Years ago I learned what I call the
onionskin theory of racism. The theory says that when one grows up in a culture
that has its roots in racism (stealing the land and killing the first people as
"savages"; enslaving black & brown people as less than human),
even if you come out of a home that was accepting and respecting of everyone no
matter the color of their skin, you still need to peel back the layers of the
onion of racism, one by one.
People often have trouble
distinguishing between racism and racial prejudice. You can be accepting of
everyone, be non judgmental no matter their color, and still be a racist.
Racism is an "ism." Racism is structural. Its embedded in our history
and in our culture. It often lurks below the surface of white awareness. It
appears in myriad ways, sometimes in what are called micro-aggressions.
"Why is your hair like that? May I touch it?"
Then of course there are so many
major-aggressions. Why are so many native persons incarcerated beyond their
percentage in the population? According to the CDC, they are more likely to be
killed by police than any other minority group. For every 1 million native
americans, an average of 2.9 died annually from "legal intervention."
That rate is 12% higher than for black folks and 3 times the rate for whites.
Then again, why are so many black men stopped by police because they
"fit the description" given by a white woman? Why do so many end up
dead for minor infractions?
The demonstrations around the
country, and most recently on the road to Mount Rushmore, are an attempt to
wake us up to the racism entrenched in our society, especially in our history.
Seriously, folks! How many knew that Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount
Rushmore, was friendly with the KKK and received some funding from them for his
work. How many knew that this immigrant was concerned about a "mongrel
horde" replacing people of "Nordic" purity?
What about President Thomas
Jefferson? If he's going to be a graven image in the mountains of South Dakota,
shouldn't we at least recognize that he was a slave holder and an adulterer?
History records that he had a long term sexual relationship with one of his
slave women, Sally Hemings, and fathered her six children.
The indigenous of this area often
remind us that for them Abraham Lincoln was not just the great emancipator. He
also oversaw the largest mass hanging in our history the day after Christmas
in1862. That was the day he ordered the execution of 38 Dakota men at Mankato,
Minnesota.
We are being asked to remove another
skin from the onion, a piece of our racist history. Some communities are
deciding to remove confederate monuments. The military is prepared to re-name
some of their facilities. South Dakota saw the wisdom in changing Harney Peak,
the highest point in the Black Hills and named after a General responsible for
a massacre of indigenous women and children at Blue Water Creek, to Black Elk
Peak, after a celebrated Lakota holy man. We are being asked to recognize the
failings of our past, confess our sins, seek forgiveness, and where necessary,
enact some kind of restorative justice. For a nation that considers itself a
"Christian" nation, what's so hard about that? I was under the
impression that was a commonplace process, recommended in Scripture and the
larger Christian community.
The point is, people see different
realities when they look at those faces in stone on Mount Rushmore. Ditto when
it comes to our present "leaders." When President Clinton was in the
oval office, some believed his sexual misadventures were enough to remove him.
Many of those same folks have given the current occupant a mulligan, even
though he was quite explicit about how he objectifies and treats women. One
wonders if political ideology isn't influencing one's religion, rather than the
other way around.
Some religious communities were
quite explicit at Standing Rock of dis-owning the "Doctrine of
Discovery." That was the religious manifesto issued by Pope Alexander VI
in 1493. it was the spiritual, legal and political justification for seizing
land and colonizing inhabitants who were not "Christians." It's a
racist layer of the onion many others who call themselves Christians have
failed to peel away. They still feel called by God, if not the Pope, to
colonize the globe for Christ and the historical, American way of life. They
want to make America great again, like in the times of those figures on Mount
Rushmore.
We need to heed the second
commandment. We don't need to worship the past or make graven images of our
heroes. They all fall short of the glory of God, found just for the looking in
those sacred Hills. We need not be afraid to peel back the layers of racism.
Each layer lost helps us get to the deeper, inner source of life, at the center
of the onion and us.
Carl Kline
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