Tag: White Privilege

More Evidence For the Practical Importance of Critical Race Theory

Colin Gordon is a history professor at the University of Iowa who specializes in the history and long-term effects of American public policy.

Professor Colin Gordon

Professor Gordon recently wrote a highly informative article for Dissent Magazine which asks the question, “Who Segregated America?”

In this article he demonstrates the pernicious role played by private business interests in pioneering the highly discriminatory methods that would eventually be used by public, government policies to permanently entrench racial segregation through America’s neighborhoods.

Here is one more example of why an understanding of American racism and its dissection though tools like Critical Race Theory are so important to our educational system.

Frankly, it is impossible to understand either our history or our current racial predicament without it.

Below is an excerpt of “Who Segregated America?”:

Federal housing policies contributed to the segregation of American cities in the twentieth century. But it was private interests that led the way.

Recent scholarship and reporting on racial disparities in the United States have emphasized the role of public policy—especially federal policy—in the creation of what the 1968 Kerner Commission famously dubbed “two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” This is especially true of housing policy. Ira Katznelson’s When Affirmative Action Was White (2005) skewers the stark exclusion of African-American veterans from the benefits of the GI Bill. Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law (2017) offers a damning synthesis on how the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) embraced Jim Crow. More recently, the digitization of the infamous “residential security” redlining maps prepared by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the late 1930s has spurred academic interest in the connections between the HOLC’s bluntly racial assessments and contemporary disparities.

This condemnation of federal policy is certainly warranted. Even the constraints of the New Deal coalition (in which the Democratic majority was, as Katznelson observes, a “strange marriage of Sweden and South Africa”) cannot excuse the FHA’s slavish deference to racial prejudice in private realty. One can and should expect more of a public agency, wielding billions in housing subsidies in one hand and the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause in the other, than a set of underwriting guidelines that “could well have been culled from the Nuremberg Laws,” as housing activist Charles Abrams observed in 1955.

But is it true, as Rothstein’s subtitle suggests, that “government segregated America”? Not really. As new work on the scope of private racial restrictions underscores, racial segregation in American cities (especially Northern and border cities) was largely accomplished by private interests and private action long before the FHA spent a dime or the HOLC opened its first bottle of red ink.

Race-restrictive deed covenants and agreements reserved the occupancy of individual lots or entire residential subdivisions to those (in the phrasing preferred by developers in St. Louis County) “wholly of the Caucasian Race.” The result was a sort of pointillist apartheid, filled in parcel by parcel, block by block, and subdivision by subdivision, on a scale sufficient to quarantine existing pockets of African-American residency and mark new developments as largely off limits. . .

(Observe in the following graphic how “Race-restrictive deed covenants and agreements reserved the occupancy of individual lots or entire residential subdivisions to those (in the phrasing preferred by developers in St. Louis County) ‘wholly of the Caucasian Race.'” In other words, private racial regulators orchestrated the creation of black ghettos and white suburbs with all the damaging consequences.)

. . . More to the point, the FHA and other federal housing policies were always—and remain—little more than a poorly regulated trough for private housing interests. They exist not to secure homeownership but to sustain the residential construction and home finance industries with direct subsidies, socialized risk, and tax breaks. In that role, they have always parroted the goals, motives, and prejudices of private interests and deferred to their assessment of what boosted—or threatened—the value of private property.

The segregation of the American city was conceived, accomplished, and justified largely by private action in response to the demographic upheaval of the Great Migration. Federal housing policies unconscionably doubled down on both segregation and its assumptions, but the damage was already done.

Read the entire article here.

Check Out My Essay About Critical Race Theory at Comment Magazine

Today the online version of Comment magazine published my essay about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the conflict is has generated in American society, but especially in US evangelicalism.

This essay began as a review of the best-selling book by Voddie Baucham, Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe, a book that is highly critical of CRT describing it as a major threat to the Christian church.

What began as a simple book review evolved into a larger essay discussing the broader historical and social context of our current culture-wars over CRT.

