From the Capitol to critical race theory, white Christians grieve declining hegemony

Connecting the spectacle at the Capitol with the SBC seminary presidents' statements is the effort to sustain white supremacy.

A Trump supporter carries a Bible outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

January 13, 2021

By 

Andre Henry

(RNS) — Many white American Christians seem to be going through the classic five stages of grief and loss about the apparent decline of white hegemony in the U.S.

On Wednesday (Jan. 6) at the U.S. Capitol, we saw stage two: anger. Others, such as the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, have already moved to the third stage, bargaining.

In a joint statement issued after Thanksgiving, all six SBC seminary presidents, while condemning “racism in any form,” categorically dismissed critical race theory as “incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message.” A decades-old academic framework that examines how race operates in society, critical race theory is aligned with ideas such as intersectionality and systemic racism.

The seminary presidents on the one hand asked to be perceived as nonracist, while categorically dismissing Black analyses of society. This statement recalled President Donald Trump’s attempt some weeks before to ban critical race theory and anti-racism education from government departments. 

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RELATED: Black Christians, don’t demonize African spirituality

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The seminary presidents’ statement caused immediate pushback: Some Black Southern Baptist churches cut ties with the denomination while other Black leaders issued their own statement on “Justice, Repentance, and the SBC.” On Jan. 6, after a meeting with Black church leaders and SBC President J.D. Greear, the seminary presidents said they regretted “the pain and confusion that resulted from a lack of prior dialogue.”

The meeting has not stopped the defections from the SBC.

It may seem odd to connect the spectacle at the Capitol with the seminary presidents’ fumbling, but the two moves are aligned in the same work: preserving America’s white supremacist common sense by limiting what certain social institutions are allowed to teach.

Trump supporters gather before breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

To understand why theological debates over critical race theory amount to more than squabbles on society’s margins, it’s helpful to understand an essential concept of nonviolent struggle known as “the pillars of support.”

Basically, the idea is that the structure of any social injustice can be imagined as something like an ancient Greek temple, with large columns supporting its roof. The roof represents the injustice — in this case, white supremacy — and the columns represent the social institutions that uphold it. Organized religion, media and the educational system are useful institutions to legitimate a regime by shaping the public’s common sense. White Christianity, more specifically, has always been an essential pillar of support to American white supremacy.

White Christianity’s contributions are integral to America’s racial caste system. The Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, as they called North America, were massacred with the written permission of the Catholic Church. Slaveholders misinterpreted the story of Noah to come up with their “Curse of Ham” doctrine, justifying the subjugation of their African captives. The Southern Baptist Convention itself was born over a dispute to preserve work camps where those captives were condemned to forced labor and torture.

Pastors of the Jim Crow era argued that racial apartheid was part of the divine order of things. And the civilian sentinels of that order, the Ku Klux Klan, marched the streets wearing sandwich boards bearing slogans that tied white supremacy, Christian nationalism and anti-Black totalitarianism together: “America First!” “God and Country” “America for White People!”

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RELATED: How the Capitol police privileged white rage

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Today, white seminaries tell their clergy in training they don’t have to take the analysis of Black scholars seriously. These students then graduate to perpetuate that same anti-Black sentiment in their congregations. They help uphold the ignorance and antipathy about Black thought necessary for white supremacy to thrive.

Until last week, the thought leader of the seminary council statement, the Rev. Al Mohler, conflated voting for the mascot of America’s neo-fascist movement — Trump — with Christian faithfulness. He and his colleagues in this way reinforce America’s default response to white supremacy: denial. They give white Americans license to underestimate the seriousness of white supremacy. This is exactly the attitude that allowed white supremacists to storm the capital.

If the seminary presidents had devoted half as much time worrying about white supremacy’s threats to the church as they do denouncing critical race theory, there might be a far more well-informed white American citizenry where race is concerned. What looks like theological debate is actually censorship of Black thought, and reinforces America’s anti-Black common sense. As long as they pursue this line, they’re complicit in America’s near-miss with fascist takeover and authoritarian rule.

The enterprise of racial caste has in this sense always been at war with democracy. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. knew this when he wrote in 1967 that some white Americans seem to have “declared that democracy is not worth having if it involves equality. The segregationist goal is the total reversal of all reforms, with the reestablishment of naked oppression and if need be a native form of fascism.”

White Christian theology is still an important pillar of support to white supremacy today. It can be seen in the Christian symbols in the crowd outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, even as it was a few weeks earlier when armed neo-fascists stole a Black Lives Matter banner from the grounds of a historic Black church and burned it in the streets. It can be seen in SBC seminary presidents who maintain that Christian orthodoxy includes denying the existence and effects of systemic racism.

The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was jarring and should be taken seriously, and so should the work that goes on in Christian seminaries. Seminaries shape public leaders, who shape the values of certain publics, who act on those values in the streets and voting booths and halls of power.

For insurrectionists, a violent faith brewed from nationalism, conspiracies and Jesus

As insurrectionists began the attack on the Capitol, a banner waved above the throng. It read: 'Proud American Christian.'

Trump supporters climb inauguration scaffolding outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

January 12, 2021

By 

Jack Jenkins

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Moments before the assault on the U.S. Capitol began Wednesday (Jan. 6), a mass of Trump supporters gathered at a northwest entrance. They were angry: Footage highlighted the presence of Proud Boys, an organization classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, who were shouting one of their favorite chants: “F— Antifa!”

