Rev George Masons essay in defense of a white racialized landscape.

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FEAR OF LOSING THE WHITE LANDSCAPE: Wilshire Baptist Church Rev. Mason’s Idiotic Essay – Ed Sebesta 11/28/2020 In the August 19, 2020 issue of the Lakewood Advocate, Rev. George Mason of the Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas has an essay published, “Can any historical figure stand the scrutiny of our times?”1 https://lakewood.advocatemag.com/2020/08/19/george-mason-9/ The article argues against renaming the R.L. Thornton Freeway, which is named after 20th century Dallas mayor and Ku Klux Klan member R.L. Thornton and the Woodrow Wilson High School (H.S.) which is named after president Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States, who helped launch the infamous pro-KKK movie “Birth of a Nation,” and who was a racist historian, and his administration instituted segregation in Federal employment among other racist policies. It is worth closely examining this essay and rebutting it for two reasons besides defending the effort to rename Woodrow Wilson H.S. and R.L. Thornton Highway against his opposing argument. One is to discuss critically and raise the issues of the white racialized landscape. Two, and equally important, Mason’s article shows the all too common in Dallas, shallow and vacuous thinking of those who imagine they are against racism and reveals instead a fatuous and troubling, if not sinister, racism. People nowadays know enough to avoid the expression of explicit racist ideas, but lacking critical thinking when they defend the white landscape, they reveal themselves in other ways, unaware that they do, as does Mason. In the article Mason asks the question, “How should we decide whom to honor, which to preserve, which to remove and how to replace?” Mason poses it as a spiritual problem. Beyond the two Confederate statues in Dallas, who else might be removed is never suggested by Mason, only who might not. TRIVIALIZING RACISM On tactic Mason uses is to trivialize racism as being a failing in which one falls short of perfection rather than being a basic fundamental failing. This argument also simultaneously discredits those who want to deracialize the landscape by implying that they are extremists who expect historical individuals to be perfect.

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Mason, George, “Can any historical figure stand the scrutiny of our times?”, Lakewood Advocate, https://lakewood.advocatemag.com/2020/08/19/george-mason-9/, printed out 9/13/2020. This magazine is one of four neighborhood magazines published by Advocate Magazine of Dallas, Texas, https://lakewood.advocatemag.com/about-us/contact/ printed out 11/25/2020.


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Rev George Masons essay in defense of a white racialized landscape. by Edward H. Sebesta - Issuu