You can find my essay HERE. The title is “Among the Tailings of Southern Segregation and Western Imperialism.”

I appreciate the editorial staff at Comment for their willingness to publish this article, as well as for their acute editorial eye.

I hope you will find my essay helpful, educational, and suggestive of the changes needed today in the American church.

Have your friends read it too!

Is Mega-Church Pastor John MacArthur a Racist?

I recently came across this interview with the well-known US, mega-

Pastor John MacArthur

church pastor, John MacArthur. He is being asked about Critical Race Theory, which he describes as THE greatest danger to the evangelical church in the last 100 years.

Really?

Check it out below. My thoughts appear afterwards:

First, the majority of MacArthur’s remarks are, frankly, incoherent. He is rambling. There is no logic to anything he says. He is simply making “authoritative” declarations, without any apparent logical connection linking them together, while expecting his listeners to take him seriously.

Apparently, MacArthur has basked in his status as an adored, authoritarian mega-church preacher for far too long.

Second, MacArthur is obviously a dedicated American individualist, as are  most evangelicals in this country. He speaks strictly in terms of individual sins and personal responsibility. But that is only half the picture. Every society is a collective enterprise in which the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

Thus, social evils are always sins of the collective. And the collective is only changed through new legislation, restructuring, and advocacy for a renewed type of social conscience. MacArthur is either unwilling or incapable of recognizing this fact. Thus, his comments have little relevance to people working to improve the broken social structures in which we live.

To pursue justice within a society, it is not only possible but necessary to address the problems of BOTH individual AND corporate, collective sins. Like far too many evangelicals, MacArthur cannot or will not acknowledge this fact.

Third, MacArthur believes that the current controversies over “social justice” (SJ) within evangelicalism pose the most dangerous threat to the church in the past century!

Frankly, that assertion strikes me as a remarkable “chicken little” type of over statement, to put it mildly.

Why does he believe the social justice movement is so dangerous? Because, (a) in his view, social justice is actually socialism, the eternal boogey-man for American conservatives. [Does he honestly not understand that history has been filled with godly Christian socialists?]  (b) He further claims that SJ is simply a “euphemism for equality of outcomes.” (c) “Critical Race Theory only wants to destroy,” “to abolish everything.” And (d) CRT insists that individuals are not responsible for evil; only society bears that responsibility.

MacArthur’s claims are nothing more than fear-mongering falsehoods. Frankly, he does not know what he is talking about, plain and simple. Each of these points is demonstrably false.

CRT uncovers the many ways in which western society, constructed by white Europeans, has legalized an unequal social system that has historically granted significant advantages to white folks while denying them to people of color. That sort of system needs to be torn down in same way that slavery was torn down by Christian politicians in 19th century England.

Every follower of Jesus, who sees every fellow human being as made in the Image of God, should want to see all racial privilege and systemic inequalities abolished! There is nothing the least bit radical about any of this!

The fact that SJ is now “dividing the church” simply reveals how deeply paternalistic, reactionary conservatism — more specifically, white, paternalistic, reactionary conservatism — is embedded within American evangelicalism!

It is always difficult for those who rest easy in the enjoyment of their social privileges to recognize, confess, and repent of their ignorance and indifference to the difficulties created for others by the very system from which they have always benefited.

I do not know John MacArthur’s heart.  But I will say that he is a misguided, reactionary white man whose “criticisms” of SJ and CRT are very similar to the arguments used by Southern segregationists as they combatted the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and 70s.

Leaders like John MacArthur need to be ignored when they address important topics with such arrogance and self-satisfaction.

After NFL Race Norming Exposed, Will People Stop Denying the Reality of Systemic Racism?

The National Football League recently announced its plans to stop the practice known as “race norming” after two black football players filed a civil rights suit.

Race norming has long been a part of the settlement process when retired players filed for disability benefits due to the brain damage we now know is

Pittsburgh Steelers’ Najeh Davenport is one of the players suing the NFL over its practice of race norming. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

caused by multiple concussions.