As throngs surged toward a barricade manned by a vastly outnumbered handful of police, a white flag appeared above the masses, flapping in the wind: It featured an ichthys — also known as a “Jesus fish” — painted with the colors of the American flag.

Above the symbol, the words: “Proud American Christian.”

It was one of several prominent examples of religious expression that occurred in and around the storming of the Capitol last week, which left five people dead — including a police officer. Before and even during the attack, insurrectionists appealed to faith as both a source of strength as well as justification for their assault on the seat of American democracy.

While not all participants were Christian, their rhetoric often reflected an aggressive, charismatic and hypermasculine form of Christian nationalism — a fusion of God and country that has lashed together disparate pieces of Donald Trump’s religious base.

“A mistake a lot of people have made over the past few years … is to suggest there is some fundamental conflict between evangelicalism and the kind of violence or threat of violence we’re seeing,” said Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a history professor at Calvin University and author of “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.”

“For decades now, evangelical devotional life, evangelical preaching and evangelical teaching has found a space to promote this kind of militancy.”

A form of this faith was on display in front of the Capitol the day before the attack, when hundreds of Trump supporters massed near the building for a “Jericho March.” The event’s name was a reference to the biblical account of Israelites besieging the city of Jericho in the Book of Joshua, a religious tale liberal religious activists have also invoked for their own events.

Women blow shofars during the Jericho March on Jan. 5, 2021, in Washington. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins

Trump supporters who gathered in Washington for the Jericho March were encouraged to march around the Capitol, shouting and blowing shofars as a protest against the 2020 presidential election results.

“This is our moment, Lord, this is our moment to take our country back,” declared one woman standing in a prayer circle near the U.S. Supreme Court. “This is our moment to fight … with you as our weapon. You are our fighter.”

A few minutes later, someone could be heard chanting a few feet away: “We fight for God, and God fights for us!”

With other pro-Trump gatherings taking place in the same area, the Jericho March felt less like a distinct event and more like one stage within a larger festival. Jericho March organizers encouraged participants to attend other “Stop the Steal” events, and those in Washington often did not draw firm distinctions between themselves and other Trump supporters.

“There were a bunch of agendas I followed to see how to get here,” said another woman who helped lead the prayer circle.

Some in the crowd left to march around the Capitol — an act others would repeat the day of that attack — following a woman waving a white flag emblazoned with a tree and the slogan “An Appeal To Heaven.” The flag has become a banner for Christian nationalism: First waved during the American Revolution, it is said to be a reference to an argument by British philosopher John Locke, who suggested that — just as the biblical figure Jephthah led the Israelites in battle against Ammon — so too do individuals retain the right to “appeal to heaven” and wage revolution.

Andrew Whitehead, co-author of the book “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States,” argued such appeals are commonplace in evangelical circles.

“Christian nationalism really tends to draw on kind of an Old Testament narrative, a kind of blood purity and violence where the Christian nation needs to be defended against the outsiders,” Whitehead said, pointing to similar conclusions drawn by Yale sociologist Philip Gorski. “It really is identity-based and tribal, where there’s an us-versus-them.”

Indeed, antagonistic religious imagery was easy to spot at the Capitol raid the next day. One insurrectionist photographed in the building’s rotunda wore military fatigues with a patch on the shoulder that showcased a cross and the words “Armor of God.” Just below was another patch featuring a slogan wrapped around a stylized skull used by the comic book character The Punisher: “God will judge our enemies. We’ll arrange the meeting.”

A Trump supporter carries a Bible outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

One person who claimed to have been among the attackers, 36-year-old West Texas florist Jenny Cudd, posted a video on Facebook discussing how she “charged the Capitol with patriots,” exclaiming “f— yes I’m proud of my actions.” She boasted about “break(ing) down” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office door, and praised other insurrectionists who attempted to overrun state capitols elsewhere.

She concluded her more than 20-minute video with an outline of her religious beliefs.

“To me, God and country are tied — to me they’re one and the same,” she said. “We were founded as a Christian country. And we see how far we have come from that. … We are a godly country, and we are founded on godly principles. And if we do not have our country, nothing else matters.”

Whitehead was shocked by the video, but not surprised. He said Cudd’s explicit fusion of God, country and Trump is a “perfect” example of Christian nationalism, but those who invoked it while storming the Capitol are but an extremist subset of a much larger group — one that doesn’t stop at the boundaries of evangelicalism.

“A little over half of Americans are favorable toward Christian nationalism to some extent,” Whitehead said. “Extremism of any form, whether it’s religious or not, can only really flourish if it’s allowed to. So with 50% of Americans being relatively favorable toward understanding the U.S. as a Christian nation, or even that Christianity should be favored, it creates a situation where those that want to take that view even further can do that.”

There are some evangelicals who are already condemning the faith expressions seen on Capitol Hill. Hundreds of faculty and staff at Wheaton College, an evangelical school, have signed a statement decrying the “blasphemous abuses of Christian symbols” during the attack. In addition, Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Center, said the displays reminded him of a “darker reality” at work.

“We can see it in Europe, with neo-Nazis of all stripes carrying crosses as signs of ‘European heritage’ and ‘the triumph of the West,’ and we can see it in these violent white nationalist movements such as those attacking our Capitol,” he told Religion News Service. “The god of QAnon and the Proud Boys and their fellow travelers is not the God of Jesus Christ but the ancient serpent of Eden, which Jesus called ‘a murderer from the beginning.’ The way of Jesus Christ is a very different way from that one.”

