Recently I have been noticing and naming this as virtue signalling, the word used to describe the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.

What are the stories we keep telling ourselves? What are the narratives taught in Sunday Schools?

LOOK OVER HERE, for example at the Quakers such as Elizabeth Fry who until recently was on the British £5 note who went into women’s prisons and improved conditions. So we are celebrated for reforming prisons (but where is the conversation about abolition?).

LOOK OVER HERE, at the Quaker Retreat centre in York famous for being ahead of its time in treating mentally ill people as people and leading the way in occupational health (but again, where is the conversation about social models of psycho-emotional health?)

LOOK OVER HERE, at the early Quakers who spoke out to abolish slavery and support the Underground Railroad movement, (but what about those who continued to own enslaved people beyond abolition and the way many Quaker businesses profited from the sugar trade built on the backs and deaths of so many people.)

LOOK OVER HERE, at the Quakers who spoke out about witch hunts in Salem, (but so late in the era, what was our part in early witch hunting in the UK and the US?)

LOOK OVER HERE, at the Quakers who were conscientious objectors (but what about those of us who are yet to divest our money from banks which support the arms trade?)

LOOK OVER HERE at the Quakers able to take environmental action and put solar panels on our roofs and buy organic food (and yet how do we judge those who can not afford to make such choices?)

LOOK OVER HERE, at me virtue signalling by being critical and trying to stay woke and on top of the curve of the moral spectrum and be on the right side of history…

My faith taught me from an early age to virtue signal, to learn how to show I was an ally rather that to actually be one and to teach me how to be exceptional white middle class woman. Although being a Quaker also teaches me as an adult to hold the complexity of history, to speak and seek the truth and to know my complicity in oppressive systems as well as my part to play to dismantle them, i am acutely aware of the omissions we choose to conveniently not emphasise and the ways in which we have a duty to start digging and sharing more of the dirty as well as squeaky clean parts of our individual and collective past and present.

In 2021, British Quakers collectively committed (Quakers don’t vote but rather make decisions rooted in silent worship) to becoming an actively anti-racist community and inclusive and welcoming for non-binary and trans folk. This was based on realising the Quaker Testimony of Equality is not necessarily enough to ensure actions reflect values.

In 2022 this was added to with a minute made in the yearly meeting gathering that made first references at the national level to financial and other reparations for how Quaker institutions have profited from and continue to proliferate oppressive systems such as slavery.

The decision making process of Quakers is slow but it does enable us to evolve and react and reflect the practices and morals of the present day. This means we can perhaps virtue signal more than other Christian denominations and faiths, but how does it actually translate in practice?

There is a famous Quaker phrase, what does love require of us?

Right now it requires discomfort, actions, humility and accountability. Love requires us to have courage to really live our faith.

United Nations definition of reparations:

– Cessation, assurance, and guarantees of non-repetition
– Restitution and Repatriation
– Compensation
– Satisfaction
– Rehabilitation

Clearly, this is very. VERY complicated. I think what’s clear is that we as a nation are so unbelievably far from even approaching these concepts. Even if there was widespread support of reparations, we white people just like to throw money at things and move on, thinking the debt has been paid. What I’m learning from this organization, as well as what Randy shared, is that reparations cannot take place without relationship, which is built slowly. It’s almost more than what was required in the year of Jubilee: it’s repentance. A commitment to not turn around and manipulate a family out of a field you just had to return. It is not just re-dealing the cards and all’s fair, it is committing to NOT cheat in the future.

I’ll copy/paste a few additional things I’m thinking through from Resource Generation:

Reparations and Redistribution

Differences between reparations and redistribution 

• Reparations and Redistribution both include the idea of returning wealth that has been extracted and/or denied to certain communities. 
• Reparations relate to a specific, and generally speaking, racialized violence or harm; including broad harms such as chattel slavery or more specific harms such as forced sterilizations in North Carolina. 
• Redistribution is a more general act relating to the current unjust distribution of wealth and our class system.
• Within the current economic system in which wealth generates more wealth and debt generates more debt, redistribution is an ongoing necessary practice to prevent further wealth accumulation.
• Reparations are needed to close the racial wealth gap for the long term. Reparations for any category of systemic harm, including mass incarceration, land theft and denial, and the economic system of slavery, would all immediately change the landscape of poverty in this county.
• Reparations should come from the state or an institution that did harm, and include cultural repair and guarantee of non-repetition, in addition to the transfer of wealth. 

Examples of how RG members can engage in reparations work 

• Be part of reparations-based campaigns locally or nationally.
• Participate in reparations praxis groups for deeper peer-based learning
• Researching your family’s wealth accumulation story and how it has profited from anti-Black racism and attempted Indigenous genocide, as applicable, working with your family and impacted Black and Native communities to return stolen wealth through a reparations, rather than redistribution, lens.
• Funding power-building organizations working towards reparations, such as the Movement for Black Lives.
• Orient towards reparations as lifelong, intergenerational healing work that asks us to be in daily practice toward its full actualization.

Sadly, after much research, I did not find any resources for reparations/land tax, land acknowledgment, etc on the tribal websites from areas closest to Central Oregon. I do wonder why. Surely these communities have heard about these efforts elsewhere, especially Seattle. I’m curious what their barriers are, and if given the opportunity I’d like to find out.

Finally, one thing that’s been tricky for me, is that I have relationships with some local activists who are indigenous (but not originally from local tribes). Interestingly, a crew of them and self identifying white allies barged on the scene of outreach to the unhoused about a year and a half ago. They had no training, they did not work with any of the milieu of other organizations already working in this area. They shunned advice and partnership. They made assumptions that the hard work of other outreach organizations were useless. They were purposefully disruptive, uncooperative, and championed “open conflict” as a value of interpersonal communication. Their actions were unethical at times, and put people (both the unhoused, and other outreach workers) at risk. After a year and a half, they disappeared from the scene. They changed course, rewriting their mission as an organization, and are now focused on helping indigenous people reconnect to their roots, and pursue food security via bison farming. Talk about a wild ride! The intersection of these issues for me are striking. I joined JOH specifically to learn skills to manage conflict around issues pertaining to the unhoused population in our community, which included conflict with individuals such as these. And, now, I’m also being called to pursue relationship with them, possibly even reparations with them. I’m confronting my own feelings of ugh. Can’t I find indigenous people that are easier to like? (oof isn’t that a terrible question? It’s like, giving only to the “deserving poor,” whatever that means.) But I think my struggle is universal- it’s easier to try to build bridges to people who are different that we at least LIKE! So, I’m considering ways that I can support them. I’m also considering too that cultural differences are also at play here. They saw a fellow marginalized community that was in their eyes, uncared for. Why, with the US history we are all considering, would they trust do-gooder white people to truly care? Truly sacrifice? Truly listen? Or even be remotely capable of being authentic and committed learners and allies? Their tactics made them come across as @$$ holes, but perhaps there is a lot more at play that originates in generational trauma and distrust of the system. Perhaps I need to move towards them with curiosity, despite how hard they made things for us (in homeless outreach) this past year. Perhaps I can take baby steps of reparations and the spirit of Jubilee by supporting their new endeavors, and hope that it brings them the peace and healing I know they are seeking.