Racism
Credit: Fenty Beauty Foundation Color Range
It is common for people to dislike and be afraid of things like bugs and animals. People have negative feelings towards bugs and animals because: they were conditioned to be: via the teachings and warnings from parents, the reactions of others as well as those of characters in cartoons; movies; and stories that they heard or watched, their negative feelings may also have developed from a dislike of the appearance of the creature perhaps based on lack of exposure to them, also an inability to know the creature’s intentions due to communication barriers most likely adds to feelings of unease , a negative encounter with the creature can cause trauma and hence avoidance and a generalization concerning all similar creatures, and an understanding (or lack thereof) of the creatures capabilities may put, front and center, in the mind, the possibility that the creature is able to harm or kill someone, which would produce another major cause for concern.
As I ponder the dislike and fear of insects and animals in people, it dawned on me that the reasons people dislike and fear bugs and animals are the same reasons that they tend to be racist. So while it can feel hard to understand the perspective of a racist and it can be easy to think that the ways and beliefs of a racist are irrational. If you think about the matter through the lens of being alarmed or afraid of rodents, or insects, or snakes, or bears, or coyotes, or whatever it is that frightens you, you will find that you can now understand to some extent the mind of the racist. At the crux of the issue a racist is someone who has been conditioned to be repulsed or afraid of another type of creature and those creatures are some race of their fellow human being.
Now you might say alarmed, afraid! What! In most cases the racist people are the aggressors…they are the ones who escalate the situation…the ones that attack. If they are the party to the situation that says mean and hateful things, plot;plan; and scheme, and attack with the intention to destroy and desolate, then their targets should be the ones that are alarmed or afraid, not them!
If you are struggling to see the comparison between the racist and the ophidiophobic (a person who fears snakes), again look at it through the lens of your own creature phobia or better yet look at it through the lens of the creatures you dislike. Could not the insects we crush and the animals that we trap and shoot feel the same exact way about us – “they are scared!!! We are the ones who ought to be scared!”
The creatures we attack are merely buzzing around, climbing up the wall, scurrying across the floor, walking across the lawn – minding their own business when WHAM! We spray them, zap them,crush them, trap them or take them out by some other means! And why? Because the sight of them and or the possibility of harm freaks us out, and logic then urges us to get them before they get us! Welp, that in a nutshell ladies and gentleman, is how racism works as well.
When innocent people who are just living life are: captured, imprisoned, contained, occluded from view, excluded from the group, denied entry, talked about negatively, systematically eradicated, poisoned, assaulted, and/or killed just because they made someone uncomfortable or afraid when their lives crossed paths – remember the roach, the spider, the rat and their treatment – this will give you perspective.
Conditioned fear and discomfort lead to a biased-driven skewing of perspective about the humanity of other human beings and on the shoulders of these efforts, racism, as we know it today was born. But whose plan was this to begin with? Who was doing the conditioning? And what was the purpose?
Do not be shocked to discover that racism was just a way to justify obtaining more wealth and hence more power for those who were already wealthy and powerful. The quest for supremacy via trickery started with Satan in Eden and continues on still through all those who are deceived in the same manner as he. Generations of people have been taught and warned that dark skin is something to dislike, avoid, and or fear and Christianity was the main vehicle through which those teachings came.
The Bible can be exploited. The spiritual laws, and promises of God can and have been used to do wrong instead of good. In fact exploiting the spiritual laws and promises of God is what makes the devil so effective. Be warned however that the Bible says you can not make a fool of God (Galatians 6:7) so any attempt to exploit scripture will backfire spectacularly.
Racism is implemented via the exploitation of a handful of scriptures, one of which is the power suppression strategy: Divide and conquer which was mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 12:25. Dividing to conquer is a spiritual law, and it is a tactic that is implemented often – create conflict, confusion, ignorance, fear, hate, hurt feelings so that people will naturally split into cliques (groups of people who are like-minded). Once people have split off into cliques, instead of having to fight a large and mighty army you only have to fight smaller weaker armies which increases the chances that you will win the battles – you can even pit the smaller cliques against one another so you don’t have to fight at all, they will do your dirty work for you. (*Hopefully by now you see that your pride in your community identity is a trick and you have been played like a fiddle 😉– its ok though, don’t be ashamed. Master manipulation is to blame )
When Jesus said a kingdom divided against itself can not stand (Matthew 12:25) he wasn’t saying it to teach us how to destroy, he was warning us so that we wouldn’t be destroyed by our ignorance of that fact. Yet by exploiting Jesus’ teaching, Divide and conquer as a strategy was used as the means to create the wealth gap, imbalance of power, and power dynamics in the world that we know today.
