summer's Black Lives Matter uprising, and because this camp is filled with folks fervently seeking justice, it seems likely we'll be wrestling with racism and privilege, and that's as it should be. I just hope we can be kind, especially as we gather over Zoom in these fragile times.
I've been thinking a lot for a few years now about the problems with cancel culture. Publicly shaming people, usually online but sometimes in person, has become rampant--and the malicious person occupying the White House threw gasoline on the flames of cancel culture when he used the phrase in his speech at Mt. Rushmore last weekend, seeking to deepen the already gaping divisions among Americans.
People do and say stupid and spiteful things, often intentionally, sometimes out of ignorance, and we are losing our ability to contextualize and modulate our responses. This "hot take" culture prompted several dozen writers and public intellectuals to sign a letter to Harper's magazine this week--but the letter was dismissed by many because its signatories include J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, who has recently made several cruel statements about people who identify as women but weren't born with that gender assignment. Transgender activists and allies have tried to tell Rowling why her comments are harmful, yet she's dug in deeper.
Whether she is transphobic, mean, or simply blinkered, Rowling's motivations are increasingly suspect. At worst, she risks coming off like a version of her detestable character Dolores Umbridge--yet so do the inquisitorial people who wish to unilaterally cancel Rowling and negate her body of work. The Harry Potter books have helped millions of kids (and adults) feel more at home with themselves and with the notion of difference. As long as I've attended July camp, Harry Potter readings have been a fixture after lunch. It'll be interesting to see whether that continues this year. It may be time to retire the tradition, but if so, let's do it in love, not cancellation.
We need an activism that is sustainable and rooted in kindness. We need an activism that is able to sit with discomfort, engage in dialogue, and help people retain the possibility of changing their minds (and publicly admitting they have changed). I want that for J.K. Rowling when she realizes the unnecessary harm she is doing. I want it for myself when I admit I have only just begun to address my white privilege. I want it for everybody who is right now so passionate and sure in their beliefs on any number of topics, but who may come to know years from now that their thoughts, words, and deeds lacked nuance--or were even flat-out wrong.
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