Foundations of Inequity

 

"These seeds produced a myth of racial superiority that both determined America's founding and defined its identity.  This myth then gave way to America's grand narrative of exceptionalism." --Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas in Stand Your Ground

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Psalms 11:3 NRSV)

Forums for civil discourse and critical engagement with the meaningful issues of our time are nearly non-existent.  I had hoped the great universities and colleges of the US would remain places of genuine inquiry and produce graduates who were refined in the art of critical thinking.  More and more often, education has been co-opted by political forces who attempt to frame all thinking according to its own whims.  Recently, numerous institutions of higher education have sought to repress protests, often violently, rather than encourage the civil exchange of ideas or facilitate true dialog around complex issues.

On of the great tenants of democracy, is the freedom of speech that encourages participation and voice in the running of the government on every level.  This means that we may not agree on what is being said, but democracy vehemently protects the right to speak and be heard.  With any right, there are responsibilities towards one another.  One of the responsibilities that is attached to the right to free speech is that of restricting speech that seeks to harm, defraud, or cause panic.  

So, here we are in February 2024, celebrating Black history month, and there is an active repression of Black history education, all in the name of protecting strongly preferred historical narratives, that ultimately serves to promote racial superiority of some and imply racial inferiority of all others. Not only is there an active movement to silence the history and voice of most persons of color, but it is often done in the name of freedom of speech.

44 of the 50 states have passed laws banning critical race theory (CRT) in education, without ever defining it.  In place of defining CRT, anything that critically examines racial relationships, including history that demonstrates the racialized and racist foundations of the United States, is substituted. 

61 years ago, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr wrote:

 "For too long the depth of racism in American life has been underestimated.  The surgery necessary to extract it is necessarily complex and detailed.  As a beginning it is necessary to X-ray our history and reveal the full extent of the disease." (Why Can't We Wait, 1963).

 Without exploring the roots of racism, it will never be confronted.  Without interrogation of our storylines, we simply treat the symptoms of our illness without seeking a diagnosis in which to treat. It's like having headaches from severe hypertension (high blood pressure) and treating the pain of the headache but never acknowledging the role hypertension plays in the headaches or developing solutions directed at the root or core problem.  

The United States story begins on the foundation of racial superiority, demonstrated by violent and brutal genocide against its Indigenous people.  Again, Martin Luther King Jr teaches us:

"From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial superiority. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population.  Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade.  Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode.  Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it." (Why Can't We Wait, 1963)

In order to understand where we are, we must understand our founding storylines.  All cultures develop mythologies which are stories (some true, some folk story, and some untrue) that give that culture meaning and explains the values of that particular culture.  Our myths help us to identify our heroes, and those heroes epitomize what we value most and what activities are most often rewarded and admired.  An excellent example is that of the "taming of the wild west". Cowboys who fight Indigenous people and "brave" settlers occupying land that is often stolen is spun as people protecting themselves as they exercise their right to pursue life, liberty and happiness.  At no point are we given insight into the slaughter of entire first nations.  In the American myth of the chosen nation, where we understand the land in North America as ours by divine right and use Biblical texts, such as the book of Joshua as justification to forcefully, and with total disregard for its inhabitants, use the land for European and European-American interests. These mythologies are normalized and to question them is to have your patriotism challenged. 

Concepts like the doctrine of discovery and ideological constructs like manifest destiny are not culturally neutral but contributors to ethnic, racial, and cultural injustice.  They also contribute to the formation of mythologies which are nearly impossible to remove and are given credibility through cultural and civic institutions and communities. On the other hand, specific attempt to eliminate and replace histories that detail not only the brutality and violence that people groups have experienced, but their resilience, heroes, and the stories that give meaning, is cultural genocide.  

Not sharing the history of Indigenous people as a part of American history in our mandated American history requirement perpetuates the genocidal activities that continue over the past 600 years.  The story of residential boarding schools where Indigenous generations were forcefully separated from their land, culture, language, dress, way of life, faith practices, and family connections as a means of "civilizing" the "savages" (language taken directly from the Declaration of Independence, see above) is yet another horrific and tragic practice that we ignore, normalize, and downplay.  Taylor Sheridan's TV series "1923" portrays the story of Teonna who experiences sadistic treatment in a Catholic boarding school, but eventually escapes.  It is one of the few narratives that I have seen that centers the perspective of the Indigenous students and their resilience (the 2017 movie Indian Horse was another).

The fact that we allow preferred narratives against indigenous people and communities of color, perpetuates the pain that is inflicted.  By not insisting that our children understand history and learn to critically examine the history that is given to them, we participate in continued violence.