So who was the mastermind behind racism? Satan of course but the Judas Iscariot in this narrative are Portugal, Spain and Britain. Modern day racism has been adopted worldwide thanks to being applied and hence propagated via large scale British colonization. But note, Portugal got the ball rolling (the first to take African slaves to Europe in around 1436 and the first to use christianity to justify the enslavement of africans via the Roman Catholic Church).
Modern racism is composed of 4 layers (subsystems) of prejudice with each layer having a range of options (with each option being weighted and the weights are decided by the implementor)
Complexion (complexionism)
Features (lookism)
Race - “dividing people into groups, often based on physical characteristics.” (racism)
Ethnicity - usually a geographical based grouping of people (ancestry discrimination)
(“Examples of race include Black, White, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Pacific Islander. Examples of ethnicity include Irish, Italian, and Puerto Rican”)
At the pinnacle of this system are light skinned people , with a thin angular nose, and hair that lies in the type 1-2 range, all eye and hair colors are acceptable but lighter colors are preferred, race: white , ethnicity: any. At the bottom of this system are dark skinned people, with wide noses, type 4 hair, dark eyes and dark hair, race: black, ethnicity: African American. For each layer of this system the more checkboxes you can check that are in agreement with those that are checked for people at the pinnacle the more favor you will receive from the people at the pinnacle and the more checkboxes you check that are in agreement with the people at the bottom the less favor you receive from the people at the pinnacle.
This system of racism is deeply embedded in most cultures throughout the world. It is the driving force behind Hitlers idea of the perfect person ( white with blond hair and blue eyes), it is the motivation behind Beyoncé song brown skin girl; as well as her propensity to be blonde; her obsession with her creole heritage; and the reason she spent an era making sure she looked like she had light brown eyes, it is the driving force behind the press; the perm; the paper bag test; and the black man light woman phenomenon, it is the driving force behind skin bleaching, rhinoplasty, color contacts and eye color change surgery, and also hair weaves; hair type favoritism; and long hair obsession in the black community. The aesthetic preferences that you have that dictate what you find to be attractive and unattractive are not actually your natural preferences, they are preferences you have been trained to have via being born and raised under this system of racism.
Some people have the view that church and Christianity is bogus and just a way for the powers that be to control you but those same people and everybody else for that matter are being controlled in every way everyday by other powers that be (who are largely unknown and undetectable)! In fact it is in God that you actually find truth and you break free from the mind control that you have been under your entire life!
While racism is practiced by most if not all people groups it is designed to benefit people of European decent — they are the ones who find themselves at the “top” of the ladder in all four categories. Why? Because they are the implementers; the ones that designed the system in such away that it placed them at the top…anyone could easily use the same system and design it so that people like them would be at the “top” of the ladder. However that is not the case at the moment.
What you will find however is that other people groups have co-opted this system as a way to protect themselves and their place within the system and to escape demotion within the system (loss of whatever favor they have)…a version of Stockholm syndrome or Helsinki syndrome
Despite what Americans believe, feel and experience racism is not an American thing… However, Americans are known for it. Americans came about racism the same way the rest of the modern world did but we have a reputation for it because it is on front street in our society. It permeates everything we do and say. In other countries racism is generally outward facing, people of those countries hold racist beliefs about people from nations different than their own. Yet, in their own countries their own people struggle or thrive under the subsystems of racism – complexionism and lookism. This presents itself as: the lighter your complexion and more “sharp” your features the more status, wealth, power, privilege, and visibility you have.
So how did Portugal, Spain, and Britain do it? Portugal had the idea to exploit Africa before Spain and Britain did. When Spain and Britain, respectively, saw Portugals’s success it decided to get in on the action. Portugal eventually went on to enslaving and selling Japanese and Chinese people and Britain ended up being more successful than Spain in the endeavor because it had a stronger government, military, and economy and hence became the leader in its pursuit to colonize and enslave the world. Britain’s success in the colonization and exploitation industries allowed it to colonize a larger chunk of the world than it contemporaries ( 90% of the world’s countries). In order to achieve this feat Britain had to rally the troops so to speak. They had to convince the populace to get behind them (their goals and agendas) and they did so by justifying their aims with their pronouncement of their “God-given right” (and mandate) to expand their territory and rule over everyone else and they used the Bible to support this narrative, Genesis 9:18-27 which says:
“Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, left the boat. Ham later had a son named Canaan. All people on earth are descendants of Noah's three sons. Noah farmed the land and was the first to plant a vineyard. One day he got drunk and was lying naked in his tent. Ham entered the tent and saw him naked, then went back outside and told his brothers. Shem and Japheth put a robe over their shoulders and walked backwards into the tent. Without looking at their father, they placed it over his body. When Noah sobered up and learned what his youngest son had done, he said, “I now put a curse on Canaan! He will be the lowest slave of his brothers. I ask the Lord my God to bless Shem and make Canaan his slave. I pray God will give Japheth more and more land and let him take over the territory of Shem. May Canaan be his slave.””
