Racism Isn’t What It Used to Be
This OpEd originally appeared on The World and Everything In It. Hear more of Ryan Bomberger’s commentaries here.
Racism is everywhere. It’s in everything. It’s in everyone. Well, ok, not everyone. Just white people. Or so say some proponents of Critical Race Theory, a poison that was pumped into our national veins during the summer of 2020. After the senseless death of George Floyd, the Anti-Defamation League or ADL redefined racism as a moral outrage only white people could commit. They proclaimed racism was “the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.”
Prior to 2020, their definition made more sense. It read, “Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics.”
Since then, ADL has changed its definition several times and then decided to scrap their whole Racism subpage altogether. But in many ways, they still embrace CRT’s definition of racism–as do many organizations and corporations today. During the 2020 Summer of Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots, even faith-based non-profits like Bethany Christian Services began to redefine themselves with “anti-racist” language, offering webinars to help families fight so-called “white privilege.”
Around this time, the Smithsonian’s taxpayer-funded National Museum of African-American History and Culture offered its racist and now-retracted infographic titled “Aspects of Whiteness and White Culture”. It claimed among other things that believing in hard work, politeness, and planning for the future were unique values of white culture. Like CRT advocates, they redefined racism as that which only benefits white people–whether it’s individual, institutional, systemic or structural.
Such academic verbiage has an air of sophistication but really just reeks of, well, more discrimination.
Even leading anti-racism evangelist and best-selling propagandist, Ibram X. Kendi, can’t seem to define the word from which he’s made millions. In this cringe-worthy clip from the leftist Aspen Ideas Festival, Kendi leaves his audience in an awkward silence, saying: “Racism. I would define it as a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas.”
Circular definitions are so fitting for those who incessantly talk in circles. Racism is “everywhere,” but somehow these activists cannot explain what it is.
Here’s how the Bible defines racism: sin.
Race is a destructive human construct with absolutely no basis in science. It’s simply another failure of humanity to see ourselves as being made in God’s image with inherent and equal worth. People of every skin color can be tempted to think they’re better or more valuable than others.
Many anti-racists today claim to “build community” with their colorized anti-social policies, but they only divide us further. For Christians, true unity exists solely through the love of Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can break the seemingly endless cycle of worshiping color instead of the Creator.