But evangelicalism is a tree with many branches. Anthea Butler, associate professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania, pointed to Jenna Ryan, a real estate broker from Frisco, Texas. Ryan drew widespread attention for posting images of herself on social media next to a broken window at the Capitol with the caption: “If the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next.”

Demonstrators break TV equipment outside the the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

According to video obtained by The Daily Mail, Ryan also livestreamed herself as she entered the Capitol with other insurrectionists. As she crossed the threshold, she can be heard declaring “Here we are, in the name of Jesus! In the name above all names!”

Butler argued that the orisons of Ryan — who has since released a statement insisting she opposes the violence at the Capitol — are emblematic of Pentecostal or charismatic Christianity, which is both a part of evangelicalism and distinct in important ways. But recent years have seen such distinctions blur: Many of Trump’s faith advisers, such as Florida pastor Paula White, hail from charismatic traditions that place an emphasis on prophecy and “spiritual warfare.”

“To say ‘in the name of Jesus’ — that’s calling protection, but it’s also calling power,” Butler said. “So in other words, ‘Jesus has given us the power to bust into the Capitol.’” 

A unsettling appeal to the Almighty was even heard during the attack: According to The Washington Post, when staffers who work for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell barricaded themselves in a room to hide from the rampaging mob, they could hear a woman praying loudly outside the door for “the evil of Congress to be brought to an end.”

Butler said such expressions could be traced back to politicized forms of evangelicalism that started under Billy Graham, but took a turn around 2008 — when that year’s Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, chose evangelical Christian Sarah Palin as his running mate. Over the next few years, multiple versions of faith-fueled politics began to emerge, some feuding with each other.

It was Trump who drew them back together, and loyalty to the president was paramount last week. In another video posted on Twitter, a man near the South side of the Capitol can be seen speaking to onlookers as hundreds stand atop the Capitol steps. While two Christian flags — white banners with a Red Cross in the corner — waved in front of him, he can be heard saying: “Donald Trump coordinated it. We’re his surrogates. He fought for us and we have to fight for him.”

He then glances at the flags before adding what sounds like “Jesus loves us.”

Du Mez said this kind of reverence for Trump is rooted in a similar affinity for masculinity that permeates many religious traditions, including evangelicalism.

Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepared to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, thousands of people gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

“In the the last five years, we’ve seen this God and country nationalism coalesce around the figure of Donald Trump,” Du Mez said. “There were a variety of paths to get to this point, but it coalesced in part around this long-standing us-versus-them mentality, this persecution complex, this sense that white evangelicals were particularly vulnerable and therefore needed to not just defend themselves, but that the best defense is a good offense.”

Trump, she said, “is really the perfect figure to stoke these anxieties, to promise to be their strong man, to be their protector. … He’s God’s special defender that God has blessed the country with for this perilous moment.”

All scholars who spoke to RNS said Christian nationalism and hypermasculinity often overlap with forms of white supremacy. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, for instance, was arrested earlier last week after he and members of his group tore a Black Lives Matter sign from a Washington church in December and burned it in the street. But the Proud Boys who appeared in Washington on Wednesday insisted they drew strength from God: As they approached the Capitol, Proud Boys — some donned in camouflage or military-style helmets, others gripping weapons such as a baseball bat — paused for a moment of prayer.

As they knelt, a man with a bullhorn — his words captured on a livestream — prayed that God would “soften the hearts” of government officials who have “turned harshly away” from God, asking for “reformation and revival.”

He concluded: “We pray that you provide all of us with courage and strength to both represent you and represent our culture well.”

For Du Mez, the prayer was striking precisely because of how normal it seemed.

“It was an evangelical prayer,” she said. “It seemed perfectly natural to all of the Proud Boys in that circle to hear that prayer and to respond. It really signals this enmeshment of white nationalism, violence and a kind of ordinary white evangelicalism.”

Whitehead agreed, and warned that ignoring such dynamics can have dire consequences.

“Christian nationalism really is a threat to pluralistic democratic society, and everybody should take that threat seriously,” he said. “We’ve seen what happens where there’s no proof of voter fraud, yet people go and — under the guise of Christian symbols and symbolism — enact violence against their own country.”

Rap against Dictatorship: The rappers taking on Thailand's leaders



Thai group Rap Against Dictatorship has the pulse on the youth of the country, many of whom have been protesting for months against the government, demanding change.

Their lyrics and videos have shocked many in the establishment, and has even led to their latest video being banned by YouTube.

One of them, known as Hockey, says the group is trying to highlight the problems with the political establishment - both before the coup and after.

Video by Daniel Bull, Nik Millard, Jonathan Head, Thanyarat Doksone, Ryn Jirenuwat, Miho Tanaka

The Truth About My Make-up (Documentary) BBC Stories

What makes our lipstick glossy and our foundation smooth? A lot of the time it’s palm oil. It’s in 70% of beauty products - and some people say it should be banned. 28-year-old make-up artist Emmy Burbidge goes to Papua New Guinea to see where palm oil comes from, and to find out what our beauty products are doing to the planet. She discovers there is much more to the palm oil industry than meets the eye. We are BBC Stories, a group of journalists making films, long and short, with the younger audience (18-24) in mind. The idea is to tackle issues which concern and impact this group of people. So think about anything from race and identity to mental health, money and much more.