Genesis 9:18-27 CEV
The Bible warns us that there will be false prophets (2 Peter 2:1, Matthew 24:11, 2 Corinthians 11:13-15) and that these false prophets will twist scripture to tickle people’s ears (Jeremiah 23:16, 2 Timothy 4:3) and even some of the people of God will be fooled (Matthew 24:11). This philosophy of the right of people of European descent to commandeer land that is not their own and to rule over people who are not of European descent is a great example of the twisting of Scripture by false prophets to tickle people’s ears.
Everyone has an inner desire to be great…that desire is preyed upon via all types of competitions and hierarchical human systems, that people vie to get to the top of by any means necessary. These systems are in academia (Mensa society, Summa cum laude , Magna Cum Laude, Cum Laude, principals honor roll, honor roll, class ranking, degree types, Fellows, etc), it is in the business and political realms(President, Vice president, director, assistant director, acting director, chief, secretary, chair, co-chair, vice-chair,supervisor, ceo, manager,etc), it is in athletics (gold medalist, silver medalist, bronze medalist, mvp, championship team, coach, assistant coach,etc), it is in the arts (Grammy’s, AMA, CMA, Emmy’s, Golden Globe’s, Tony’s, James Beard Award, Michelin Chef Award, etc), in society (Royals, novels, lords, peasants, indentured servants, slaves, etc), in finance (Trillionaires, Billionaires, Millionaires, upper middle class, middle class, etc). What those in power understand is that when someone harnesses another’s inner desire for personal greatness it pretty much guarantees that those people will buy into the plan and those who are the harnessers will get their desired outcome.
In Genesis 9 the twisting of scripture goes something like this. The reader uses the names of the descendants of Noah’s 3 sons (from Genesis 10): Shem , Jephath, and Ham to place them Geographically (ethnicity). Since Genesis 10:6 says “Ham's descendants had their own languages, tribes, and land. They were Ethiopia, Egypt, Put , and Canaan.” And today
The countries of Ethiopia, Egypt, and Put (Put is thought to be Libya) are in Africa that Ham’s descendants are black. Using the same method, figuring out the likely modern-day locations of the land that Shem and Jephath’s descendants established/settled based on their names it is thought that Shem’s descendants are Middle Eastern and Jephath’s descendants are Europeans and Asians.
Going back a little bit to Genesis 4 the Bible tells us the story of Cain the first born of Adam and Eve killing his younger brother Abel because of jealousy. As a response to Cain’s murder of Abel God curses him and then places a mark on him so that no one would kill Cain as Cain feared. The Bible does not specify what “the mark” was but early Christian and Muslim writers and many pastors, denominations, and conferences of Christianity decided to theorize and then tell people that “black skin” was the mark of Cain. This then caused vast amounts of people to associate dark skin with being cursed by God and thusly being deserving of poor treatment and suffering. This is an example of adding to scripture. Deuteronomy 4:2 says: “I am telling you everything he has commanded, so don't add anything or take anything away.”
Heading back to Genesis 9 let's take a look at where scriptural twisting then occurs and also how Genesis 4 is linked to Genesis 9 within the racist agenda. Remember the promised Land that God gave to Abraham and his descendants was called Canaan and the people the Israelites had to fight in order to take the promised land were the Canaanites…well last time I checked Canaan aka Palestine aka Israel is in the Middle East not Africa, close to Africa sure but not Africa which would mean that all of Ham’s descendants are not black (of African descent). Genesis 10 says:
Canaan's sons were Sidon and Heth. Canaan was also the ancestor of the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Later the Canaanites spread from the territory of Sidon and settled as far away as Gaza in the direction of Gerar. They also went as far as Lasha in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim.”
