Racism is a belief.
It is founded on a biblical principle in Western society.
More specifically, in the evangelical interpretation of what the followers believe is the divine word of God.
The Old Testament, taken from the Jewish faith, the Torah, was Christianized to be believed to be infallible.
It is the literal truth.
So Yahweh, God, laid down the rules to Bronze Age society and mandated their truth.
Everything a place and a place for everything.
Each person is born into a set of circumstances that God has prescribed for their life.
To wish for and to want anything better for your life is a sin against the will of God.
A poor person wanting to have money.
Sin.
A woman wanting not to be beaten by her husband.
Sin.
A slave wanting freedom.
Sin.
To change your life is to change the will of God, which is a sin.
We are not to want more than what we are given.
This is why in the Charles Dickens tale of Oliver Twist, when the orphan boy Oliver asks for more gruel, he is seen as a sinner.
He is depraved, going against the will of God.
No matter if he is hungry, starving, wanting more than where God has put you is evil.
Racism is a belief.
To paraphrase Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most racist hour in America is that hour in church every Sunday.
The second most racist time is the hour that proceeds in Sunday school.
I was raised Evangelical, a Quaker.
I can affirm what Dr. King has said.
The tenants, the foundations of racism, are taught in our places of protestant, evangelical houses of worship to the faithful as the foundation of society.
More than once, I listened to the following tale from the pew.
Noah built a boat.
He and all the animals, including his family, his sons, and their wives, rode out the storm.
When the land was dry, Noah was thirsty and decided to make wine.
He planted the seeds, grew the grapes, made himself some new wine, got drunk, and passed out.
While he was passed out, his sons performed some unnatural acts upon the sleeping Noah.
God got upset.
He visited a curse upon the three sons of Noah.
Upon Ham, he cursed him with being black.
That's why we have black people today.
Their blackness is an outward sign of their inherited sin.
That is why black people as lesser in the eyes of God than white people.
Do you understand the problem?
Racism is a belief.
Whtie religious people are defending their faith in God and the order of the universe when they are standing up for racism.
To present any kind of rational argument before a racist is useless.
Have you ever tried to get someone to give up their religion?
Give up drinking drugs?
Unless they see their problem, it's impossible to elicit a change in mind and heart.
Once a person is a racist, their fate is set in granite tablets.
Like weeds in a garden, racists will always be with us.
But we don't have to let the weeds take over the garden of humanity.
We can keep racism in check.
We, the people, have that ability.
That power.
Because together, we are stronger than any Bronze Age story.
Together we have the power to demonstrate a better way of life.
A life where harmony makes the very stones sing.
As night is as to day, the light of justice, of freedom for all must rule our lives.
There is a kind of philosophical idea that we need opposites to understand what is right.
The beauty of life is to see the wonder, the miracle of the diversity of humanity.
All wanting the same things.
Life, liberty, freedom, and love.
Love asks more, never less.
Add love, find hope.
Peace
DFrey
