You can't save a drowning person if they believe they can swim.
A person's confidence in their belief provides a protection from self-doubt.
The enemy of any belief is doubt.
This is why belief is fortified through a structure of rituals.
You daily repeat a ritual to remind yourself of your commitment to your belief.
Any doubt means you have slipped up.
You left the belief; the belief did not leave you.
A daily affirmation, a daily repeating of sacred words, enshrines the structure of belief in your daily ritual.
Consequently, generally speaking, most beliefs do not lose any followers.
They live, worship, and believe within the protection of like-minded practitioners.
Racism is a belief.
Racism is a belief.
People live, worship, and believe alongside of their fellow practitioners that the white race is solely responsible for the history of this world.
Racism does not lose many followers.
Racists daily use words of discrimination against the race, gender, sexual orientation that they know are not as important as they are.
The believers in white apartheid have no doubt in their correctness.
Their faith has been given to them by their Bible, which is the word of God.
God created Adam, and he was white.
Racist's belief tells them that the Bible is the story of the white race fighting against the forces of evil led by dark-skinned people.
They have no doubt.
You can't save a racist when they know that white equals power.
There is no doubt.
For centuries upon centuries, racism has been fed and grown in wealthy homes and poor.
It is a structure that gives comfort against the harsh realities of life.
Some of us liberals believe we can rescue the racist.
But like a person drowning in a river, if the lifeguard is not careful, they too will be pulled down to the bottom and die.
Racists can't hear us call them back to shore.
Racists can't see that too many people have died.
Racists feel it in their hearts and minds that they are right and we are wrong.
Half this country voted for racism in November of 2020.
Half this country voted for the protection of the Confederacy.
Half this country voted for the separation of immigrant children from their asylum-seeking families.
Half of this country voted for the discrimination against women and gays.
They don't want to be rescued because their water is fine.
They see no danger.
They don't see the dark water rising.
They don't feel the riptide pulling them down.
You can't tell a person they're wrong when they believe they are right.
Racism is a belief.
These senators, congresspeople are defending the white power structure in America.
They are willing to burn the Constitution to keep that structure in place.
This is what we who believe in the Constitution's heart are standing against.
We truly believe in the words that all people are created equal.
So what do we do?
We listen to wise words on how to travel together to the beloved community.
We resist evil.
We make friends across the divide.
We defeat injustice that makes victims of both the target and the actor.
We suffer hate with dignity and grace.
We love, not hate.
We know that the universe bends towards justice every time.
Every time.
That's what we will do.
Peace
DFrey
