Resisting the Winds

Cultural Sins are Racist?

Originally published at Resisting The Winds on July 07, 2022.


I read in a debate thread that blaming disparities within the black community on the black community itself (rather than some external element like systemic racism) is itself a racist idea. I am not here to dispute that. But I would like help harmonizing that with the very notion of “systemic racism” which seems to do the very same thing. i.e. blame a cultural problem on a particular skin color.

If in the past, white people “created” white supremacy, and then built systems/institutions to perpetuate it, what external factors “caused” said white people to do such a thing in the first place? What oppressive systems made former European whites so racist? If such a structure exists, it seems that today’s conversations are misplaced, not getting at the root of the issue. The real question would not be on the current systemic injustices, but on the original one. Which systemic injustice caused white people to create a new form of systemic injustice on others?

But the problem now is that our thinking is on the brink of a logical fallacy. If culture-wide problems among people in proximity, who also share the same skin color, are always due to some external factor, then we’ve struck an eternal regression. As we work back in time, we need to eventually stop with some culture or system that self-created its own problems and sins.

However, if we deny that an external force caused European whites to have this cultural issue (white supremacy) then we are left to blame white people for self-creating a sinful culture. That then begs the question: Why is it not racist to accuse white people of self-creating a sinful community, but it is racist to accuse black people of self-creating a sinful community? If no external structure/system caused whites to become racist, then you would be forced to admit white people self-created their own cultural sin, and then perpetuated that self-created sin into systems/structures (systemic racism). Can black people self-create sinful cultures? If they can, why is it racist to say so? It can be wrong without being racist.

If black people cannot self-create sinful cultures, why can whites? How did white people manage to make themselves into racists if cultural sins or disparities must be blamed on external injustices?

1 reply »

  1. The racism was created by LBJ in his plans to create a welfare system that ends up harmful to self sufficiency. But many are beginning to understand what that has produced. Trump via Ben Carson was attempting a correction that was never taken seriously.

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