Supermodel Halima Aden: ‘Why I quit’

1/14/21

IMAGE COPYRIGHTGILIANE MANSFELDT PHOTOGRAPHY



Halima Aden, the first hijab-wearing supermodel, quit the fashion industry in November saying it was incompatible with her Muslim religion. Here, in an exclusive interview, she tells BBC Global Religion reporter Sodaba Haidare the full story - how she became a model, and how she reached the decision to walk away.

Halima, 23, is in St Cloud, Minnesota, where she grew up surrounded by other Somalis. She's wearing ordinary clothes and no makeup, cheerfully petting her dog, Coco.

"I'm Halima from Kakuma," she says, referring to the refugee camp in Kenya, where she was born. Others have described her as a trailblazing hijab-wearing supermodel or as the first hijabi model to feature on the cover of Vogue magazine - but she left all that behind two months ago, saying the fashion industry clashed with her Muslim faith.

"It's the most comfortable I've ever felt in an interview," she laughs. "Because I didn't spend 10 hours getting ready, in an outfit I couldn't keep."

As a hijab-wearing model, Halima was selective about her clothing. At the start of her career, she would take a suitcase filled with her own hijabs, long dresses and skirts to every shoot. She wore her own plain black hijab for her first campaign for Rihanna's Fenty Beauty.

However she was dressed, keeping her hijab on for every shoot was non-negotiable. It was so important to her that in 2017 when she signed with IMG, one of the biggest modelling agencies in the world, she added a clause to her contract making IMG agree that she would never have to remove it. Her hijab meant the world to her.

GETTY IMAGES Halima modelling for Max Mara in February 2017

"There are girls who wanted to die for a modelling contract," she says, "but I was ready to walk away if it wasn't accepted."

This was despite the fact that at that stage no-one had heard of her - that she was "a nobody".

But as time went on she had less control over the clothes she wore, and agreed to head coverings she would have ruled out at the start.

"I eventually drifted away and got into the confusing grey area of letting the team on-set style my hijab."

In the last year of her career her hijab got smaller and smaller, sometimes accentuating her neck and chest. And sometimes instead of the hijab, she wrapped jeans, or other clothes and fabrics, around her head.

GETTY IMAGES On the runway for Tommy Hilfiger London Spring 2020

Another clause of Halima's contract guaranteed her a blocked-out box, allowing her to get dressed in the privacy of her own space.

But she soon realised that other hijab-wearing models, who had followed her into the industry, were not being treated with the same respect. She would see them being told to find a bathroom to change in.

"That rubbed me the wrong way and I was like, 'OMG, these girls are following in my footsteps, and I have opened the door to the lion's mouth.'"

She had expected her successors to be her equals, and this intensified her protective feelings towards them.

"A lot of them are so young, it can be a creepy industry. Even the parties that we attended, I would always find myself in big sister mode having to grab one of the hijab-wearing models because she'd be surrounded by a group of men following and flocking [round] her. I was like, 'This doesn't look right, she's a child.' I would pull her out and ask her who she was with."


Part of this sense of responsibility and community comes from Halima's Somali background.

As a child in Kakuma refugee camp, in north-western Kenya, she was taught by her mother to work hard and to help others. And this continued after they moved to Minnesota, when Halima was seven, becoming part of the largest Somali community in the US.

So there was a problem when Halima became her high school's first hijab-wearing homecoming queen (an honour bestowed on the school's most popular students). She knew her mum, whose focus was on good grades, would disapprove.

"I was so embarrassed, because when you get nominated, the kids come to your house and I said, 'Don't do that - my mum will have the shoe ready and you wouldn't know what you've gotten yourselves into!'"

Her fears were justified. Halima's mum broke the homecoming crown. "You're focusing way too much on friends and beauty pageants," she said.

But Halima still took part in Miss Minnesota USA in 2016. She was the first hijab-wearing contestant and became a semi-finalist.

ALAMY Competing in the Miss Minnesota pageant in 2016

And then, to her mother's dismay, Halima chose to pursue a career in modelling - a career her mother felt was in conflict with who Halima was as a person: black, Muslim, refugee.

Even when she started walking on some of the world's major runways for Yeezy and Max Mara, or became a Miss USA judge, her mother still encouraged her to "get a proper job".

It was the humanitarian side of Halima's career that had gone some way to convincing her mother that it was worth it. As a refugee who had walked 12 days from Somalia to Kenya for a better life, she knew the value of helping those in need.

"She said, 'There's no way you'll do modelling if it doesn't have a giving-back component.' In my first meeting with IMG I told them to take me to Unicef," Halima says.

GETTY IMAGES

IMG supported her in this and in 2018 Halima became a Unicef ambassador. As she had spent her childhood in a refugee camp, her work focused on children's rights.

"My mum never viewed me as a model or cover girl. She viewed me as a beacon of hope for young girls and would always remind me to be a good role model for them."

Halima wanted to raise awareness about displaced children, and to show the children that if she could make it out of the refugee camp, they could hope to one day do the same.

But Unicef didn't live up to her expectations.

In 2018, not long after becoming a Unicef ambassador, she visited the Kakuma camp to give a Ted Talk.

"I met with the kids and asked them, 'Are things still being done the way they were, do you still have to dance and sing in front of newcomers?' They said, 'Yes, but this time we're not doing it for other celebrities they'd bring to the camp, this time we're doing it for you.'"

Halima was guilt-stricken and upset. She says she still remembers when she and other children sang and danced for visiting celebrities.

