What White Supremacists Fail To Realize ...

 …is that No One appointed them the superior race.  They may have gotten that unfortunate idea from church, but they were mistaken.

When I was a little girl, I remember going to Sunday School.  My whole family attended the Islip Presbyterian Church.  My grandparents, parents, aunts & uncles went in for church service; I went to Sunday School.  It was there I saw my first picture of Jesus: blonde, blue-eyed, hands in prayer and looking blissfully up to heaven.

Imagine my surprise when, years later, I learned that Jesus was from the Middle East and was NOT a white, blue-eyed, blonde-haired man.  Even Jesus Christ Superstar got it wrong.  Through the years I went to church, I never heard about how racism and churches (all of them) were intertwined.  It was the same in school: all the history I learned was pretty well white washed.

I learned the truth out of school, reading.

Before America was even colonized, white European ministers and priests fed their congregations on the idea that they could follow Jesus and still brutalize people who were “other” and therefore “different.”  White Europeans, especially England, colonized everywhere and they found lots of “others”.  These “others” had to be subjugated and to follow the white Christian way.  Never mind the fact that “others” had civilizations and cultures and religions going back thousands of years.

In the movie 1776, we see John Adams taking umbrage at the Southern colonies because they wanted to be able to keep their slaves.  What happened to the Declaration was not quite the drama in the movie.  These white men were lawyers and businessmen and came to the conclusion that slavery might be vile but it was profitable.

Yesterday I wrote about the Know Nothings and how the present GQP is so similar.  I wrote about how white supremacy keeps rearing its ugly head over and over and over.  One reason I wrote about was the sanitization of our history, the white bread bland stuff fed to school children.  Nothing wrong here, kiddos; we’re all the good guys.

The other reason white supremacy keeps reappearing is the racist roots in churches.  I’ll admit to feeling a bit stunned when I saw a picture showing what Jesus probably looked like.  But it makes sense.  Of course, he would have dark hair, eyes and skin.  He was from the Middle East with a warm, sunny climate.  But why aren’t the churches changing their pictures of him? I’m specifically talking about churches attended by mostly white people.  Why don’t I see more white church leaders condemning what happened in Buffalo?  Why don’t we have black Jesus at Christmas?

I would like to ask a so-called Christian white supremacist: “Where exactly does it say in the Bible that white people are in control?”

You see these white supremacists with their signs that proclaim how much they love Jesus but I don’t see the evidence that they do.  Jesus said feed my people.  Shelter them.  Yet how did these groups react when Afghan refugees needed to come to the United States?  Oh, the horror!  More “others” to replace white people!

I see that supremacists will advocate violence against “others” even though Jesus said that the Greatest Commandment of all was to love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself.  “Your neighbor” is not just a White Anglo Saxon Protestant.  “Your neighbor” is Jewish, Asian, Hispanic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, of color, gay, straight, trans, non-binary, Deaf, blind, wheelchair bound, depressed, schizophrenic, and every other variation of people born.

We are not all the same.  We should celebrate our differences and learn from each other.

All this hate being generated has led to bloodshed and death.  And here’s the thing:  no matter who or what we are, we all bleed red.

Rethuglicans didn’t waste any time with deflection and blame.  It’s not white supremacy, they said.  It’s mental illness.  It’s not the gun.  The immigrants are to blame.  Racists are eager to lap it all up.  Other supporters apparently aren’t aware enough to know that this BS has been on going for hundreds of years.  They don’t learn it in school and don’t bother to learn the truth.  The truth is painful.  They don’t want to face it so it’s just easier to blame the mentally ill killer and the stress immigrants bring that brought on the mass shooting.

So many of us are sickened by all this hate and violence against our brothers and sisters.  I really hope that we take President Biden’s words to heart.  We have to speak up.  Contact our legislators.  Write.  Speak out.  Protest.  Above all VOTE.