White man bad! That's the popular narrative of our day. The modern Left holds all white people collectively responsible for the oppression of the past, to the extent where racism, which by all rights should apply to all "races", cannot apply to white people. That would be called "reverse racism", and it's not possible, because white people can't be oppressed... They're responsible for all the evils of history. Everything they have, they stole from everyone else.
The truth is, however, such statements are both inherently racist, and ridiculously anti-historical. First of all, the reverse of racism is not a black person being prejudiced against a white person. That's not reverse racism, that is racism. This is how Merriam Webster defines racism: "a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race".
Now, I would normally avoid Merriam Webster like the plague. Officially, Bible Brain does not recognise it as a reputable source, because it intentionally defines words according to a political bias, and maintains these poor definitions in spite of rebuke. It is this exact dishonest practice that prompts me to use it in this case. If Merriam Webster, a notoriously biased dictionary, still accurately defines racism in a way that accurately reflects racial equality, what excuse have other radical Leftists for failing to do so? If a statement would be racist when made against black people, it is racist when made against white people. If you disagree with this, you are a racist, not because I disagree with what you say, but because you believe race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities, and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of any race that isn't white.
It is not racist to say that historically, some white people did bad things. Did white people sell black slaves, for example? Yes indeed. It would seem, for example, that Muhammad, the precious prophet of Islam, was actually a white man. "Narrated Anas bin Malik: While we were sitting with the Prophet in the mosque, a man came riding on a camel. He made his camel kneel down in the mosque, tied its foreleg and then said: "Who amongst you is Muhammad?" At that time the Prophet was sitting amongst us (his companions) leaning on his arm. We replied, "This white man reclining on his arm."" (Sahih al-Bukhari 63).
This same Muhammad, a white man, bought and sold black slaves: "Jabir (Allah be pleased with him) reported: There came a slave and pledg- ed allegiance to Allah's Apostle on migration; he (the Holy Prophet) did not know that he was a slave. Then there came his master and demanded him back, whereupon Allah's Apostle said: Sell him to me. And he bought him for two black slaves, and he did not afterwards take allegiance from anyone until he had asked him whether he was a slave (or a free man)" (Sahih Muslim 1602).
So, if you believe the Islamic sources, white people owning black slaves is a practice that has been going on for at least 1400 years. Unfortunately, so is black people owning black slaves. In fact, one thing you won't hear in any classroom today is that the first permanent slave owner in the U.S. was Anthony Johnson, a black man who won the right to permanently own John Casor in court.
Now, from here, you might expect me to point out that it was mostly white people who fought to end slavery. That's where many other Conservatives would go from here. But actually, that's where I want to stop. See, I'm not trying to defend white people. I am trying to defend them from this daft narrative that they're somehow inherently evil, and the people of every other color didn't even know what blood looked like until white men showed up with their boom boom sticks, but I don't want to make the same fallacy by saying white people ended slavery as the Left do by (falsely) claiming they started it.
Instead, first, I want to flat out deny that "race" is even a real thing. See, we may have different physical traits like skin color. We may have different cultural practices in our history. We may have been born in different regions. But every human being has the same common ancestors: Adam and Eve, a single human couple made in the image of God. Because of that, there is nothing inherently superior about any of us. No more than the actual twins who are born "different races" to this day. If you can have the same mother, the same father, the same birthday, yet be different races, it's abundantly clear that race is a meaningless social construct.
But our common ancestry brings with it a common problem: Sin. Sin is responsible for 100% of the problems in this world, especially the bad things we do to one another. That includes the bad things we still do to one another. Racism? That's sin. The slavery that still goes on in certain regions of the world? That's sin. The abortion clinics dotted all over the Western world, "conveniently" located in places where black women can be most easily tricked into helping the effort to kill off black babies? That's sin. The irony? The same people who insist white people who have never, in their lives, owned slaves, are evil because of slavery, will demand those same white people support the mass murder of black babies, all in the name of "healthcare". I'd say you can't make this stuff up, but evidently some evil genius did.
So we're seeing three things here. First, it's utter nonsense to suggest all the evils of history are because of white people. When we look back on history, we see all sorts of horrific evil, not all of it committed by white people, but all of it committed by people.
Second, we are right to recoil when we see these things. The sort of brutal practices that make human history so ugly are ugly. They should be condemned, regardless of the motive. When we look back at the Spartans, we see they left their "weak" babies out in the desert to die of exposure or be attacked by animals. Disgusting. We see that rich people would deliberately destroy whole villages for "ruining their view". Despicable. We see black people getting into tribal wars and selling the losers as slaves. Abominable. Human history is riddled with things we rightly look back on and condemn.
But third, we are also worthy of condemnation, not for the evils of the past, over which we have no control, and in which we did not participate. No, we are to be condemned for the evils we continue to perpetrate. And not only the things our descendants will look back on and recoil while themselves committing grave evils they, too, are blind to. It is a strange modern philosophy to judge morality based on its effects on the people we happen to care about. In truth, sin is sin, even if it doesn't actually hurt anyone else.
At this point, the most sensible thing to do would be to take you through the law of God and expose sin, but Jesus actually made this quite easy: "Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”" (Matthew 22:35-40).
Now let me ask you, if this is the standard that applies to you on judgement day (and it will), will you be found guilty or not guilty? On our own, not a single one of us will be found not guilty. None of us always love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, nor do any of us love our neighbors as ourselves. This is why scripture tells us "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23) and "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23).
Focus on that last part for a moment. The wages of sin, which we have all committed, is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. God doesn't fail like we do. When Jesus walked the Earth, He wasn't a racist. He wasn't an oppressor of any kind. He didn't run around screaming about how we should punish people for the sins of their ancestors. No, the message of Christ was that whether we repeat the sins of our ancestors, or commit entirely different sins, we can have salvation through Him. Though we are sinners, He is not, and yet He died for the sins of the world. The result? Anyone, people of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, can receive the gift of eternal life, simply by confessing Him as Lord, and believing God raised Him from the dead.
Now, this may well improve things on Earth, and in fact it did. But we will never build a utopia here. When we try without Christ, we inevitably dig our own pits of doom. Even when we try with Christ, our own sin will thwart our efforts, even without the devil snapping at our heels the whole time. The Earth is completely lost, and is destined to be burned in the fervent heat. But by faith, we will be raised with Him, which will be followed by an eternity in a world greater even than Eden. If you have not yet received salvation, I invite you to do so.