In a Victory for Sanity, Salvation Army Kinda Sorta Walks Back ‘Woke’ Racism Guides

(Mark Moran/The Citizens' Voice via AP)

The Christian-based Salvation Army has unjustifiably taken heat from politically correct radicals on the left over the last several years on a number of fronts, most notably on LGBTQ-related matters as well as on allegations that they are insufficiently “woke.”

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It was likely due to the immense pressure such places are put under by progressive Outrage Mobsters that the internationally known charity organization put in place – via their “International Social Justice Commission” – a “Let’s Talk About Racism” guide back in April, which among other things poured on the liberal white guilt to get white Christians to feel personal remorse and apologize about racist things that happened in American history that they literally had nothing to do with.

As we previously reported, the guide, which received renewed attention this month, was sort of like the Salvation Army’s version of Critical Race Theory, where white donors were given companion guides that talked how they were inherently racist whether they knew it or not:

Racism can be so entrenched in institutions and culture that people can unintentionally and unwittingly perpetuate racial division. For instance, devout Christians who naively use racial epithets or a well-intentioned Sunday School curriculum that only uses white photography and imagery.

[…]

The subtle nature of racism is such that people who are not consciously racist easily function with the privileges, empowerment and benefits of the dominant ethnicity, thus unintentionally perpetuating injustice.

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Apparently, the outrage over fresh scrutiny of the existence of the guides has caused the Salvation Army to revisit the issue, and walk back the guides – kinda sorta:

In this case, the guide “Let’s Talk About Racism,” was issued as a voluntary resource, but it has since become a focus of controversy. We have done our best to provide accurate information, but unfortunately, some have chosen to ignore those efforts. At the same time, International Headquarters realized that certain aspects of the guide may need to be clarified.

Consequently, for both reasons, the International Social Justice Commission has now withdrawn the guide for appropriate review.

“Appropriate review.” Translation: The guide is getting ready to get chucked while the Salvation Army’s “social justice” team works on other ways to demonstrate their “woke creds” in more subtle ways that they hope will still get their “points” across. Do not be fooled.

Even at that, we should still celebrate this small victory in the wokeness wars, because the pushback against the guides raised awareness of the issue on a national level, putting it on people’s radars. As a result, it caused the Salvation Army to, for now at least, pull back to a certain extent. Though they’ll no doubt try a slick workaround of it going forward, more eagle-eyed people are going to be paying attention now to how they “rectify” the matter in the coming months and will respond accordingly by calling them out on social media and the like.

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All that said, there’s nothing wrong with addressing the fact that racism still exists to a certain extent in America. But the way to go about appropriately addressing it in meaningful ways that don’t further divide people is not by utilizing the materials provided by the SA or CRT proponents, as my colleague Jeff Charles observed:

It seems the Salvation Army has pulled away from Christianity and is gradually turning into another Temple of the Woke™. If the organization actually wishes to minimize the impact of racism, this ain’t it. Proponents of the Wokeism religion are not truly concerned with healing racial rifts. Indeed, they do more to widen the divide than anything else. These people are more concerned with demonizing white Americans and casting them as irredeemably racist.

The same people also seek to make black Americans feel like perpetual victims of society. Nothing good can come from such a mindset.

We can all work together to overcome the pockets of racism that exist in our society, but that will come by breaking bread with each other, not by continually pitting people of different races against each other. Our history is littered with examples of the latter strategy being tried and failing every single time. It’s time to stop with the failed “solutions” that involve perpetuating victimhood and start with more workable ones that do more good than harm and which benefit everyone.

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Related: Mr. T’s Outstanding Holiday Words of Wisdom Put BLM’s Thanksgiving Scolding to Shame

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