After years of resistance and legal wrangling, the NFL began a compensation program to help these players deal with the medical expenses and life adjustments made necessary by their brain damage.

Race norming refers to the NFL’s decision that, in calculating this disability compensation, black players began their careers with lower cognitive abilities than white players. As ESPN reports, “The practice had made it harder for Black players to show a [cognitive] deficit and qualify for an award.”

That racist assumption systematically reduced the severity of claims made by black players as compared to white players.

Hopefully, the NFL will remain true to its word by not only abolishing race norming but by also reimbursing all the black players who received inadequate settlements in the past.

Race norming is yet another clear example of systemic racism at work in American society.

As far as I am concerned, these revelations about the NFL’s race norming practices puts a big, big score on the side of Critical Race Theory, which clarifies the many subtle ways in which systemic racism is embedded throughout our society.

Yet, far too many in the country continue to deny the existence of systemic racism! While evangelical Christianity has deepened its condemnation of Critical Race Theory.

The contradiction on display here is as palpable as it is repulsive.

Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from this particular  intersection of events is the stark exposure of white evangelicalism’s moral turpitude.

The evangelical church is more concerned with fighting its culture wars while tilting at secular windmills than it is in following Jesus. For Jesus taught us to confess our sins and repent, daily.

Confession requires introspection and honest self-examination. Confession means that we ask the Holy Spirit to reveal our faults and then listen as He speaks to us through others who recognize the habits we have closed our eyes to.

This story of race norming in the NFL ought to be the final nail in the coffin for all those — I am thinking especially of the Southern Baptist Convention, where members will reschedule Sunday services around the afternoon football game — ethically calloused and racially obtuse Christians who refuse to recognize the facts of systemic racism in America.

Evangelicalism’s silence on this score is its own condemnation.

 

 

 

David Doel Invites Us to Share in the Grief and Anger of Dante Wright’s Family

Canadian reporter David Doel of The Rational National shares the speech made by Dante Wright’s aunt at the family press conference held yesterday.

We all need to listen to her. Hear why she not only grieves the death of her nephew but is angry over the way he died. She points out details in the shooter’s actions that raised my eyebrows, too.

Afterwards, Mr. Doel goes on to provide excellent commentary, placing Mr. Wright’s murder in its historical context. His challenge must be taken seriously by everyone, please.

 

 

 

What is Intersectionality?

Scientific researchers still discover new, previously unknown species of animals as they explore our world. Believe it or not, hundreds a new species were discovered in 2020 alone.

Each new discovery requires study, weighing, measuring, and analysis in order to figure out where to locate this new creature within the current taxonomy of known animal life.

The biological description required is not inventing anything truly new, but is merely describing a creature that has always existed. The animal is only “new” to us.

No sensible person would read a scientific report describing a newly discovered creature and say, “I don’t believe this! I have never seen such a creature before; therefore, it cannot be real. The sphere of my current understanding encircles all that can be truly known. And my understanding does not include this!”

We would call that person a Luddite, an anti-intellectual, an obscurantist. Certainly, such a person has no business running or making decisions for educational institutions like Christian seminaries!

But, alas, certain qualities of “conservativism” never change. That’s why they are conservative.

Knee-jerk reactions against new ideas – especially if those ideas are developed by the dreaded “non-Christian secularists” – have always characterized conservatism, whether politically or religiously.

As I continue my series discussing Critical Race Theory (see the previous post here), you may recall that I have defined this Theory according to three analytical grids: White Privilege, Systemic Racism, and Intersectionality.

This post will briefly discuss Intersectionality. (For more explanation of Intersectionality, I suggest looking here and here for starters.)

The principle of Intersectionality recognizes that each person represents the intersection of different individual characteristics. In western society, the most pertinent characteristics are gender (male/female; I am not discussing transgenderism in this post), race/ethnicity (white, black, Asian, Arab, etc.), and class (rich, middle-class, poor, educated, uneducated).

