Volume 8, Issue 22
Until whites choose one blood as the identity, purpose, and commonality for the relationships of all peoples, we are destined to repeat the current events stemming from racism.
The story of America is, in one context, the history of races and cultures forced into conflict from an ever-shrinking world. The white population that came to dominate American culture was not indigenous to this continent. Europeans came to America for freedom. Yet they did not extend the same liberty to other races over which they had power. This was a direct assault on the bloodlines of humanity. Either by “original sin” inherited from Adam, or through evolutionary “survival of the fittest” inherited from Lucy, mankind has failed his brethren. Whether through the Christian theory of creation or Darwin’s theory of evolution, the entirety of humanity burst forth from one bloodline of which every member of the human race is a relative.
Neither Adam or Lucy were black or white, but the composite of all potential skin colors.
Christianity teaches brotherly love as an attribute of “love your neighbor as yourself.” For all people are equal in creation. Therefore, loving others is loving yourself in expectation of equal spiritual rewards and opportunity.
The problems facing America today, particularly in the African-American community, are not the original fault of anyone living today. But they are everyone’s obligation to address. We cannot advance as a nation unless every member of society participates equally in the benefits of progress. We cannot build relationships with each other unless the rule of law is applied in exact equal measure. And whites cannot build respect with brothers and sisters of color unless we are sensitive to the history, the oppression, and the current conditions of cultural, societal, systemic racism.
Pierre Thomas, a senior justice correspondent at ABC News, related a story that happened to him last week. He entered a local grocery store wearing a facemask. He was wiping his shopping cart with a sanitizing wipe. As he finished, a white woman standing nearby said to him, “I’ll take that cart now.” He replied with reserve that he was wiping the cart for himself. She obviously thought he worked there. He said this is the type of indignation I feel racially almost every day. The woman probably subconsciously reacted to his presence without thinking about it. Scholars call this “implicit bias.” I call it cultural, societal, systemic racism. We have lived together so long in this country with certain races employed in certain jobs we just assume a person of a certain color automatically fits into a certain category. It is wrong and it must become a conscious objective of all white people to bring their awareness of this attitude into acute objective of correction.
My pastor is a young African-American man with a beautiful family working every day to break down the barriers between the races in Oklahoma. He’s an intelligent, sensitive, eloquent, strategic thinker preaching unity among all people. He and his family are incredible assets to our city, our state, and our country. A few weeks ago, he was up early one morning before the sun praying. He decided to go on a run. It was cool outside so he put on a hoodie. As he started out his front door, he stopped and decided it was unsafe for a black man in a hoodie to be running in a white neighborhood that early in the morning. He, like Pierre Thomas, professionals adding to the substantive dialogue of issues facing America today, realized inherent bias as a root consequence of cultural, societal, systemic racism.
This is happening in my town on my watch. Silence in the face of adversity can be sinful in nature. It violates the Christian principle of love your neighbor as yourself. We should treat all people as relatives in one blood, no different than how we would be sensitive and in support of our immediate family.
I love this man. This systemic bias must stop now. I will make its elimination an objective of acute awareness.
Paul Krugman is a liberal writer for the New York Times. I seldom agree with him on economic policy. But I did agree with him in part on his editorial this week. He defers to Joe Biden that “the original sin of slavery stains our country today.” He is correct in this conclusion. However, Great Britain introduced slavery to the American colonies. America’s original sin was not granting freedom to the slaves in the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton argued for complete abolishment of slavery and the granting of citizenship to all African-Americans. He felt the stain must be addressed. He lost the argument in the Constitutional Convention’s compromise to the southern states. Hamilton was not only right, he was prophetic. The law that should have been embraced was that when a state enters the union, beyond yielding to a national currency and a federal banking system, every person living in that state at the time must be granted full citizenship by law. This would have granted Native Americans full constitutional rights, certainly deserved as First Americans.
African-Americans today face a real struggle. The legacy of slavery, carpetbaggers, Jim Crow laws, and lynchings leave the stain of persecution that challenges their ongoing ability to forgive. This history results in the potential for one-in-three black males born today, at some time in their life, to be incarcerated. This has nothing to do with their personal abilities, but everything to do with limited options. A white perpetrator is more likely to have a lawyer represent them or a family member to provide bail. Whites are much more likely to be given a second chance.
Whites must be cognizant of the four hundred years of oppression that African-Americans, as a community, have faced in this country. A metaphor would be conducting a four-hundred-meter race wherein a white runner is given the advantage of a twenty-meter head start. The black runner is expected to catch up. No matter how hard he or she tries, the gap is too great.
Yes, blacks in America are successful. Yes, equal education and other government services are available to all citizens. But, to the middle class of whites and blacks, generational family structure, inherited wealth, university benefactors, and cultural, societal, systemic racism afford middle-class average whites a head start. You cannot tell someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they have no boots.
And [God] hath made of one blood all nations of men for to
dwell on the face of the earth… —Acts 17:26
I am an Adam-ite. I believe that God created one blood for humanity. I believe that Jesus Christ purified the bloodline by dying for all sins and realigning humanity in purpose with God the Father.
Whether you believe in the Christian theory of Adam’s bloodline or Darwin’s theory of evolution and the accidental occurrence of life through Lucy’s bloodline, our greater call is imperative. This imperative is the one thing that should unite both Christians and atheists in common purpose. We all have an absolute paramount obligation to care for, and be concerned about, not just the security, but the inclusionary love and the emotional well-being of all our brothers and sisters, regardless of skin color or cultural background.
This must be every American’s personal acute commitment.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?