Great post by the Rev. Daigan Gaither. I’ll say more about this in a future post, but I’d suggest that those of us with white privilege need to stop seeing ourselves as oppressors and start thinking of us as liberators of whites from our own suffering — suffering caused by our privilege. That’s my idea of non-opposition in this context.
I have been thinking about the concept of “non-opposition”. Almost all forms of Buddhism have some instruction about not living in opposition to the world. How does this really work when there are so many things that are just not okay. Oppression is real. The murder of black and brown people by police is real. The murder of trans people in astronomical numbers is real (again largest percentage are transwoman of color). War, economic injustice, rape culture, homophobia, hatred and violence in the name of religion are all real. What is it to not live in opposition to this?
First and foremost I think the request is to not turn away from it. To not try and escape the heartbreak and pain of it. As a white, cis-gendered male, middle class, and educated, I have enormous privilege that gives me permission to not see or accept these things as real…
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Melting-Pot Dharma 