Each individual instantiates, or incarnates, a different combination of these various characteristics. These distinctions are important to recognize because each of them, in their many combinations, can bring a different range of social and economic status to the individual.

For example, for several summers during college my wife worked in Alaska salmon canneries. When I recently explained Intersectionality to her, she immediately recognized it from the working conditions and payment schedule in Alaskan canneries.

She described a very rigid hierarchy of power and privilege, with white men at the top (with the most authority and highest wages) and Eskimo women at the bottom (with the least authority and lowest wages). Ranked in between (I don’t recall the exact order) were Japanese men, white women, and Eskimo men.

It’s not hard to see how the intersection of race and gender (and perhaps class) determined very different treatment for different people who were all doing basically the same work.

So, Intersectionality merely recognizes the obvious: that in many respects African-American women have had a much harder row to hoe than white women, and both have faced many more difficulties than white men.

It recognizes that white applicants from wealthy families of alumni have a far easier time getting into Ivy League schools than white (or black) applicants from lower-class families who are first generation college applicants. (That’s the reason for affirmative action, by the way.)

(I am reminded of the book The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein, which explains how the leaders of Ivy League universities insisted that the residential neighborhoods surrounding their campuses must all be segregated to exclude black residents.)

I could continue with more examples, but I think you get the point.

The principle of Intersectionality, as a tool in Critical Race Theory, simply describes the obvious. The theory does not create anything new. It only points out reality and tries to describe discriminatory processes more accurately. In this respect, Intersectionality helps to shed light on the complexity of Systemic Racism.

At the descriptive, analytical level I suggest that Christians ought to be thankful for the insights of Critical Race Theory and its application of Intersectionality to our social norms and relationships.

Every Christian organization and denomination ought to be applying these analytical tools to itself and learning from its own history, as we all work at understanding and correcting race/class/gender relations within the Body of Christ.

However, as with my previous posts on this subject, I also think that Intersectionality can be misused (Joe Carter provides a good analysis of such misuse in his article, “What Christians Should Know About Intersectionality. I think he gets it right when he writes, “The problem with intersectionality arises when it ceases to be an insight and becomes an ideology.”)

Intersectionality focuses on “power relationships” — who has power, who lacks power, who is the oppressor, and who is oppressed.

Evangelicals dislike this discussion of power relationships, and it becomes a major reason for their wholesale rejection of Critical Race Theory. Why? Because Karl Marx was the first social, cultural critic to describe human

Karl Marx

relationships in terms of power dynamics.

Conservatives criticize the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement for the same reason. Thus, both Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory are dismissed with a facile flick of the wrist as dangerous harbingers of “Cultural Marxism,” the latest, bogus boogie-man propped up by pseudo-intellectual, culture critics.

However, Marx was absolutely correct in his analysis. The problem today is not the fact that Intersectionality draws insights from Marx, but that certain advocates of Intersectionality see all human relationships as nothing but power contests between the exploiter and the exploited.

I encountered this often during my years as a university professor, especially when a feminist colleague explained some policy or curricular disagreement between two people (or groups) who happened to be (represented by) a man and a woman.

Invariably, the disagreement was reduced to a power contest where the man was trying to impose his authority over the female. Often, the actual content of the debate would be set aside.

I would hear the advocate of Intersectionality insist that the rational arguments involved merely provided cover for the imposition of white, male power over the woman “opponent.”

Of course, power and control may have been key issues in those debates. After all, such power contests are a perennial feature of human behavior.  But making that judgment first requires familiarity with the details of the debate. It cannot simply be assumed and imposed as THE explanation for all such disagreements.

When a critical, analytical tool is ossified in this way, reified into an ideological template that is universally imposed upon all human interactions, we have entered into dangerous territory. This transition from analysis to ideology is often reductionistic, and that’s a problem.

