The Stench of Racism

Tom Metzger: You're right about not all of us being equal. Your misspellings and poor grammar clearly mark you as an inferior.

I am so glad to see essays and articles like this one by Jane Dixon, who can speak from her own experiences growing up in the South. I too grew up in a small town in the South.

I can say from my own experience that the "old regime" of the Jim Crowe South was obnoxious in every way. And it was put in place and sustained by the Conservative Christians. Even to this day, I cannot stand those people.

There is not alot to say about Christian hypocrisy on this matter. It is plain for anyone to see. And even now, there is minimal effort among Conservative Christians to face the issues of race. They would rather focus on abortion and gay-marriage, to change the subject. But, the subject keeps coming back, doesn't it, and it never seems ever to go away, completely.

Conservative Christians always seek to justify their racism by saying that they are only human, and no one is perfect. But that is really just an excuse. Secular America is not perfect either, but secular America has made a lot more progress in race relations that Conservative Christians.

I think that Conservative Christians are lazy in their Christian beliefs, do not really care that they are hypocrites, do not have any interest in fixing the problems, and are, in fact, not really sure what they believe, or why it is relevant to race relations.

Whay should they care? What difference does it make?

Just look at Tom Metzger's comments below:

"All this had wringing PC nonsense about the horrible sin of Racism gets very old. My advise to all these super sensitive people is to settle back in your chair and learn to live with us vile white racists."

He is oblivious; he doesn't care; why should he? God, religion, and Jesus Christ are obviously nothing to him, but just what you give lip-service to, to get along.

This is an argument from personal experience, so it's not worth much, but I have never met a modern secular humanist, Jew, or Buddhist who was a racist. All the racist people I knew in high school were Christian or Muslim. Racism is built into the holy books of those faiths, and unlike Judaism, many adherents to Christianity and Islam still take their holy books literally. As long as religious fundamentalism exists it will be accompanied by the hatred of outgroups.

"Racism," as my seminary professor, the Reverend John Wolverton said, "is a stench in the nostrils of God Almighty." Three in ten Americans are being honest. What about the rest of us?"

A few weeks ago the preacher at my church told a story about a tiger being brought up in a non-natural habitat. It had not tasted blood its entire life. But, one day it licked the wound of a little boy in the household where it was a pet. It reacted violently and went on a rampage although the child was saved. The pastor said, "it was instinct." Similarly an American christian, white or otherwise may have been brought up not thinking about race..however, when that person sees an interracial couple how would he or she react? Would that person follow the instinct of a typical white American, and react like the animal in the story or as a human and see the couple as a human? I am afraid, many react like the animal in the story.

I'm a Yankee who lived in a southern city briefly, early in my career.

The racism was outrageous. I was stunned. Specifically I recall driving though a black neighborhood on a Saturday night in a carful of young white people, when one of the girls - whom I knew to be sweet and gentle, rolled down the window shouting insults, the mildest of which was "You sure is good lookin' for a black boy!"

The black people walking by just hung their heads as if they didn't hear.

I slunk down in the seat, shocked and horribly embarrassed by my friends.

It made me wonder if I would have been the same way if I'd been raised there, but the thought was too revolting to harbor for long

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Consider the statistics given, 9 in 10 are against racial discrimination; 3 in 10 stills feel victimized. Sure, America still has a long way to go (30 per cent of the way), but, America has gone a long way from where she started, hasn't she? Consider too that perhaps at least one of those three may have misconstrued something done or said or not done nor said to him or her and attributed racial prejudice as its cause. And what about those who feel "entitled" to more than what they received. They may not necessarily be justified with their expectation.

Sure, racial prejudice remains a listhery venomous snake in our garden and, of course, we should hunt it down and wack it. One good wacking is to keep on talking sense about equality and working to define access to opportunities with it as a major characteristic. That is a practical wack that can shatter the whole sinuous body of any social prejudice! Most other wackings aare for show, to get brownie points -- and the cookies too!
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If God had had a brain He would have created people of just one color; so I blame Him for creating a racist world where folks have been hating and killing and warring against each other since time began, just because they look and talk different, and believe different things.
God didn't do us any favors when He created this mess. Maybe He's just got a wicked sense of humor.

"Yes junior there are differances between the races and no one is born equal!Get a life. Everyone cant be a victim."

Absolutely. Inbred whites and pure whites are intellectually inferior to mixed race people particularly the mixed Asian-whites. Get a life. Every whining white who ran the airline construction and banking industry in this country to the ground cant be a victim. They are intellectually inferior perpetrators of the crime unless of course they are crooks!

All this had wringing PC nonsense about the horrible sin of Racism gets very old. My advise to all these super sensitive people is to settle back in your chair and learn to live with us vile white racists.
It all reminds me of that old film THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE where the CHINESE REDS had brain washed the GI's to the point of even shooting each other.
Yes junior there are differances between the races and no one is born equal!Get a life. Everyone cant be a victim.
Tom Metzger

Like most of you I grew up in the south, but not the Southern US, but South India in the 1960s in a Christian family. There were missionaries from different parts of India there. One white missionary married a very dark skinned South Indian woman. Then another British missionary's son did. One Baptist missionary from the US South who had been attacking the evils of the caste system became very concerned about white missionaries and their kids dating and marrying out of their race, that he and his wife sent his kids back home to Mississippi to live with the gradma, and he was open about it even as he preached against the evils of the Indian caste system. He spent nearly thirty years in India and continued to preach against caste system, but when it came to marriage he was more adamant against interracial marriages in the late 1980s than the high caste Brahmins in town who ended up marrying outside their caste! Not a very great way to witness for Christ and bring people to the Lord!

It's too bad that the study cited in the question didn't break down those with 'racial prejudices' by belief in god. I would be fascinated to see if the 90% 'god believing' Americans are statistically more or less likely to be racially prejudiced.

To be clear, I'm not making any claim that they are or that they are not - I just think that the ensuing discussion would be compelling.

Rev. Dixon's parting remark about honesty is something all of us should consider. While (most) of our society has moved beyond burning crosses and the N-word, the pre-conceived notions that so many of us hold about a stranger based on their race is just as insidious. We will not make any progress rooting out that sort of racism - religion or no religion - until we can be honest with ourselves about racism in America.

"This election is a great opportunity for us all to grow out of the stultifying immaturity of racism."
How do we do that? To either vote or not vote for a candidate based on the color of his skin is a prejudice very close to racism. To vote or not vote for a candidate because thier positions on issues is not. People that will or will not vote for Obama because of his skin color will learn nothing from this election, they are merely following through on their prejudices. Those who vote/not vote for Obama based on his position on issues or qualifications, or whatever non-race matter, will not have grown out of anything either. I'm not convinced that even should Obama win that many attitudes are going to dramatically change.
Like you and Ms. Dixon I am also from the south, and recall the blatant segregation and race-myths being touted in the 50's and 60's, even by family members.. though I have come to learn as I have travelled the country, this has very little to do with 'the south'. This sort of mindset and behavior was generously spread across the entire country.What has changed in the past fifty years has been a generation by generation breaking down of those old ways and ideas. I'm very glad to see it. It will take several more generations at least to eliminate it completely. I doubt this election will actually change many racist minds.

Thank you from another Southerner. You hit the nail on the head. First we have to admit we have a problem, then pursue a disciplined path of course-correcting awareness, behavior and growth, guided by trust and love. This election is a great opportunity for us all to grow out of the stultifying immaturity of racism.