Racism has been present in America since the very first colonists landed on our shores. As
expansions occurred, colonists would interact with Native Americans, African Americans and
Mexicans. Wilsey states that “whites’ consistent view of these groups was that they were
outside the “authentic” nation” and that “whites as a whole saw these races as Inferior Others
meant that they considered them bereft of human dignity, and thereby open to being acted
upon” (Wilsey, 2015, p. 104). As our country hurtled to its eventual destiny of a new country
with a daring new government, these views of white racial superiority were carried forward and
woven into our legal system and economy which caused racism to not only be an individual
prejudice but a systemic one as well “systemic because they are not dependent on the ongoing
prejudice of individuals-they are the result of prejudice being built into the laws and institutes
over time.”
Being aware of how intricately woven racism is in our society, William Faulkner’s quote “The
past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Is extremely applicable to the current racial and
immigration discussions. The outbreak of Covid in 2020 with the subsequent shut down had
many Americans’ sitting in front of their televisions, watching the news that may not normally
have been. During this period, America and the world watched the murder of George Floyd and
the revelation after an attempted cover-up of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, both of which had been
recorded, and as well as the death of Breonna Taylor in such a short period of time that brought
the undeniable reality of not only racism but the systemic reality of racism into our homes and
the awareness that the past was still very much the present in regards to race relations.
Therefore, expecting people of color and immigrants to forget the pain and horror that they
have been subjected too in the past such as the enslavement of African Americans, the
genocide of the Native Americans, the forced internment of Japanese Americans during World
War II, the hate crimes enacted against Muslims after 9/11 and Asian Americans recently due to
the origins of Covid and continued antisemitism towards the Jewish population, while denying
that racism still affects them is morally, ethically and scripturally wrong. The Bible reminds us of
generational curses such as Numbers 14:18 “he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation” (ESV, 2001).
Psychology also supports the presence of cyclical generational behavior. Ron Miller states “We
have no problem understanding how childhood trauma, unless eventually confron ted
and the cycle broken, can damage a family from generation to generation, so why do we
struggle so much with the idea that collective trauma inflicted against a people can have a
similar impact on an entire culture?” (Miller, 2018).
As the current generation, we absolutely must acknowledge the past and work towards
correcting the injustices that are present in our system and the prejudice in the individuals.
We must hold those that act, whether individually or a group, accountable for their actions
no matter the color of their skin. As Miller stated, “My deep dive into our domestic history,
however, disabused me of the notion that, as a people, we were somehow “better” than
the German citizens who either participated or didn’t speak up as their nation spiraled
toward Nazism and genocide” (Miller, 2018). German Nationalism allowed the Nazi regime
to take power, identify those they viewed as second class citizens, much like the original
colonists in America, and perpetrate the worst genocide of a group of people in the
twentieth century. America is on the precipice of following this same path with Christian
Nationalism and the closed American exceptionalism mindset that John Wilsey describes in
American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion.
With the exception of Native Americans, every single citizen came to this country with
immigrant roots, whether forcefully such as with slavery or willingly for a new life. The
melding of differing cultures is what makes America the unique and diverse country that it
is. “Pride in American diversity was enshrined in America’s de facto original motto, E
Pluribus unum, “from many, one” or out of many, one”. That melting pot became an
American ideal” and to uphold this ideal is to support the true foundation of America
(Seidel, 2019, p. 102).
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