"Unexamined opinions have a way of becoming unexamined decisions, which have a way of becoming unexamined policies.  To not slow down, check myself, or poke around to research whether or not what I'm saying, sharing, and getting worked up over is true is to be the target market, the easy prey, of disinformation culture." (David Dark, We Become What We Normalize, 2023)

 We literally become what we accept.  To accept racist or racialized narrative and constructs uncritically, is to be the conduit of their expression.  As a Black Baby Boomer/Gen X child (depends on which date is used), I cannot tell you how many times White acquaintances and playmates would invite me to play but first would give me the disclaimer about "Dad" who is a really great man but just never grew up around Black people" and who may, in the course of my visit, utter the N-word, share a racial joke, or express a stereotype that typically described Black people as unintelligent, lazy, and of poor moral character.  Yet they would be upset when I would leave and never come back.  Or the complaints by White parents who expressed concerns on why I was in the top tract (my junior high had classes by tracts: gifted, normal, slow-learner -- using the language of the day), typically attributing it to "affirmative action".  There was a sense of entitlement of some White families that couldn't possibly understand that Blacks were actually not cognitively and academically inferior.  Rather than interrogate their entitlement, they would rather assume that I had some kind of unfair advantage.

The fact that my White peer's parents had not been exposed to Black history to see examples of strong, resilient, intelligent and innovative people helps understand their racism, but it does not excuse it, particularly when Black history, Latino history, Indigenous history, Asian history and European history are all parts of American history, In fact, it requires significant work to understand history exclusively through the lens of Whiteness. (Whiteness does not mean race but the state of being where White is the standard of what is best.  I know many African Americans, Asian-Americans and Latin Americans who struggle with internalized feelings of inferiority)

What I am about to say is incredibly cliche but illustrates a point.  I grew up embedded in an African American family/community, living in a multi-ethnic neighborhood of a highly segregated city in Ohio, whose best friend growing up is a White man, whose parents came from West Virginia.  I spent a ton of my childhood with my best friend and his family.  Despite a history of not being proximate to Black people, they always made me feel like I was part of the family to the point of speaking up against racist and racially insensitive actions in the city and neighborhood.  My best friend and his parents, learned to challenge the dominant narrative, precisely because they had experienced the consequences of ongoing damaging narratives diminishing those with Appalachian backgrounds.  While they would never claim to know the fullness of the Black experience, they were not limited by the narratives that sought to promote racial polarization.

I share that part of my journey, not to gain credibility (Hey, some of my best friends are White...) but to illustrate that people have been and are challenging the narratives that seek to increase the ethnic and racial polarization in the United States.  However, it begins by looking at the historical and cultural foundations.  Scripture asks what people are to do, when the foundations are destroyed (Psalms 11:3).  What are people to do when many (not all) foundations of society, culture, law, and education were built upon incredibly flawed, and using language of Scripture: sinful foundations?

Scripture is clear that God desires us to live in harmony or Shalom. Indigenous Theologian Randy Woodley describes shalom this way: "Shalom is an ancient Israeli construct concretizing practical love to be expressed through structures and systems." (Decolonizing Evangelicalism, 2020).  When you gather diverse people together, misunderstanding and conflict will arise.  However, the differences must be subjugated by our identity as fellow children of God who show the world that we are brothers and sisters by our love (Jn 13:34-35, Gal 3:27-28).  It is that love that rejects the fact that someone culturally distinct is more or less valuable in the eyes of God. 

"The relationships of dominance, control, and coercion we maintain with our own bodies are mirrored in society, perpetuating the lie that some bodies are more valuable than others--privileging certain bodies while punishing others.  Loving our bodies matters because only then can we accept and love the bodies of others. Only then can we truly fight for a just and equitable society." --Kat Armas in Sacred Belonging

Fighting for a just and equitable society is the goal of anti-racist advocacy. Anti-racism is not a political buzzword, but a catch all term for advocacy that seeks to destroy racism.  There is a radicality to promoting transformative justice.  Radical, coming from the word family that implies root, means that justice becomes transformational when it provides healing and wholeness to all involved by correcting the root problem.  The root problem in the US was a foundation built on narratives of racial superiority and inferiority as well as social economic exploitation.  The first step in transformative justice journey is an accurate rendering of truth.  Yale Theologian Dr. Miroslav Volf states that "Truthfulness is a form of justice and an indispensable precondition of reconciliation."(End of Memory, 2006).  

Dr. Kwok Pui-Lan states that by 2050, only 1/5 of all Christians in the world will be non-Hispanic and White but yet the vast majority of Theology and Christian History teachers and textbooks will come from White Eurocentric sources.  It doesn't mean that the history or the theology is inaccurate, but more likely that it is incomplete.

This Black history month, devote yourself to learning history, particularly from the voices that dominant narratives seek to silence or speak for.  Take a course of implicit bias (we all have them) which helps to identify unspoken narratives which influence your perceptions.  Question any assumption that grants you exceptionalism or superiority.  Exercise your prophetic gift to speak truth and let the truth dismantle the walls of every false narrative that promotes polarization in your sphere of influence.  

"To prophesy is not to predict an outcome but rather to identify concrete evils.  To prophesy deliverance is not to call for some otherworldly paradise but rather to generate enough faith, hope, and love to sustain the human possibility for more freedom.  For me, to be a Christian is not to opt for some cheap grace, trite comfort, or childish consolation but rather to confront the darker sides, and the hum plights, of societies and souls with the weak armor of compassion and justice." --Cornel West in Prophesy Deliverance.

May God bless you.