Furthermore, to make this “God-given” right to racism work, oversight by the reader (or read to) is required. The Story in Genesis 9 tells us that Ham was a son that dishonored his father. As a result of dishonoring his father his father Noah pronounced a curse and blessing. The curse/blessing is easy to remember incorrectly especially since Ham’s brothers names are explicitly mentioned in the curse/blessing. Unlike Shem and Japheth Ham was not explicitly mentioned in the curse/blessing nor was Ham’s descendants in general mentioned. Ham and all of his descendants were not cursed by Noah…I will repeat that Ham and all of his descendants were not cursed by Noah. From Ham’s bloodline only Canaan and his descendants were mentioned in the curse/blessing from Noah and ONLY CANAAN AND HIS DESCENDANTS WERE CURSED by Noah. Moreover Canaan and his descendants were the ones that settled in the Middle East not in Africa as we know it today. Genesis 9:25-27 says this:
“I now put a curse on Canaan! He will be the lowest slave of his brothers. I ask the Lord my God to bless Shem and make Canaan his slave. I pray God will give Japheth more and more land and let him take over the territory of Shem. May Canaan be his slave.”
In a desperate attempt to link black/dark skin and African descent to being cursed those same early christian and muslim writers, pastors, denominations, and conferences postulated that Ham’s wife was a descendent of Cain. Why did they do this? Cuz it was a hole in their theory and they needed a way to explain it away. If you recall the “curse of Ham” happened after the flood which means that the only people around were Noah, his wife, their 3 sons, and their son’s wives which means unless one of the 3 wives were a descendent of Cain all of Cain’s descendents were wiped out by the flood. So it was convenient to make Ham’s wife a descendent of Cain so that dark skin and curses could be a consistent connection in scripture
Returning to Genesis 9, If you test the curse and blessing with the rest of scripture you will see that it already came to pass in scripture (but God has a way of using scripture as a blueprint print and repeating it’s events in everyday modern life as a way to teach and speak to people so it is possible that this curse and blessing has played out many times and is responsible for many events in world history as we know it.) In scripture the Canaanites settled in the land that God had already promised the Shemites aka Semites from where we get the term antisemitism, specifically the Israelites ( the term semite doesn’t only refer to Jews aka Israelites it refers to other people groups as well). When the Israelites took the promised land from the canaanites the second part of this curse/blessing came true, Canaan became the slave of Shem. In fact a reason and perhaps the reason the Israelites could defeat their larger foe and take the land was because this curse was pronounced— the curse guaranteed their victory.
The last part of this curse and blessing came true with the tower of Babel debacle - when an attempt to build a tower to heaven failed and the languages of the people were then mixed up and the people were scattered. It is at this point when all the decendents of Noah migrated to other parts of the world. Japheth’s descendants spread out and settled in Europe and Asia. Eurasia is approximately 36% of the world’s land and contains about 70% of the world population. Then you must consider that Europeans have colonized more than 90% of the worlds nations. Also note that the promise land (Shem) was taken over and became a part of both the Greek and Roman empires, also both Egypt and Libya (Canaan) were both colonized by European powers and Ethiopia (Canaan) was occupied by Italy, also from this curse Pharaoh's heart was hardened by God and he refused to let God’s people go so Egypt (Canaan) and its people had to suffer through a multitude of plagues…all of these things were possible because of the curse/blessing that Noah pronounced.
This one curse/blessing was responsible for many world history events, so believe the Bible when it tells you the power of life and death are in the tongue. That being said it is an error to believe that black peoples (people of African descent) are divinely inferior to Semites, Asians and Europeans because of Noah’s curse; no where in this curse/blessing are we told that. Only Canaan and his descendants were made slaves of Shem and Japheth and their descendants…all of Ham’s other descendants were left out of the curse and the blessing.
According to Noah’s blessing people of African descent were not promised as slaves to anyone. Perhaps that is why it took Africans handing over Africans for The Atlantic slave trade to happen…cooperation was needed to make it possible - it could not be done by force or fate because it was not promised.
I believe there is a different Biblical event that is tied to the oppression of black peoples everywhere. I believe the plight of black people is a type (a remix) of the story of Adam and Eve in Eden. The serpent, Satan, in the form of Spaniard and British traders entered into paradise a land abundant with treasure and resources and encouraged Eve (West African traders that engaged in trade with the European exploiters) to partake in the forbidden fruit (goods of Europe) and “she” then got Adam (the rest of the continent) involved and from then on they no longer lived in paradise but in a land of lacking and death…where life is hard and the ground is cursed and they have to work hard to get what they need from a land that would not produce abundance for them
The Bible is so so important and that is why you must read it daily …the wicked read the Bible and know it thoroughly. ( the devil can quote scripture) this knowledge of scripture then allows them to weaponize it by twisting it and exploiting God’s promises and laws (much like the rich and powerful weaponize the constitution of the United States with the help of the executive and judicial branches of government) and those who don’t know it well (in both cases) suffer from preventable struggles and death (scripture warns us that: my people perish from a lack of knowledge Hosea 4:6)
