The Patriot Post® · Part IV: Identity in Race
(Editor’s Note: See “Part I: Identity as an American”; “Part II: Identity in Sex — The LGB Activists”; and “Part III: Identity in Gender.”)
America, land of immigrants, the great melting pot of nations, has long been unique in its embrace of multi-ethnicities. Immigrants came to the U.S. seeking to enjoy its freedom in pursuit of the American Dream. This has been held so much as an American ideal that the poem “The New Colossus” by Emily Lazarus is engraved on the very base of the Statue of Liberty.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
In our history, however, we did not always live up to this. Slaves were brought over to the colonies, and European settlers had a habit of double-dealing with the Native Americans in order to take over the new land. Conquest and slavery make up some of the darkest deeds of our past.
Our nation is not unique in this. This was how new land was claimed and tamed throughout the history of the world. Our country has also taken great strides in a far shorter amount of time toward ratifying these wrongs. Slavery was abolished in 1865 with the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. This took us only 90 years to achieve as a country, far more quickly than other nations in history. Some regions, like communist China, parts of the Middle East, and portions of Africa, still have slavery today. For us, this has been a journey of growing and getting better in spite of our imperfect beginnings.
But these sins of our past have become weapons in the hands of new, more insidious, more violent movements — namely, Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Critical Race Theory (CRT). One cannot be mentioned without the other because CRT is the idea that informs and guides the BLM movement.
BLM’s stated goals are to instill a Marxist regime (a.k.a. communism) and to destroy the nuclear family. Its ultimate goal is to use violence and chaos to scare the masses into submitting to their will and to gain political power. It uses unworthy martyrs such as George Floyd, Michael Brown, and Ma'khia Bryant as stand-ins for the injustice that spurs their movement.
CRT is a theory drenched in Marxism that categorizes people and institutions as oppressed vs. oppressors.
These movements form an unholy union: the cult of antiracism.
The combination of these movements is by far the most dangerous and destructive to the American identity.
BLM and CRT do not respect the Rule of Law. They see it as upholding a white supremacist system and therefore invalid. Ironically, the leaders don’t actually seem to care very much about black lives. Over the summer of 2020, people identifying as members of these groups rioted. They murdered other black people and destroyed and looted black-owned businesses. They call for the defunding of police. They want it defunded, not reformed, because it would bring down an institution they see as upholding racism.
BLM and CRT advocate for a new political system altogether — communism. This governmental machine has failed everywhere it’s been tried. Ultimately, it devolves into a ruling class and oppressed masses. (See Cuba and the USSR for more details.)
They advocate for a lack of Liberty. It is especially evident when you try to debate with a person who adheres to the BLM and CRT worldview. In his book, Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe, pastor and teacher Voddie Baucham describes this false dichotomy: “Either you are on the side of the oppressed, or you are 1) shutting down the conversation about racial injustice, 2) ignoring minority voices, and 3) upholding (or internalizing) white supremacy.”
Meritocracy no longer applies in this system. It doesn’t matter what your gifts, talents, or qualifications are. Under these ideologies the only thing that matters is how much of a victim you are and how you should be given “equity” and “recompense” for sins of the past. It doesn’t matter how hard you work in this system. You are only as good as your victimhood status affords. No wonder white teens are turning to anything that would get them out of the most hated category in this ideology.
BLM and CRT advocates are also guilty of using language in a way that is divisive. Again in his book, Voddie Baucham describes it in the context of being a cult.
The antiracist movement has many of the hallmarks of a cult, including staying close enough to the Bible to avoid immediate detection and hiding the fact that it has a new theology and new glossary of terms that diverge ever-so-slightly from Christian orthodoxy. At least at first. In classic cult fashion, they borrow from the familiar and accepted, then infuse it with new meaning. This allows the cult to appeal to the faithful within the dominant, orthodox religions from which it draws its converts.
Here are a few of these new terms, courtesy of Baucham:
Whiteness — used to describe the dominant culture (in this case, white skin).
Antiracist — one who “does the work” of uncovering and fighting past, present, and future racism.
Racist — a construct of a dominant culture, not necessarily referring to an individual but to the institutions that it maintains to keep power.
White privilege — unique advantages that are unearned but given to white people because they are white.
White supremacy — anything that promotes white privilege.
Notice how all these terms intentionally separate people into categories. You are either good or bad, and almost all of it depends on the color of your skin. If you are white, you are irredeemable, even if you ascribe to being an antiracist.
BLM and CRT ultimately seek to create the world in their own image using notions of “justice” and “equity” to right the wrongs of the past and present. It ultimately boils down to an attempt to create a Marxist nation and advocate for anti-white racism. That is, racism in the traditional sense of hating someone based on the color of their skin. It is everything that the American identity is not. In fact, if this insidious worldview is allowed to gain more traction, we may see a terrible repeating of history.
As the old adage goes, those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.