"The UN workers prepped me for what was to come: I had my first headshot, thanks to those organisations."

GETTY IMAGES Sudanese refugees dancing at Kakuma refugee camp

It seemed to her that the organisation focused more on its brand than on children's education.

"I could spell 'Unicef' when I couldn't spell my own name. I was marking X," she says. "Minnesota gave me my first book, my first pencil, my first backpack. Not Unicef."

She had assumed all of that had changed since she left.

In November, when she video-called the kids in Kakuma for World Children's Day, she decided she couldn't carry on. It was hard to see them in winter in the middle of a global pandemic.

"After speaking to the kids, I had a breakthrough," she says.

"I just decided I'm done with the NGO world using me for 'my beautiful story of courage and hope'"

Unicef USA told the BBC: "We are grateful for [Halima's] three-and-a-half years of partnership and support. Her remarkable story of resilience and hope has guided her vision for a world that upholds the rights of every child. It has been a privilege for Unicef to work with Halima and we wish her all the best in her future endeavours."


Halima's doubts about the modelling side of her career had also been multiplying.

As demand for her in the fashion industry grew, she spent less time with her family and would be away from home on Muslim religious festivals.

"In the first year of my career I was able to make it home for Eid and Ramadan but in the last three years, I was travelling. I was sometimes on six to seven flights a week. It just didn't pause," she says.

GETTY IMAGES Halima Aden watching a model wearing clothes designed by Sherri Hill

In September 2019, she was featured on the cover of King Kong magazine, wearing bright red and green eye shadow and a large piece of jewellery on her face. It resembled a mask and covered everything but her nose and mouth.

"The style and makeup were horrendous. I looked like a white man's fetishised version of me," she says.

And to her horror, she found a picture of a nude man in the same issue.

"Why would the magazine think it was acceptable to have a hijab-wearing Muslim woman when a naked man is on the next page?" she asks. It went against everything she believed in.

King Kong told the BBC: "The artists, photographers and contributors with whom we work express themselves in ways which may both appeal to some and seem provocative to others, but the stories they produce always respect the subject and the model.

"We are sorry that Halima now regrets the work she did with us, and that there were images in the issue that she personally did not like, but were in no way connected to her own feature."

Halima says that when she spotted her photograph on the cover of magazines at airports, as she travelled between shoots, she would often barely recognise herself.

ALAMY


"I had zero excitement because I couldn't see myself. Do you know how mentally damaging that can be to be to somebody? When I'm supposed to feel happy and grateful and I'm supposed to relate, because that's me, that's my own picture, but I was so far removed.

"My career was seemingly on top, but I was mentally not happy."

And there were those other problems - her hijab rule getting stretched to breaking point, and the way other hijab-wearing models were being treated.

The coronavirus pandemic put everything in perspective. With Covid-19 halting fashion shoots and runway shows, she returned home to St Cloud to spend time with her mother, to whom she remains incredibly close.

"I was having anxiety thinking of 2021 because I loved staying at home with my family and seeing friends again," she says.

All this explains why, in November, she decided to give up both modelling and her role with Unicef.

"I'm grateful for this new chance that Covid gave me. We're all reflecting about our career paths and asking, 'Does it bring me genuine happiness, does it bring me joy?'" she says.

Her mother's prayers had finally been granted. She was so elated she even agreed to do a photoshoot with her daughter, just for fun.

"When I was a model, my mum turned down every shoot, she wouldn't even do mother-daughter campaigns. I wanted to give her a chance to see me in my creative zone," says Halima excitedly.

"She really is my number one inspiration and I'm so grateful God picked me to be her daughter. She's truly a remarkable and resilient woman."

GILIANE MANSFELDT PHOTOGRAPHY

Halima with her mother, sister Fadumo (left) and cousin Rahma

The photoshoot is not the only thing Halima is excited about. She has just finished executive-producing a film inspired by the true story of a refugee fleeing war and violence in Afghanistan. I Am You is due to be released on Apple TV in March.

"We're anxiously waiting to see if we've been nominated for an Oscar!" she says.

Quitting Unicef doesn't mean Halima has given up doing charity work.

"I'm not going to stop volunteering," she says. "I don't think the world needs me as a model or celebrity, it needs me as Halima from Kakuma - somebody who understands the true value of a penny and the true value of community."

But first she is going to take a break.

"You know, I've never been on a proper vacation. I'm putting my mental health and my family at the top. I'm thriving, not just surviving. I'm getting my mental health checked, I'm getting therapy time."

#INTERSECTIONALITY

Rapinoe links Trump comments and Capitol Hill riots 

to white supremacy politics 

 

January 14 – Outspoken US star Megan Rapinoe, one of the most powerful and popular voices in the game and a long-standing critic of Donald Trump, says last week’s pro-Trump riots on Capitol Hill were “a huge stain” on her country.

Rapinoe, who led her country to the World Cup title in 2019 and is about to return to US Women’s National Team (USWNT) for the first time in nearly a year, remains an influential figure when it comes to social justice and did not mince her words when addressing the disgraceful scenes in Washington.

“This is America, make no mistake about it,” Rapinoe told reporters. “I think we showed very much our true colours. This is not the first time we have seen a murderous mob like that. Unleashing a White supremacy mob is nothing new to America as people of colour, Black and Brown, know that very well. If we do not punish this and investigate this to the fullest extent it only encourages more of this to happen.”

