Challenges of White Christian Identity
White, Christian, Race, History, Stereotypes
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Presentation Transcript
What Does it Mean to Be White and Christian? Overcoming White Skin Privilege in a Diverse World Rev. Dr. Velda R Love United Church of Christ
BEING HUMAN REVIVING HOPE IN HUMANITY DEBUNKING STEREOTYPES
A PRESENT REALITY AMERICA 1500 2017 How White Nationalism Became Normal
RACE: A POWERFUL MYTH 1500 1600 A key question among Christian religious hierarchy during the Reformation 1. Do Blacks and Indians have souls and are they human? 2. Two systems of slavery evolved between the Catholic and Protestant churches
RACE HISTORY: A PAINFUL REALITY Catholic Church: Yes, they have souls and they are human. Enslave them but don t kill them without reason. Protestant Church: No, they are not human and they don t have souls. They can be captured, owned, and killed at will. They exist for the purpose of labor like a horse or cow.
THE GROWTH OF AMERICA Protestant Christianity supports the slave- based economy and exploitation of Africans and Native Indians. 1800 s Europe and American economies gain wealth from transporting, insuring, and trading African bodies globally
BIRTH OF A MYTH The Industrial Age, Europe and America prospers. Native peoples populations decrease as a result of colonization. Australia s Tasmanian population is nearly wiped off the face of the earth. Many native populations become extinct through diseases and exposure to new germs, viruses, and bacteria brought by Europeans.
SCIENCE JUSTIFIES RACISM 1850 s Darwin s theories justify genocide and racism. 1864 W. Winwood Reade writes in Savage Africa England and France will rule Africa. Africans will dig the ditches and water the deserts. It will be hard work and the Africans will probably become extinct. We must learn to look at the result with composure. It illustrates the beneficient law of nature, that the weak must be devoured by the strong.
EUROPE AND AMERICA MUST FIND THE ANSWERS Race is studied and humans are categorized by scientists to substantiate European and American stereotypes of cultural differences and the (mis)measures of physiological characteristics. The Anglo Saxon and white people in general must prevail as dominate and superior.
THE BIRTH OF WHITE SUPREMACY In 1866, Frederick Farrar lectured on the Aptitude of Races which he divided into 3 groups 1. Savage All Africans, indigenous people, people of color with exception of the Chinese
THE BIRTH OF WHITE SUPREMACY 2. Semi-Civilized (Chinese who were once civilized but now their society was in arrested development 3. Civilized European, Aryan and Semitic peoples
THE BIRTH OF WHITE SUPREMACY Medicine creates race and intelligence studies and conclude, whites are intellectually superior and people of color are labeled as inferior. Eugenics creates a breeding theory to justify the separation of races, restrict immigration from Asia, Africa, southern and eastern Europe and to sterilize people considered genetically unfit.
AMERICAN WHITE SUPREMACY The United States uses Eugenics and makes it part of mainstream society by creating schools and indoctrinating students to write Eugenics as legitimate in text books and laws are written justifying white supremacy within all structures and institutions in American life modeled on elements of the Nazis whose radical adoption culminated in the Holocaust
THE INTEGRITY ACT OF 1924 A law was introduced and passed known as Virginia s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 requiring registration certificates classifying people by race and defined what white was.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WHITE? The term emerged in the 1700 s in the British colonies of North America. Europeans arrived and began intermingling with each- German, Dutch, English, French. Europeans wanted to maintain control of African slaves and the wealth generated from the institution, and protect themselves from Native Americans.
RICH WHITES VS. POOR WHITES Poor white indentured servants built alliances and relationships with enslaved Africans due to their own oppression.
WHITE SKIN PRIVILEGE White was defined as anyone without a drop of African or Indian blood. The term white was created as a political construct that was used as an organizing tool to unite Europeans in order to consolidate strength, increase their ability to maintain control and dominance over Native Americans and enslaved Africans.
#WHITEPRIVILEGEMATTERS Whiteness is a constantly shifting boundary separating those who are entitled to have certain privileges from those whose exploitation and vulnerability to violence is justified by their not being white. White is an artificial construct because the the definition is due to change due to time and geography.
WHAT I BELIEVE I SAW I EXPERIENCED I FEEL
ETHNICITY IS NOT RACE ETHNICITY refers to particular groups of people that share some common ancestry, traditions, language, or dialect Land was associated with ethnic groups. Immigration and assimilation created homogenous categories.
