OddBeliefs.com

With all the daily clatter about racism, you don’t hear much about the historic benefits of its innocent cousin, cultural identification. We are right to condemn racism because hatred for someone because they are from a different race is wrong, but we gain insight by considering its evolution.

Racial identification has been prerequisite of survival since the dawn of humankind. If you examine racially motivated feelings on a spectrum: at one end is racial identification, and at the other end is the devouring hatred of racism. And I say spectrum because, as much as we’d like to be able to say that racism is either-or, it is actually a question of degree.

Too often I hear people say that “either you’re a racist or you’re not”. These shortsighted individuals invariably and piously judge themselves as a complete “not”. Try this: have them rate their own degree of racism on a scale of 1 to 10. If they rate themselves as anything above a “0″, call them a racist.

In any event, few would deny that at some historical point every race was little more than a collection of tribes. If you, as I have taken a history course, we both know about tribes. In my history text the various tribes constantly warred with one another, disputing their boundaries and religious beliefs and competing for precious natural resources. They had geographical and cultural barriers that isolated them one from the other.

Tribe A and Tribe B have different cultures, and both tribes believe their own culture to be superior. Hence the other is inferior - in particular, they are wrong. Since being wrong is bad, they are bad people - nevermind the logical fallacy. Consider that you, as a member your own tribe, hadn’t subsumed that your own way was right, these differences would never have even mattered to you.

The congregating together with those who look like you and avoiding, fearing or even hating those who look differently from you, is a natural carry-over from our tribal ancestries.

The irony is that civilization marches toward commonality regardless of our beliefs, fueled by any contact at all among us. Any interaction foments commonality. Even warring parties gradually grow to understand one another and form alliances. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. So hatred can be and has doubtless been a starting point for civilization. As people interact, the world becomes a smaller place. Tribes gradually move closer together.

But take heart. We are certainly not without hope of overcoming racism. Time, itself, seems imbued with the solution. The world’s races are merging. Someday the races will converge, making racism moot. Racism is destined to become a historical footnote.

My advice is to hasten the demise of racism is to be civil to people of other races. You don’t have to go overboard, just be civil. Treat people from other races the the same as you treat people of your own kind: no advantages for your own kind; no disadvantages for the different kind.

Know too, that any time you give your kind an advantage or bring disadvantage upon another kind, you are the tribal throwback, the barbarian from a distant past. Every act of civility diminishes your negativism. Also being civil makes you feel better at the end of the day. Let’s face it, it’s not just a cure for racism, when you’re civil, you’re civilized; when you’re not civil, …

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The last few days, television news has been rife with discussion of Rev. Wright, Barak Obama’s former pastor and the effect Rev. Wright has brought to bear on the Democratic primaries. First the focus was on Rev. Wright’s cursing the nation from his pulpit, but now it has shifted to Rev. Wright’s capitalizing from his greatly increased public exposure, especially at the increasing peril of Sen. Obama’s election hopes. What a buddy, huh? A family friend. An esteemed religious leader. The reverend slapped Obama with the religion card and the race card in one lucky hand. I say “lucky” because Rev. Wright is rapidly cashing in his self-produced chips. The question is: should Sen. Obama fold?

Until I discovered that he went to a racist church, It had never crossed my mind that Barack Obama might secretly be “bird of a feather” with Rev. Wright. (BTW, sure there’s a racist reverend whose church isn’t racist, but I ain’t buying it. Here’s the FOX perspective.)

I don’t know what black America is thinking about Wright’s television coverage, but I have some idea about the majority of white America. Especially, the rev’s counterparts, the pastors of mainstream white Christian churches. They condemn taking God’s name in vain from the pulpit. But more importantly, even non-churching-going America resonates with the underlying racism of Rev. Wright’s message.

What a shock about the rev’s message, too. Mainstream white Christian America never suspected that black churches might be preaching Rev. Wright’s message of racial division. It begs the question, how can Sen. Obama be trusted if he listens (or ever listened) to Rev. Wright?

I have no doubt that Obama didn’t squirm uncomfortably in his pew during the infamous televised snippets; but squirming wasn’t enough. Barak should have immediately left the church in protest, preferably raising quite a bit of hell in process. Mainstream white Christianity sees no excuse for Obama’s even tacitly accepting racism or foul language coming from the pulpit of his home church. Many previous Obama supporters now believe he is a fraud. God was called upon to damn our nation from his home church’s pulpit.

Obama is defenseless. He has attended Wright’s church for 20 years; he admits that Wright has been a large influence on his life; his marriage was even performed by this insincere showboater. “Distancing” himself from Wright after their 20-year journey through Christendom and family friendship is like trying to distance yourself from your mother. The bond can’t break. Until a couple of weeks ago, these two were close friends. Wright likely had the ear of the next president.

Not now. The nation is not ready for a black president if he’s a racist. And if he’s not racist, why does he attend the one black church that preaches hatred - there is just this one, right? Aside: If the racial negativism of Rev. Wright’s message is de riguer for largely black churches, they should know that largely white churches don’t typically engage in this.

In a related note, Sen. Obama will find himself doubly condemned by Christians (of all stripes) if he actually believes that people turn to religion from frustration as he stated in his infamous campaign speech gaffe. That is to say lots of Christians now think that this guy could be a closet atheist, too.

At the beginning of his campaign, I thought that Sen. Obama represented the first chance for true reform since Kennedy. Now I find myself hoping he’s not just a really smart racist.

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