Rapinoe was one of the first high-profile athletes to come out in support of former NFL player Colin Kaepernick, the sportsman who initiated the taking a knee protests that are now practised across the world.

“Just from a personal standpoint it’s very unsettling and scary … This was about White supremacy and holding up White supremacy and I hope that we can see this and move forward with justice,” she said.

Contact the writer of this story at moc.llabtoofdlrowedisni@wahsraw.werdna

Capitol rioters made a mockery of Christian values

Opinion by Gregory E. Sterling
Thu January 14, 2021

(CNN) As someone who has devoted his entire life to understanding, exploring and teaching the truth about Christianity, I saw the use of Christian symbols and rhetoric as part of the violent assault on the US Capitol as a desecration of democracy's chapel and a blaspheme of my faith.

Gregory E. Sterling is Dean of Yale Divinity School. 

The views expressed here are the author's. Read more opinion on CNN.

Watching the events unfold, I was deeply ashamed as an American and horrified as a Christian that these perpetrators were associating Christianity with their misguided efforts. I wonder how these self-declared patriots and Christians -- rioters, in reality -- could square their racism-fueled attempt of a forceful takeover of our government, a cause emboldened by evil lies (and longstanding support of the Christian right's leadership), with the Bibles many of them carried.

Christians believe that we demonstrate our faith by our actions and how we treat others. In words from a final message of Jesus in the Gospel of John, "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

What the world witnessed at the Capitol was instead a warped and dishonest portrayal of Christianity, a mob hijacking an entire faith in the same way the 9/11 terrorists hijacked Islam. While the latter was an attempt to bring America to its knees economically, this was an attempt to bring the nation to its knees politically. While one was committed by an avowed enemy of the United States, the insurrection in our capital city was committed by individuals who demonstrated no regard for the will of the majority of the American people, much less for Christian living.

Rioters took control of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021
Carrying signs like "Jesus 2020" or "Jesus or Hellfire," Bibles, and a massive cross and marauding around our nation's capital in a "Jericho march" -- in imitation of the biblical story of the fall of Jericho -- the rioters imitated quite well the President, who held up a Bible during his egregious summer photo-op in Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, amid protests over racial injustices.

The mob that stormed the Capitol and the President who sees my faith as a cynical and convenient political tool both show an utter disregard for the highest values contained in Scripture. Where was the value of non-violence celebrated in the Sermon on the Mount? Where was the value of "putting away falsehood" and speaking the truth? Where was the spirit of doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God? They made a mockery of Christianity.

As a Christian and a human being, I was appalled by Trump's church photo op

The attack was an assault on American identity, too. My father and uncle served during the Korean War. The names of some of my boyhood friends are engraved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a short walk down the National Mall from the Capitol. My son-in-law served in Iraq. Those gleefully parading around Washington were spitting on the graves of the fallen and dishonoring those who wore a US armed forces uniform. Wielding the weapon of faith, they attacked the country they profess to love.

The thousands who gathered and chanted and stormed and, yes, killed heeded the words of their political deity -- President Donald Trump, a man without a moral compass. "You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong." These were the President's words at the "Save America March" just hours before his eager audience would take him up on his request. I have never understood how Christians could support him in the name of Christianity. How do you align lying, bragging about immorality, the egging on of violence and cruelty, and the violation of a sacred oath (to "protect and defend the Constitution") with Christianity? It is as far from the principles of Christianity -- or any faith that I know -- as a person can get.

The striking parallels between the assaults on Charlottesville and the Capitol

Those Christians who continue to be Trump supporters are models of cognitive dissonance. They are a puzzle for the ages. The dissonance exists between their claim to be loyal Americans and Christians, on the one hand, and their trampling upon the principles of democracy and Christianity, equality before God and non-violence on the other. Efforts to resolve these irreconcilable tensions have resulted in wild conspiracy theories that strike sober-minded people as bouts of delusion. I can only hope that as they ponder their next move -- with rumblings of more violence in Washington around the inauguration -- there will be some soul-searching among the throngs. God help us if there is not.

To show how far our country as fallen, I only need to look back at my own childhood. I grew up in a conservative American home. My parents were committed Republicans who held traditional values. My father was a minister for 46 years. Twice in my boyhood during the tumultuous year of 1968, my mother woke me with the news that an American leader had been slain. The first was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and the second was Sen. Robert Kennedy during his run for the White House.
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Both times our household was devastated. When I told a friend the story of how my mother was visibly shaken as she told me about Kennedy, he wondered why she was so upset if she would not have voted for him? My answer was an easy one: She was a better American than she was a Republican. And she was a better Christian.
It is time for us to be Americans, whatever our party affiliation or views on specific issues. It is also time for those of us who are Christians to speak out against the misuse of Christianity as a legitimating force for evil. Democracy is a treasured value and quite fragile. We need to protect it, and given last week's events, we need to pray for it.

A new age of political repression is coming at a time in which we need protests the most, and it will be a bipartisan affair
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Democrats have returned to their post 9/11 calls for heightening the “war on terror”.’ Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images

OPINION

Akin Olla, THE GUARDIAN 

Thu 14 Jan 2021 11.31 GMT

Following the fascist riot at the US Capitol, progressives and liberals have begun to mimic the calls for “law and order” of their conservative counterparts, even going as far as threatening to expand the “war on terror”. While this may be well-intentioned, it fits neatly within the trajectory of attacks against civil liberties over the last two decades. A Biden administration with a 50-50 Senate will seek unity and compromise wherever it can find it, and oppressing political dissidents will be the glue that holds together Biden’s ability to govern.