When this happens we have entered an anti-intellectual realm where evidence must always yield to the current theory; it becomes a totalitarian territory where understanding is governed by the conformist power of an immutable idea.

So, here is the challenge: thoughtful Christians must always walk a line between teachableness and cooption.

Unfortunately, too many Christian leaders (who ought to know better) fail to understand this difference.

On the one hand, Critical Race Theory together with Intersectionality provide important insights into the reality of human relationships. Wise Christians will take these insights seriously and respond accordingly, while always remembering that all people are created as the Image of God. Jesus Christ loves all people equally; he gave his life for all equally.

Critical Race Theory can help us all understanding the continuing challenges we face in dismantling discriminatory practices that run against the grain of Christ’s gospel message.

On the other hand, the Image of God is much, much, MUCH more than the sum total of each individual’s intersecting, distinguishing characteristics. The Image of God is essential, definitive for humanity.

As we acknowledge the negative, unjust situations often created for a person in response to her intersecting, distinguishing traits, we can never reduce that person to the theoretical social outcomes of those traits in today’s society.

Yes, life is filled with power games. But life is also much more than the combined outcome of intersecting power dynamics imposed upon me by others.

Yes, there is a great deal I cannot change or influence. But as The Original confronting my reflected Image, God holds me accountable for how I served others; how I worked to empower the disempowered; how I sacrificed my privilege so that the underprivileged might get ahead; how I lifted up those who had fallen; how I embraced the excluded; how I denied myself to serve others as Jesus has served us all.

What Is ‘White Privilege’?

(This is installment 5 in my series discussing Critical Race Theory. From here on out, I will only provide the immediately preceding post. For all previous posts on this subject, see here, here, here, here, and here.)

Critical Race Theory has advanced three key concepts that help to identify and critique the ways in which racism works in society. They are the notions of White Privilege, Systemic Racism, and Intersectionality.

In this post, I will only talk about White Privilege. The other will have their turn.

Many Christians, like the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, have condemned all three of these ideas, for reasons will we explore as this series unfolds. Though I am not a sociologist, and am happy to be corrected by my readers, I suspect that only the idea of Intersectionality may be new – although that is probably debatable.

But what is most important is not whether these are new concepts, but how they are applied to illuminate (or to confuse, perhaps) how different people relate to each other in American society.

To put things simply, White Privilege identifies the fact that America is the product of (primarily) white, European culture and society.

Colonialism was a deeply embedded component of that European culture. As a result, having white skin as opposed to having dark skin became an encoded principle of Western, racial superiority.

After all, the white colonizers were always superior to the colonized, dark skinned natives.

Even though we now live (theoretically) in a post-colonial world – albeit with numerous exceptions, beginning with Jewish Israeli colonization of 5 million native Palestinians – in which the majority of Caucasian (white-skinned) people would (probably) deny the idea of racial superiority linked to traits like skin color, ethnicity, or physical morphology, the social/cultural norms and  structures (erected in order to enforce or “protect” those norms) generated by that white culture continue to exist.

Many researchers have demonstrated the reality of White Privilege today in such areas as business hiring practices, and mortgage approval or interest rates. Even now, white people continue to benefit in many ways that black people do not.

Numerous white folks have experienced this for themselves while temporarily “passing” for black.

More tellingly, there are profound historical reasons explaining why light-skinned, African Americans have sometimes chosen “to pass” as white.

While many white folks, especially conservatives, remain loath to admit this, White Privilege is a fact of life. And the sooner white America as a whole comes to grips with this fact, the better for everyone.

Frankly, for any segment of the Christian church, whether Southern Baptists or anybody else, to deny the reality of White Privilege is unconscionable. It reveals an area of life where Jesus’ call to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” has been in short supply.

In fact, the Christian church ought to be taking the lead in working creatively to identify, address and undo the practical effects of White Privilege in our world.

Our God is not a God of favoritism.

The Creator is a God of equality. He loves everyone equally. He values everyone equally. Everyone is equally sinful. Everyone is equally in need of Christ’s redemption. Salvation is equally available to everyone, and equally beneficial to all who will believe.

