Tag: racism

Posted on

We hold these truths to be self evident

Thus begins the Declaration of Independence that we Americans celebrate on July 4th.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-

Thomas Jefferson

When Jefferson penned these words he was speaking as a free white man. He owned enslaved Africans whom he didn’t consider equals. These black men and women weren’t included nor were their indigenous brothers and sisters of Native Americans ancestry who roamed the North American continent.

Jefferson saw these other Americans as members of separate races and therefore not a part of the self evident truths which he so eloquently wrote about and which we proclaim each year. I’ve come to believe that there are not separate races but one race.

‘The idea of race as a biological construct makes it easy to believe that many of the divisions we see in society are natural. But race, like gender, is socially constructed.”

DiAngelo, Robin J.. White Fragility (p. 15). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.

I would have been affronted by such an allegation a few years ago but I have come to see and believe that I live in a culture that privileges me as a white man. Lately our country has become torn apart once again over allegations of police brutality and white supremacy. Protesters proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” have angered millions of Americans who push back with “All Lives Matter.” White folks are blinded to the truth of over four hundred years of oppression. I hope that this year is a clarion call to end the blight of racism and move forward as sisters and brothers of the human race so that we may fulfill the vision of Dr. King.

“And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” — Martin Luther King Jr.

Posted on

All the statues are white

I’m at St. Mary Parish in Arcade, NY for Eucharistic Adoration and I’m facing a statue of St. Joseph. I’ve come here many times but today I’m struck by the flesh tones of the statue. I grew up in this parish. I served Mass here on this altar many times and I never really appreciated that all the depictions of the of the stained glass, statues, paintings and even the crucifix are of a white person. I’m currently enrolled in a class at Houghton College. It’s “Racism and American Protestant Christianity.” One of my classmates shared on our class Moodle site that they had grown up in a segregated community and attended segregated schools. That’s when the scales fell from my eyes. I too grew up in such a community. We weren’t segregated by law but by the fact we had no non-whites in our church or our school. Our church was for white people and we didn’t even know it. We worshipped a white God. Did I ever think of God as anything other than white. No of course not. How could I?

St. Joseph the White Carpenter
Posted on

Are you an antiracist?

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Excellent! A must read for anyone who’s serious about understanding America’s original sin. The author pulls no punches regardless of which side of the color line you are on. He exposes the problem of racism and its roots.

History is clear. Sacrifice, uplift, persuasion, and education have not eradicated, are not eradicating, and will not eradicate racist ideas, let alone racist policies. Power will never self-sacrifice away from its self-interest. Power cannot be persuaded away from its self-interest. Power cannot be educated away from its self-interest. Those who have the power to abolish racial discrimination have not done so thus far, and they will never be persuaded or educated to do so as long as racism benefits them in some way.

Ibram X. Kendi




Posted on

America’s Original Sin

I’ve been reading James Cone’s, The Cross and the Lynching Tree.” It’s a powerful book and one that everyone in the United States ought to read. I thought I knew how much black folks had suffered but I really had a very shallow understanding of the depth and the length of their oppression. I’m not really late to the game. I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s and as I’ve written previously my father was deeply prejudiced and that colored my view of the world. However I was a fan of Dr. Martin Luther King and I followed his work with interest.

One of the stories in this book that was left out of my worldview then was the story of a young boy who was murdered when I was not quite three years old. The story and my ignorance of it are clear examples of white privilege. I never heard anything of Emmett Till in my schooling.

Because he had whistled at a white woman and reportedly said “bye baby” as he departed from a store on August 24, 1955, Emmett Till was picked up four days later around 2: 00 a.m., beaten beyond recognition, shot in the head, and thrown in the Tallahatchie River, “weighted down with a heavy gin fan.”[ 2]”

— The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
https://a.co/4RKEi4d

Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this book. It’s well written and extremely well documented.

Posted on

There must be a better way

Last night a man in Buffalo New York was brutalized by the police. He’s a man with a long history of peacemaking and peaceful protest. He was standing on a sidewalk attempting to peacefully engage police officers when one of them brutally shoved him causing him to lose his balance and fall. As he fell the older gentleman hit his head on the sidewalk and newsreel footage of the incident showed blood running out of his right ear as he lay on the ground. The video was captured by WBFO in Buffalo and in the audio you can hear someone asking for an ambulance for the victim. There is a terse reply that there is an EMT present presumably with the police.

Last week George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis Police. Breonna Taylor was killed on March 13 in Louisville, another brutal killing that didn’t have to be. She would have been twenty-seven today. All of these are hateful crimes. The officers in Minneapolis have been arrested and charged, two officers in Buffalo have been suspended. No one has been charged in Breonna’s death. The list of killings by law enforcement in the United States is staggering. The first reaction in all of these incidents is retribution and while that might bring temporary relief to the grieving it is not the solution. We can’t break the cycle of violence with more violence. “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind,” according to Gandhi.

What are the real solutions to all this violence? How can we turn the corner on racism and fear of the other? We need a conversion experience en masse.

Posted on

#BlackLivesMatter #GeorgeFloyd

If you’re an American and you’re not sick of racism and bigotry in this country then perhaps you’re part of the problem. I grew up with a racist who threw one of my high school friends out of our house and called him a black bastard. My friend’s fault was that he had beat my Dad in a game of table tennis. My father would not allow me to play Motown music nor allow me to watch the NBA on our television because according to him I was a “n-word” lover. That was fifty years ago. I bore the brunt of my father’s prejudice because I liked Martin Luther King Jr.

A couple of weeks ago we saw men armed to the teeth with assault rifles and more trying to intimidate the governor of Michigan and members of their legislative body. What did the police do? Damn little. A couple of days ago a black man was apprehended in Minnesota for a non-violent crime and in the process of his arrest he was handcuffed and then choked to death by the police. This was recorded and witnessed by other people. Following that there was civil unrest and the police showed up with riot gear and tear gas.

There is a multi-tiered system of justice in the United States. If you’re white you can show up at a state capitol, intimidate folks you disagree with and not even get a slap on the wrist. But, if you’re black and you protest the murder of an innocent man you get police in riot gear and tear gas.

Posted on

What if..

The following brief article came in today’s mail from a friend.

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class? What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said “I do” to? What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization? What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard? What if Obama were a member of the “Keating 5”? What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?  This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference. — Kelvin LaFond, Fort Worth

Posted on

Back of the bus

When you grow up white in middle America you have a much different perspective from a guy or gal who grew up black or brown in the ghetto. Rev. Wright is correct in saying America is a racist country. There is no doubt about it. America is also an ethnically diverse country in which most if not all ethnic groups have been discriminated against. I’ve seen racism in myself and its not pretty, but it’s there. Until we see that we are all racists there can be no hope of change. Until we can see that we are all flawed and embrace those flaws we have no hope of redemption. Until we can move away from us vs. them we will repeat this tragic cycle again and again.

As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, “That’s a terrible statement,” I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you: We’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, “You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had … more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

– Mike Huckabee, offering his perspective on the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (Source: MSNBC)