A wide array of actors within the United States government have long predicted, and begun to prepare for, a new age of protests and political instability. In 2008 the Pentagon launched the Minerva Initiative, a research program aimed at understanding mass movements and how they spread. It included at least one project that conflated peaceful activists with “supporters of political violence” and deemed that they were worth studying alongside active terrorist organizations.

All the pieces are in place for Biden to attempt to unite the parties by being a 'law and order' president

A 2018 war game enacted by the Pentagon had students and faculty at military colleges create plans to crush a rebellion led by disillusioned members of Gen Z. This hypothetical “ZBellion” included a “global cyber campaign to expose injustice and corruption”. A campaign that would in real life no doubt be monitored by the NSA’s Prism program, which captures the vast majority of electronic communications in the United States. Prism was developed in 2007, partially out of fear that environmental disasters might lead to a rise in anti-government protest.

These steps further the already oppressive post-9/11 surveillance apparatus developed through the Patriot Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation championed by President-Elect Biden. Though some of these tools were developed to “fight terrorism”, in practice they’ve also been used to monitor and interfere with the work of activists – leading to violations of civil liberties such as the placement of undercover NYPD officers in Muslim student groups across the north-east. And every post-9/11 president has added to this, steadily increasing federal and local agencies’ power to surveil, detain and prosecute those who appear to pose a challenge to the status quo.

This level of repression is also being carried out by states. Since 2015, 32 states have passed laws designed to discourage and punish those who engage in boycotts against Israel. Many states have also worked to dismantle once-institutionalized statewide student associations such as the Arizona Student Association and the United Council of Wisconsin, in one blow destroying opposition to tuition hikes and eradicating an important ally to social movements, such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Republicans have long called for the increased repression of activists, but the chorus has reached a crescendo in the age of Black Lives Matter and climate protests

Republicans have long called for the increased repression of activists, but the chorus has reached a crescendo in the age of Black Lives Matter and climate protests. In the last five years, 116 bills to increase penalties for protests including highway shutdowns and occupations have been introduced in state legislatures. Twenty-three of those bills became law in 15 states. Following the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent uprisings, we’ve seen another flow of proposals. For example, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida would like to make merely participating in a protest that leads to property damage or road blockage a felony, while granting protections to people who hit those same protesters with their cars. Following the storming of the Capitol, DeSantis, a Trump ally, has expanded these proposals with more provisions and harsher consequences. The only thing preventing the passage of many of these laws thus far has been opposition from Democrats.

But now the Democrats have caught the tune and returned to their post-9/11 calls for heightening the “war on terror”. Joe Biden has already made it clear that he intends to answer these calls. He has named the rioters “domestic terrorists” and “insurrectionists”, both terms used to designate those whose civil liberties the state is openly allowed to violate. He has declared he will make it a priority to pass a new law against domestic terrorism and has named the possibility of creating a new White House post to combat ideologically inspired violent extremists.

These moves are not to be taken as empty threats by Biden. All the pieces are in place for him to attempt to unite the parties by being a “law and order” president and effectively crush any social movement that opposes the status quo. Much of the Patriot Act itself was based on Biden’s 1995 anti-terrorism bill, and Biden would go on to complain that the Patriot Act didn’t go far enough after a few of his provisions to further increase the power of police to surveil targets were removed. Biden will be desperate to both prove his competency and demonstrate that he isn’t the protest-coddler that Trump framed him as. This, combined with demands for repression from Democrats, Republicans and large segments of the American public, is a perfect storm for a radical escalation in the decades-long war on civil liberties and our right to protest, at a time that we need it the most.


Akin Olla is a Nigerian-American political strategist and organizer. He works as a trainer for Momentum Community and is the host of This is The Revolution Podcast

 DOCTOR WHO JOINED CAPITOL ATTACKS LEADS A FAR-RIGHT CAMPAIGN AGAINST COVID-19 VACCINE

(PUNCTUATION IS IMPORTANT; FOR UNDERSTANDING THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE DOCTOR AND HIS TARDUS FOR THAT A COMMA WILL DO)

Dr. Simone Gold, founder of the disinformation group, America’s Frontline Doctors, specializes in anti-scientific propaganda.

Simone Gold, second from left, speaks into a megaphone in the Capitol Rotunda during a riot in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Sharon Lerner
January 14 2021

THE DAY BEFORE she entered the Capitol with the throngs of insurrectionists, Dr. Simone Gold gave a speech in which she urged people not to get the coronavirus vaccine. “You must not comply if you do not want to take an experimental biological agent deceptively named a vaccine; you must not allow yourself to be coerced,” Gold shouted at a rally held outside the White House.

Gold was spreading her brand of politicized medical misinformation during the siege too. In the FBI’s flyer of those most wanted for “violence at the United States Capitol,” Gold, No. 21, is pictured holding a megaphone, which she apparently used to a give a speech inside the federal building, as the Washington Post was first to report.

An emergency physician who has spent much of the past six months promoting the drug hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment despite the overwhelming evidence that it is not effective and causes serious side effects, Gold is at the forefront of a right-wing medical misinformation effort that is now shifting its emphasis to the coronavirus vaccine.

Gold cautions that one should never call it just “the vaccine,” though. “Always use the word ‘experiment’ when you talk about this. Always,” she told an enthusiastic audience in Rodney Howard-Browne’s church in Tampa Bay, Florida, on January 3. “The socialists win the language wars.”