The kingdom of God is a realm of equality, which will be recognizable oh this earth where God’s multi-racial community of faith can be observed by all.

Ironically, the fact that no African-Americans were included on the Southern Baptist Convention committee, which wrote the document condemning Critical Race Theory is itself a rude example of White Privilege at work among Christian people.

In his letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul tells us that the preexistent Son of God willingly set aside his divine privileges; in fact, “he made himself nothing, taking the very form of a servant” in order to elevate and to redeem people like you and me (Phil 2:7).

Every Caucasian who claims to follow Jesus Christ is obligated to live a Christ-like life, the life of a servant.

We need to acknowledge our privilege, identify it, and do whatever we can to share that privilege by rejecting it; to reconstruct a society where everyone of all colors stand on a level playing field – with some even being given an advantage where necessary – until our Creator’s vision of human equality is the norm.

One proviso: I suspect that the main reason the Southern Baptists rejected the principle of White Privilege was due to the way it has been misused by certain advocates of Critical Race Theory. (Another reason to remember that the abuse of an idea offers no necessary critique of the idea itself.)

Some intemperate anti-racist activists use the principle of White Privilege to define all white people as inherently racist. To be white is to be racist, no questions asked.

As a Christian, I must draw a line here and say that THIS application of the principle is wrong. It’s wrong morally and it’s wrong theologically.

Such a misuse of the White Privilege principle is, I believe, one of the reasons that certain older members of the Civil Rights movement (!) have also publicly denounced Critical Race Theory.

Regardless of their personal theologies, they too identify the moral problem at the root of any such blanket condemnation of an entire class of people.

Sadly, it is one more expression of human tribalism (and its many defects) which excels at taking good ideas and twisting them until they only shed light on my neighborhood.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream anticipating a day when black children and white children will all be judged “not on the color of their skin but by the content of their character” continues to ring true for these pioneering Civil Rights activists, as it also does for me.

Perhaps it is true that a very high percentage of US Caucasians remain blind to their privilege while happily enjoying its benefits without giving any thought to the related (even consequential) difficulties and discrimination faced by our dark-skinned brothers and sisters.

No. What every Christian can and must say is that all people everywhere are guilty of being sinful. Consequently, all people everywhere are intensely tribal. Thus, all people everywhere think and act selfishly.

Meaning that all people everywhere need the redemption and personal transformation available through Jesus Christ – which can ONLY work properly in integrated communities of faith where men, women, and children of every color share themselves, their histories, their stories, their personal experiences, and their hopes with each other.

I have more say on this topic, but I think I have gone on too long already!

Until next time…

Another Example of White, Male Privilege as Republicans Tell Democratic Congress Women to “Just Move On”

I recently posted a blog entry describing the Southern Baptist Convention’s decision to issue a wholesale condemnation of Critical Race Theory without ever consulting a single African-American Southern Baptist (yes, they do exist).

How could that happen? It is astonishing.

I have a number of thoughts on this question which I will explore in a future post in this series on Critical Race Theory (for previous posts on this subject, see here, here, here, and here), along with my continuing observations

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib

about the problems of systemic racism in America (for a recent example see here).

I am a huge fan of all the members of the group of junior congressional women the media have dubbed “The Squad.” This includes Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and now Jamaal Bowman, and Cori Bush.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Each of them continue to demand that those involved in the Capital attack on January 6th must be held accountable. Anyone who understands the nature of justice must agree with them. There ought to be broad bipartisan support for their calls of accountability.

Instead, many members of the Republican party are telling these representatives, and especially the women, to “move on,” that they are making a mountain out of a molehill.

More than that, several Republicans have publicly denounced these women

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar

as liars, making easily refutable statements about them never being endangered at all.

I realize that a major factor in this argument is political partisanship, which teaches you to never give your opponent a break. Add a dash of simply bullying and we have a good explanation of the human behavior now on display.

