Gerth: Don't give your money to a for-profit organization to wash away the sins of racism

When the Catholic Church tried to sell indulgences back in the 1500s, Martin Luther called out the bishops and posted his objections on the church door.

Craig Greenberg ain’t no Martin Luther.

In fact, when a group announced it would sell indulgences to white women who are still harboring guilt from what their great-great-great-great-grandparents may have done to African Americans 150 years ago or even what their grandparents may have done 50 years ago, Greenberg and his administration decided to pony up $20,000 of your money.

In what has to be the oddest story of the Greenberg administration, we’ve come to find out that the city is sponsoring an event in November in which wealthy white women are paying $1,500 a pop ($750 if they registered during a sale) to go to the Brown Hotel to wash their souls of racism.

According to the event's website, women who attend would be freed of “long-held guilt and shame."

You can do a lot of soul-cleansing for $1,500 a pop − plus taxpayers’ 20 grand.

White women are also supposed to come away with ideas about how they can build a "racial equity legacy plan" to help change the world.

According to the bizarre story written by The Courier-Journal’s Josh Wood and Eleanor McCrary, the RAARE Woman Collective Live event will be held Nov. 2-4, and it’s being put on by a for-profit company that is going to school white women with $1,500 lying around and gathering dust (read that “rich white women”) about equity.

RAARE stands for Radical Action Advancing Racial Equity.

Don’t get me wrong.

Equity is important. I write about it pretty often here.

It’s got to do with the idea that our forebears did some horrible things to Black people that are still affecting their descendants today – things like not paying them for their work, things like redlining so they couldn’t develop generational wealth, things like refusing them good educations.

And it’s the idea that simply giving Black people a level playing field isn’t enough because that still leaves them far behind where they would have been if we began treating them as our equal much earlier.

This doesn’t mean we should all feel guilty for what our great-whatevers did all those years ago – you should reserve guilt for things you did. This guilt-by-association thing is what the right wingers complain about when they moan about critical race theory.

The fact is critical race theory shouldn’t cause you to feel guilty for the past sins of others. It simply teaches how those past sins are still affecting people today.

And it suggests ways to make things fair.

The thing is, white ladies, you don’t fix that by paying $1,500 indulgences to a for-profit group.

And you certainly don’t fix that by paying $20,000 in indulgences from city coffers – especially when the group would likely have never gotten a cent from the city if Rachel Greenberg, the wife of the mayor, wasn’t on the group’s advisory board.

Oops.

Didn’t I mention that?

Wood and McCrary reported that Rachel Greenberg, who has raised eyebrows by having an office in Metro Hall and having a parking spot close to the building and who apparently has a staff even though the mayor’s office denies it, is on RAARE’s advisory board.

Craig Greenberg still hasn't told us what her role is or what her responsibilities are.

(NEWS FLASH: When I checked the RAARE website Friday, Rachel Greenberg's name and photo had been removed.)

Joi McAtee, the executive director of the city’s Office of Equity, said she didn’t even know Greenberg was on the group’s advisory board until after she committed the city to write a check.

C’mon.

RAARE?

Reclaiming Affluent Americans’ Remorse Economically?

Here’s the thing – White women don’t need to pay $1,500 a pop to learn about racism and racial equity.

They could learn all about it by sitting in the back of Ricky Jones' class at the University of Louisville for a day or two.

And the city certainly doesn’t need to cough up $20,000 to a for-profit organization that the mayor’s wife has ties to – especially when there are so many organizations that are on the ground in Black neighborhoods that could use that money to seek racial equity.

Money like that is better spent with groups like the Louisville Urban League, which has long been active in Louisville’s Black neighborhoods providing social services and learning opportunities.

Or you could send the money to Simmons College of Kentucky or find a scholarship at another college in the area that is earmarked for Black or brown students.

Give it to the NAACP, which for years has pushed to better the lives of African Americans here and around the country. There are plenty of good nonprofits around.

But don’t give it to a for-profit company simply to tell you it’s not your fault.

Heck. I can tell you that. And you don’t have to pay me any indulgences.

Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville firm wants white women to pay to wash away sins of racism