Howard-Browne’s church is an apt setting for this latest battle in the war over the language and science of the coronavirus pandemic. An evangelist who has laid hands on President Donald Trump, Howard-Browne has been sharing Covid-19-related conspiracy theories with his followers since at least March, when he told them that vaccines for the coronavirus would “kill off many people” and that Covid-19 is a “phantom plague” designed to shut down churches. Howard-Browne was arrested and jailed in March for violating safety codes by encouraging his followers to shake hands — public health restrictions that he said were for “pansies.” Prosecutors later dropped the charges because he was allegedly taking steps to enforce social distancing. But in the January 3 video, audience members sat close together without masks.

America’s Frontline Doctors, a group Gold founded last summer, tries to put a professional medical spin on this kind of defiance of public health measures. Members appear in white coats and tout their institutional affiliations while disavowing masks and social distancing and pushing unproven Covid-19 treatments. Although most of these “front-line” doctors have no experience treating Covid-19, Gold apparently does, having worked at Adventist Health Bakersfield hospital in California. A spokesperson for the hospital told The Intercept in a text that Gold did her last shift in the “summer of 2020” but did not say when she began treating patients there or why she left. Two other hospitals Gold has mentioned have already distanced themselves from her

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Read Our Complete CoverageThe Coronavirus Crisis


The Medical Board of California, which licenses physicians, is aware of Gold’s presence at the siege on the Capitol and is “looking into it,” according to Carlos Villatoro, public information manager for the board. Gold and America’s Frontline Doctors declined to comment for this story, but a statement on the group’s website about the events at the Capitol says that “no AFLDS members participated in or were a party to any violence or vandalism and any suggestion to the contrary is false and misleading.”

Gold does not appear to be currently employed by a medical institution, but in June she received more than $150,000 in three separate bailout grants.

The apparent success of her efforts to undermine the vaccine seems to hinge in part on Gold’s ability to turn her marginalization from the medical establishment into credibility in other contexts, particularly on the “alt-right.” Gold told her audience at the Tampa Bay church that she was fired for trying to give her patients hydroxychloroquine and that her dismissal has been “a blessing.”

Gold’s entrée into the world of medical misinformation influencers — she has more than 200,000 followers on Twitter — was largely achieved when Breitbart livestreamed a “white coat summit” she led in July in which she said that hydroxychloroquine was a cure for Covid-19 and that “you don’t need masks.” Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter ultimately removed the video, but not before Trump tweeted several versions of it. Since then, Gold has given herself the unfortunate moniker “the doctor who went viral” and published a book subtitled “My Fight Against Medical Cancel Culture.”

A Trump supporter holds an anti-vaccine sign while protesting at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021. 
Photo: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images


Unfortunately, the efforts of Gold and others to undermine vaccine acceptance seem to be gaining traction. A surprisingly large number of health care workers, the group first offered the vaccine in the U.S., have refused to take the vaccine, with acceptance rates as low as 50 percent in some places. And research has already shown that significant numbers of health care workers cite religious reasons, concerns about personal freedom, and distrust of government claims about the severity of Covid-19 among their reasons for refusing the vaccine.

Gold, who insists she’s not against vaccines in general, says that she opposes the use of the Covid-19 vaccine in most cases because she believes that people under the age of 75 face greater risks from the vaccine than from the virus. This is false. The virus has already killed more than 382,000 people in the U.S., including at least 127,000 people under 75. While the death of a Florida doctor who had recently received the vaccine is now being investigated, there are no confirmed fatalities from either the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccines, which have already been given to some 9 million Americans. Gold also cited a debunked theory that the vaccine might damage the placenta and cause infertility. And she has launched a petition to stop people from being forced to get vaccinated. Despite the fact that no one is being forced to get vaccinated, more than 94,000 people have already signed it.

For physicians who are hoping to put an end to the pandemic, Gold’s influence on the public conversation has been vexing. “She’s a chaos agent,” said Dr. Nick Sawyer, an emergency physician in the Sacramento. “She has created a competitive narrative of what’s true about Covid and vaccines. So many people come into my office and say to me, ‘I don’t know what to believe.’”

Sawyer sees America’s Frontline Doctors’ efforts to minimize the severity of the pandemic as fueled by politics. “They got pulled into this disinformation campaign put forward by Trump to downplay the virus,” he said. But while promoting hydroxychloroquine might be seen as currying favor with the president, who has inexplicably embraced the drug, the efforts to undermine the vaccine are harder to parse politically.

It’s clear that Gold still has deep ties to far-right groups that support Trump. She was one of 27 “extremely pro-Trump” doctors that Republican activist Nancy Schulze proposed to promote the message that it was appropriate to reopen the economy during the surging pandemic. Schulze is a member of the Council for National Policy, an organization of powerful GOP activists on the Christian right. Gold is also involved with the far-right group Turning Point USA and has spread her message on the “Charlie Kirk Show.” Kirk is also a member of the Council for National Policy and boasted on Twitter of sending “80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president.” His original tweet has since been deleted.

America’s Frontline Doctors’ Twitter account has also been “purged,” according to a January 9 tweet from Gold, who seems to be preparing for the eventual deletion of her own account. After characterizing the removal of social media accounts as censorship and “a danger to your health,” she advised her followers to “protect yourself and your loved ones” by signing up to become a member of America’s Frontline Doctors.