The Curse that contaminates and corrupts almost everything American; the American Curse that discriminates, oppresses, incarcerates and kills. The Curse that generates violence toward and in the Afro American community; recently powerfully described by Ta-Nehisi Coates in Between the World and Me.
"For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well among those things that appeared just." This powerful one-sentence summary of Mississippi history, and much of American history, was written by my friend, Lee Harper, an Afro American woman. The Curse is a master at disguising itself under a religious cloak; the sanitized Curse, the sanctified Curse, the legitimated Curse, the invisible Curse.
"From the same mouth, come blessing and cursing." (James 3:10). In America, blessings and cursings are often intertwined.
"Redemption"---this sacred biblical term was misused by Southern segregationists to legitimate the violent creation of a new system of oppression to replace slavery.
"Shalom, shalom"---this beautiful Old Testament word was misused by false prophets to cover massive idolatry, injustice, and immorality; they essentially said, "All is well, everything is O.K.," when, in reality, social evil was rampant.
"Puritans"---especially second, third and fourth generation Puritans supported Indian extermination and land theft.
"Founding Fathers"---too many, such as Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves and supported Indian Removal; a rich, white, male elite that discriminated against the poor, women, Native Americans, and Afro Americans, and treated them as second class citizens; "all men are created equal" was talked but not walked.
"St. Louis Arch"---celebrates the westward expansion of white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants who in the process of conquering and colonizing the West, committed genocide against Native American people and cultures.
"American exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny"---the belief that God created this nation for his special purpose; this legitimated the brutal oppression of every ethnic group who were in the way of White American expansion. America is exceptionally ethnocentric.
The Statistical Curses:
* 5 and 25---an international comparison which quantifies the massive misuse and abuse of the prison system in the US. The US has five percent of the world's prison population but 25 percent of the world's prison population.
* 2 and 24---blacks make up two percent of Iowa's population but 24 percent of Iowa's prison population. Question: Are Iowa blacks highly criminal or is the criminal justice system highly oppressive?
* 25 to 1---a statistic which quantifies the incarceration ratio between Blacks and Whites nationwide; combines the incarceration numbers with the population percentages of Blacks and Whites. Contrary to popular opinion, Blacks and Whites use and sell drugs equally; about six percent of Whites, Blacks and Latinos use illegal drugs. There are five times as many Whites as Blacks in the US population. If they use illegal drugs equally and are prosecuted equally, there should be five times as many Whites in prison for possessing or using illegal drugs. Instead, there are roughly five times as many Blacks in prison for illegal drugs. Some criminologists multiply five times five and get an incarceration ratio of 25 to 1. Iowa's ratio is over 50 to 1. Is "criminalblackman" the new "nigger"?
* 20 to 1---the typical White household has 20 times the wealth/assets as the typical Black household.
How did this awful Curse originate? Who invented it? According to ethnic historian, Ronald Takaki (A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America), the British invented it and exported it to America lock-stock-and-barrel. Just prior to colonizing America, the British finished conquering and colonizing the Irish. In the process they invented a religiously justified ethnocentric vocabulary to justify their oppression of the Irish; they were ruthlessly brutal.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is the latest scholar to document the impact of the Curse upon Afro Americans; see "The Case for Reparations" and his book Between the World and Me." Coates brilliantly explains the problem and points out the need for reparations as the solution. But he cannot deliver on the solution; only repentant whites can and there are few of those. If white American Christians were fully biblical, they would be repenting, restituting and repairing in mass. But most prefer white privilege, to enjoy the fruits of oppression, to misuse religion to rationalize their ethnocentrism and oppression. Will the white American church ever choose to incarnate the kingdom of God as justice over free labor, cheap labor, free land, or more precisely stolen land and exploited labor?
Any volunteers in repenting, restituting and repairing? If you are not convinced about the need for repentance, read Inheriting the [Slave] Trade, The New Jim Crow, and Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.
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