ETHNIC IDENTITY BEFORE COLONIALISM China has over 50 diverse ethnicities: E.G. Han Manchu Yi Japanese have roots in the Old Stone Age 30,000 B.C. Yamata Clan Nara Ainu Mongoloid Caucasoid Malayan mixtures
ETHNIC GROUPS New Mexico New Zealand Greece England Southern Mexico/Central America Mayan Pueblo Maori Greeks Anglos and Saxons
NATIONALITY The name of the country does not refer to the ethnic origins of its citizens. Ethnic groups are diverse within a particular country. E.G. A person from Spain would be thought of as Spanish their ethnicity could be Basque, Catalan, Gallego, or Gitano.
BIRTH OF A NATION America instituted the mythological classification of human beings with the purpose of giving power to white men (people) as a means to control the social, political, legal, economic, and land ownership rights for the generational wealth.
THE COLONIALISM PROJECT Uses the model of English monarchial rule. Class-based systems, institutions, and structures maintained through the enslavement of African descended peoples and other non-white people.
WHAT IS RACISM? RACISM a system of beliefs and practices (i.e. an ideology) embedded in the institutions and conventions of everyday lives, that legitimizes the power of one racial group and justifies it viewing all others as inherently inferior. Racism is simultaneously overt (in law, the economy, political participation and education) and covert (in the media, social mores, fashion).
When threatened it responds with overt force (torture, police brutality, political imprisonment, murder) and covert manipulation (symbolic festivals, media, prominent success stories). When threatened racism is expert at reconfiguring itself by appearing to have ceded important territory while in reality maintaining its power.
RACISM IS Racism is a philosophy based on contempt for life. It is the arrogant assertion that one race is the center of value and object of devotion, before which other races must kneel in submission. It is the absurd dogma that one race is responsible for all the progress of history and alone can assure the progress of the future. Racism is total estrangement. It separates not only bodies, but minds and spirits. Inevitably it descends to inflicting spiritual and physical homicide upon the out-group. Martin Luther King, Jr. http://www.thekingcenter.org/king-philosophy.
1 RACE WAS CREATED Race is a modern idea. Ancient societies, like the Greeks, did not divide people according to physical differences, but according to religion, status, class or even language. The English word "race" turns up for the first time in a 1508 poem by William Dunbar referring to a line of kings.
2 Race has no genetic basis. Not one characteristic, trait or even gene distinguishes all the members of one so-called race from all the members of another so-called race.
3 Human subspecies don t exist. Unlike many animals, modern humans simply haven t been around long enough, nor have populations been isolated enough, to evolve into separate subspecies or races. On average, only one of every thousand of the nucleotides that make up our DNA differ one human from another. We are one of the most genetically similar of all species.
4 Skin color really is only skin deep. The genes for skin color have nothing to do with genes for hair form, eye shape, blood type, musical talent, athletic ability or forms of intelligence. Knowing someone s skin color doesn t necessarily tell you anything else about them.
5 Most variation is within, not between, races. Of the small amount of total human variation, 85% exists within any local population. About 94% can be found within any continent. That means, for example, that two random Koreans may be as genetically different as a Korean and an Italian.
6 Slavery predates race. Throughout much of human history, societies have enslaved others, often as a result of conquest or debt, but not because of physical characteristics or a belief in natural inferiority. Due to a unique set of historical circumstances, North America has the first system where the enslaved shared a common appearance and ancestry. African descended people shared skin color. They were easily identifiable and held against their will.
7 Race and freedom were born together. The U.S. was founded on the principle that "All (white) men are created equal," but the country s early economy was based largely on slavery. The new idea of race helped explain why some people could be denied the rights and freedoms that others took for granted.
8 Race justified social inequalities as natural. The common sense belief in white superiority justified anti-democratic action and policies like slavery, the extermination of American Indians, the exclusion of Asian immigrants, the taking of Mexican lands, and the institutionalization of racial practices within American government, laws, and society.
9 Race isn t biological, but racism is still real. Race is a powerful social idea that gives people different access to opportunities and resources. The government and social institutions of the United States have created advantages that disproportionately channel wealth, power and resources to white people.
10 Colorblindness, denial, defensiveness, anti-racism training, and a one-day workshop will not end racism. Pretending race doesn t exist is not the same as creating equity and justice for all.
ERADICATING RACISM IS A JOURNEY
YOU ARE THE ONES GOD HAS BEEN WAITING FOR God has not given us a spirit of fear, but the spirit of power, of courage and resolution, to meet difficulties and dangers; the spirit of love which will carry us through opposition. 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)