However, I am convinced that there is another powerful factor involved — white, male privilege.

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley

White, male privilege thrives in situations allowing women’s feelings and experiences to be minimized or dismissed. Admittedly, the deeply damaged and incompetent congresswoman from Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is not a man. But there are always exceptions to every rule. I won’t pretend to know how to explain her.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has recently told her story about being a rape survivor.

She, together with Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rahida Tlaib, and you

Congresswoman Cori Bush

can bet your bottom dollar that Cori Bush is now experiencing this as well, have received numerous death threats since arriving in Congress.

These women have good reason to feel traumatized after the events of January 6th. They are the physical embodiment of everything that violent mob of Trump supporters would love to eliminate from this country: emigrants, Muslims, people of color, and outspoken women who voice their disagreements loudly in public.

The heartless people now calling these female, public servants liars; accusing them of overreacting; or insisting that they just need “to get over it,” are behaving like abusers themselves. As AOC has said repeatedly, these are the things that abusers say to their victims.

It is no accident, then, that the majority of these voices come from white men. Men who have always enjoyed all the implicit and explicit advantages of being white men in American society.

Such men rarely have any reason to fear that they may be on the receiving end of a beating, or rape, or verbal assault from one of the other authoritarian men in their lives.

Such men are usually far too comfortable exercising power over others, especially when those “others” are powerless themselves.

Below is a video of the two, recent congressional speeches offered by AOC and Rahida Tlaib as they continue their calls for Congressional accountability.

If you can listen to these speeches impassively, without sympathy, without empathy, without concern, then I ask you to check your chest cavity, for you have no heart. I ask you to check your mind for your conscience has withered.

One of the primary qualities of a truly Christian life is the exercise of empathy.

It is the ability to see life from the other person’s perspective and to try to understand why they feel the way they do.

Jesus of Nazareth was extraordinary in the deep, deep levels of empathy that he possessed for the people he met. In fact, empathy is what led him to sacrifice himself on the cross at Calvary.

Let’s all pray for such divine-human empathy as we listen to these women describe their very legitimate fears on January 6th.

 

 

 

 

Critical Race Theory and the Church, Part 2

Not long ago I posted a very brief history of how the Republican party devised its famous “Southern Strategy” for its election campaigns as well as its interminable “War on Drugs” model of policing (which quickly gained bipartisan support).

That history is another clear demonstration of the way white privilege and systemic racism continue to influence American society.

Lee Atwater (architect of the Southern Strategy) and John Ehrlichman (domestic policy advisor for Richard Nixon and creator of the War on Drugs policing strategy) were two white men who knew how to manipulate language as well as social systems (political campaigns and police departments) to target the white population’s fears of African Americans.

That fear is as real today as it was then.

By using language that they knew would heighten white folk’s apprehensions about the black community, they deliberately deepened the color  divide between these communities.

The white community implicitly understood that their privileged status was being safeguarded by Atwater and Ehrlichman’s new political strategies.

The result was the establishment of new ways to systematically accomplish racist goals for the benefit of white society – which is exactly what both men had hoped to accomplish, by their own admission (reread that post!).

A person does not need to be a Marxist (a common, specious charge leveled against Critical Race theorists) or a devotee of any particular critical theory to figure these things out.

All it requires is a bit of critical thinking, which everyone should learn to do by the way, and some knowledge about American history and politics.

In fact, I will go so far as to insist that every thoughtful Christian (which should also be an obvious redundancy) needs to understand that white privilege and systemic racism are integral parts of this nation’s story, past AND present.

Coming to grips with these facts is crucial if the Body of Christ is ever to embody the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, harmonious ideal that God’s kingdom intends for us here and now.

In my next post, I will begin to flesh out what I believe a biblical perspective on these sorts of racial issues teaches us.

I don’t offer this as a “Christian alternative” to CRT, but as one man’s approach to sifting the wheat from the chaff in any conversation about what should be the church’s approach to racism in America today.