We are all Racist!

We’ve been going through this series and we haven’t taken time to define racism. Let’s take a look at the dictionary meaning of racism. 

“prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.”

Hate is abounding daily and racism is evolving. We are not just racist against people who are different anymore, we attack and hate our own people too. The dictionary definition of racism doesn’t cut it anymore. I believe the new definition of racism is simply hating others regardless of ethnicity or race coupled with pride and sense of superiority. 

When you hear the word racism, we immediately think, the whites are the racists. 

We believe that the whites are the predators and the blacks are the prey. (BTW, I really hate labels. Just the fact that am typing white & black is irritating my soul.)

But that is so not true. 

We have racist blacks who hate whites and even fellow blacks

We also have racist whites who hate blacks and fellow whites. 

We just have so much pride and hate/dislike people who we believe are inferior to us. 

It is no longer the battle of the colors/race. It is simply a situation of hate. 

We don’t care if they are black or white, we just hate people. 

We have many black people who are extremely racist. They hate white people and judge them. 

However, when white people do it, it’s called racism. 

But when black people do it, it is not racism, we are just “fighting back.” 

Noone is born racist or with hate in their heart. This is something that is learned over time from our parents and society as a whole. And this persists because we continue to refer back to things that have happened in the past with our forefathers. All of the past plus the present happenings continue to fuel racism and hate within us. 

Now, this is not to diss the movie, Black Panther. I loved it. I even watched it twice. 

However, what we failed to realize during the period of the movie release was the racist characters of the Blacks. Many went to watch the movie more than once just so they could help put the movie on the chart in the Box Office and prove to the Whites that a “Black movie” can break the record and become the #1 movie in the world. Which it did. That is the secret yet the useless power of racism. Always making us want to prove ourselves when we owe no-one any explanation. 

Suddenly, the casts of the movie became real-life heroes. Yet, Jesus, the true hero, and savior, is continually shoved aside every day. Parents said the movie inspired their children to step out and be who they want to be. That only proves one thing. Such parent hasn’t told their kids about Jesus yet. Such parent has not been instilling positive words in their child’s life. Such parent has been cutting away their child’s character. 

The superhero movies are great but again, they are just movies. They can inspire us for a moment but will never inspire us until the very end. True hope is found in Christ Jesus only.

In fact, many skits were made from the movie which put down and dissed white people using some of the words from the movie such as “colonizer”, but we all laughed about it. I laughed too. But, that is sheer racism. If we were to flip places, where a dominant white cast movie was made and blacks were called slaves, negro, etc. There would have been a big riot and protest. 

During the period of the movie release, the blacks felt superior. They felt valued. They saw what they could be (but might not be because of the labels that bound us). It felt great the see a movie that shattered that. But this was just during that period. It was a limited feeling. After the waves of that movie, many people most likely feel back into the snares of their color, the label and the belief that they are inferior and useless. 

We are all bad people, no one is good. God alone is good. 

Racism doesn’t always have to involve violence, pronounced discriminations and, prejudice. It can come in all forms. The little looks we give, the eye rolls, the color-coded words we say, the racial jokes, etc. We all laugh and see nothing wrong with it because we think we are good and non-racist people. We only see the fault in others but not in ourselves. But, deep down in our hearts, we are so racist and we don’t even know it. We’ve been deceived by our hearts. 

The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9  (KJV), “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

The heart is so deceitful that many times we don’t know what is deep down in our hearts. We believe we ain’t racist but our heart harbors hate that is unknown to us. However, the mouth speaks and we act out of the abundance of hate in our heart that we don’t or might not know. It exposes the true content of our hearts.

So, in one way or another, we are all racist, but only the obvious is attacked. We are all bad people, no one is good. God alone is good. We can only become good through Jesus. So, when we talk about freedom from racism, we must first be free from ourselves and the hate/racism in our own hearts. It starts with each of us.

How do we do that? Who can truly know our hearts and what we harbor in it?

Only God can.

God searches our hearts. God looks beyond our deeds, outward appearances, our claims of being good people and looks deep into our hearts. 

Proverbs 21:2 “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.”

Therefore, let us allow God to search our heart. Withholding nothing, ask God to reveal unto us the things that are not of Him and are lurking around in our hearts and ask that He performs a heart surgery on us and give us a new heart. 

A heart that loves. A heart that is zealously guarded against evil. A heart that sees the good in people regardless of their background and origin. A heart that sees people as equals (no superior, no inferior). A heart that overflows with love. 

God Bless.

You are Eternally Loved. 

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The series (Freedom from Racism) continues tomorrow. Be sure to stop by. And if you’ve been blessed be sure to share with others. God bless.