Racism & Sexism Dressed as Jesus

As the nation grapples with demographic changes and the legacy of racism in America, Christianity's role as a cornerstone of white supremacy has been largely overlooked. But white Christians--from evangelicals in the South to mainline Protestants in the Midwest and Catholics in the Northeast--have not just been complacent or complicit; rather, as the dominant cultural power, they have constructed and sustained a project of protecting white supremacy and opposing black equality that has framed the entire American story.

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity

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Piety can give cover to racism by positioning white evangelicals as morally superior. By policing sex and prohibiting the pleasures of gambling, partying, drinking or even dancing, white evangelicals can craft a narrative where they are upright guardians of virtue, rather than mean-spirited racists who organize — in distinctly un-Christ-like fashion — to preserve their privileges at the expense of people of color. Indeed, the more white evangelicals defended a racist social order, the more effort they put into portraying themselves as "virtuous" by the way of strict rules governing individual behavior.

It's the same story with white evangelicals and sexism. The prohibitions on premarital sex, contraception, abortion and divorce mainly serve to control girls and women, channeling them away from living independent lives and keeping them under the thumb of one man or another, first a father and then a husband, for their entire lives. Whenever feminists criticized evangelical misogyny, the Christian right defended itself by claiming that its sexist ideology flowed from "faith," when in reality, it was the other way around: Male supremacy was the core belief, and religious faith was used to rationalize and justify it.

Jerry Falwell Jr. is the true face of white evangelicals — and dumping him changes nothing | Salon.com

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OrphanSlug said:

All of the social ills and divisions we see from society to society across history are in some way forgiven, if not outright institutionalized, ultimately by religion.

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The Spanish first brought Catholicism to the island. The first European to set foot on Haiti, Christopher Columbus landed on December 6, 1492, by way of San Salvador, with three ships. His own ship, the Santa Maria ran aground near Mole St. Nicolas on the northwest of the island. Some evangelization efforts were extended to the natives, though this population was soon nearly wiped out through disease and slavery. African slaves, brought to work in their place, were introduced to Christianity.

During Spanish rule, religion was one of the most important aspects of life on the island.

Christianity in Haiti - Wikipedia.

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Drawdown said:

All the american isms pail in comparison to what some of the Africans Christians are doing in the name of Jesus or muslims are doing in the name of Allah. It isn't the religion that is manifestly good or bad. Some people are just predisposed to violence.

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calamity said:

The point of the the thread via the articles is to show how man--some of them, at at least--uses religion as cover while doing those bad things to which he is predisposed.

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Barnacle said:

... and here I thought this is a typical Calamity thread about Trump ... :lol:

"... A perfect example of this is illustrated by examining the statements made by Trump versus a song sung by Cardi-B.
Evangelical Christians are fine with the President saying he grabs *****. ..."

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calamity said:

Below are a couple of pieces exploring race and Christianity.



My take on the first one is that the racism is less about a person's skin color than it is the dislike of the "culture" associated with skin color.

"House Negroes" are always accepted. The problems start when the "Negro" dares to step outside the box constructed by whites. A perfect example of this is illustrated by examining the statements made by Trump versus a song sung by Cardi-B.

Evangelical Christians are fine with the President saying he grabs *****. But, they are outraged when an African American female dares to say she likes a wet *****. The double standard there is stunning.

And, that leads me to the next piece. Here we see the blending of racism and sexism, both dressed up and disguised as piety, applied to the not so subtle effort to police the minority.



I think the authors are onto something.

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