Donald Trump said we’re changing history by taking down confederate statues. No one said they were destroying those Statues -- and no one said that they wanted to change our history. On the contrary, we desire never to forget our history. More importantly, we as a nation desire never to repeat history.
Neo-Nazism in 2017?
Ignorant, fearful, petty, weak-willed, and small-minded Neo-Nazi racism in the year 2017? That particular sickening stage in American history, represented by these statues, needs to be relegated to museums and/or cemeteries and filed under “what not to do." Those people that still seem stuck in the 1800’s need to be referred to state mental hospitals for some serious psychotherapy, and we need to rethink the education system in the south.
I believe this is what occurs after decades of isolation and religious indoctrination is woven into rural southern education systems and cultures. The resultant cognitive dissonance would seem to provide for something more akin to a kaleidoscope than an education. It’s also where science and climate change deniers, paranoid conspiracy theorists, and religious and/or political fanatics and extremists come from.
Christianity and race used to justify slavery
In order to understand racism I think it is important to realize where it came from. The term “race” was first adopted for the purposes of justifying slavery. Originally slavery was justified by the assumption that potential slaves worshipped the wrong gods and were thus “heathens."
Heathens were fair game for slavery.
Some slave owners and slave dealers took race even further by justifying it biblically from the book of Genesis, chapter 9. So, expectedly, slaves began converting to Christianity, and, consequently, being freed. Though this touches on Stockholm syndrome where slaves or captives identify with their masters or captors, that’s a different topic for a different time.
As I understand it, this slave conversion was hurting slave owners (and even slave traffickers) financially.
Racism: Classism for the poor and uneducated
This sinister ideology was assimilated into existing classism, naturally, by giving the lowest class of white culture another class to look down upon and/or dominate. Sadly, and sickeningly, those in the south -- where slavery was most dearly accepted into everyday life -- came to hold onto these justifications as tight as they held onto their religious delusions.
So tightly, in fact, that to this day our country is infected by its shadow.
Racism to me is still classism because it evolved within a classist society. But what it unknowingly does to those that possess it is put them in the lowest possible human class, below even a common thief. It is, it seems, a necessary evil for those inclined to it. It’s also why the vast majority of that ilk either hide or end up in prison.
