Righting the Wrongs of Racism--A White Man's Prescription--White Guilt

Much has been said over the years in relation to slavery and the white man's role in it. What part, if any do white people today have to play in this historical injustice and is there any responsibility to be shouldered in relation to the treatment of black people who suffered for several centuries under this system of servitude? This is a question that many are uncomfortable with because it engenders a lot of emotion ranging from bitterness to confusion, and to outright rejection. In order to right the wrong of racism, however, it is a question that must be asked and there must be an answer that satisfies both the heart and the mind of those who are either consciously or unconsciously affected by this unfortunate legacy. The only way to begin to clear the air of this unresolved issue is to deal with it honestly. Yes, slavery in the United States has long since passed into the annals of history but the mental offspring from the minds of those that created such an institution still live on to varying degrees in the ideas and beliefs that many still hold and that affect both their private realities and the public life of our nation. Naturally, no one alive today can be held responsible for what happened many years ago, but the culpability for those crimes can be said to be the mental step-children of the perpetrators of those acts that have been passed down, in a second-handed fashion to those who still hold the same ideas today. Some might say that racism and slavery are two different things, yet it is the ideas and beliefs behind racism that created such an institution to begin with, so both concepts are intertwined, one within the other. Those that are most affected by racism in their lives are those who hold many of the same notions that existed a hundred years ago and more. Many feel a sense of shame and guilt for harboring such ideas and are uncomfortable with themselves for doing so. They may speak of racial inequality and injustice and pay lip service to it but a part of them still believes that blacks are dangerous, inferior, uncivilized, sexually unrestrained and exhibit the darker impulses of man. We can see this belief system operating even in many of the founding fathers of our nation who were considered some of the most enlightened thinkers of that time. Thomas Jefferson, for example, for all his genius, believed that blacks were inferior to whites but at the same time condemned slavery. Why is this? Try as people might, many still hold two conflicting sets of beliefs that keep this issue alive and that unfortunately block the progress and growth of individuals, communities and nations alike. Most individuals want to believe that all people are equal. What is it then that stops people from following through with that belief and living it in their daily lives? If we look at beliefs as if they were planetary systems we would see that one core belief, or one planet has several other moons or beliefs that rotate around it. These would be called subsidiary beliefs or secondary planets. Oftentimes one of a planet's moons is in the direct orbiting path of another and blocks it from the main planet's 'view.' So the same is true of a core belief. Other subsidiary beliefs rotate around it and often cannot be seen from the main belief's viewpoint, rendering it invisible. Its effects, however, are hardly so. If a person believes, for example, that all men are created equal, yet at the same time believes that a part of man has an animal instinct that is itself dangerous, and if let free would cause ruin and havoc in society, then he would try to control this uncivilized impulse and repress it as much as he could. And what if this same person cannot accept such a 'darker' impulse within his own mind and instead projects it outward onto another person or race that seems to him to embody such a nature? Many whites fear blacks because they believe so strongly in the unacceptable darker impulses of their own natures, and that they must hold these sinister aspects of their own minds and souls down at all costs. Blacks became the scapegoat of the denied 'darker' impulses of the white man's ideas of good and evil. Many blacks conversely have unconsciously bought into or have been conditioned by the same set of ideas and act them out in society unknowingly. In other words, value judgments on color have been placed where they don't belong. There has been a grave error committed and it continues to generate misunderstanding, bitterness, divisiveness and a lack of growth. This error can be called the 'white ethic' and it was given birth centuries ago by individuals who believed firmly in the 'black and white' or 'good and evil' aspects of the mind. These concepts have been unexamined for centuries and they still continue to be an invisible force in the life of many cultures and societies on the face of the earth. It is our beliefs about the inner contents of the mind, projected outward into the world of events that have created racism and the institutions that are a result of this thinking. To right the wrong of racism the ideas that have given it birth must be changed. To do this requires a new examination, both personally and en masse, into the ideas that we hold not only about race, but also in those beliefs that lie 'hidden' behind racism and are blocked from view by the core beliefs that we hold about good and evil and the nature of the mind and soul. Is it an accident, for example, especially in the Western world, that racism and man's concepts of the Devil and the reality of evil as a manifestation of a supernatural force are not nearly as strong as they were, say, 50 or 100 years ago or more? This is not to say that concepts of good and evil are the only factors in this equation, but they cannot be ignored and swept under the rug as if they didn't exist. Ideas of associating evil with darkness and white with goodness may be simplistic, but for centuries man has been guilty of doing just such a thing. How could a civilized people, building a nation in the 18th and 19th centuries and before capture and enslave another group of people simply because of skin color? The answer to this question is a similar one that can be asked of Hitler's Germany. Why did Hitler and many of the German people take part in and acquiesce to the genocide of the Jews? In this case it wasn't the darker skin color that stamped the Jews with the Scarlet Letter of racial inferiority-it was the rigid ideas of good and evil held by those living at the time that created such a catastrophe. "The evil must be plucked out" was the justifiable idea that circulated in that time and place. Those who held this concept felt that they were pursuing the good. Otherwise they couldn't have taken those actions. The Jews became the scapegoat for Germany's problems because they were considered to be inferior and the embodiment of evil. Sadly, this same set of beliefs is the root cause of many of the world's problems, both historically speaking and in the context of the present times. How can man be so cruel to other men? Unfortunately, highly distorted ideas of good and evil are to blame. The men and women who hold them must take responsibility, but let us not blame human nature for these ignominious deeds. It is not human nature that is at fault. It is our ideas and beliefs about human nature and our medieval concepts of good and evil that are in error. White guilt, as it pertains to racism is the result of two simultaneously held belief systems that have not been reconciled. One says that all men are created equal and the other says that they are not. Until these ideas are exposed, examined and altered they will continue to hold an invisible and 'gravitational effect' upon the minds of many and they will generate events, both privately and in the public arena that reflect these conflicting views.