Is America Racist?

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People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio. The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty God is hanging over our heads. They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Welcome to Bible Bashed, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we seek to answer the age-old question, is America racist?

Now, normally what we try to do with this show is, typically we try to present you title questions that are not normally the questions everyone is asking themselves, at least out loud anyways. Part of the joke is we introduce these as age-old questions, but then normally no one's really asking them anywhere.

Typically people want to know the answers, but they're not normally going around to everyone they can and asking them these types of questions, and that's meant to be part of the joke on our end. But then this is a unique episode where our title question, is America racist, is actually something that everyone is talking about, and everyone is wondering either, why is our country so racist?

Why are we permeated with this weird treating one race as if it's lesser than all the other races? Or they're wondering, why are we talking about this so much? I don't see racism anywhere, but everyone's talking about it like it's everywhere.

I don't understand. And so this is actually the kind of question that really everyone is asking. And so Tim, why don't you just start us off by just addressing that question head on. Do you think America is racist from your perspective?

Yeah, well, as you think about the idea of that kind of question, is America racist, this is a question that really the word racism is a word that has a meaning, it had a meaning, but then in common parlance, it's being used in so many situations now that basically anything and everything is being called racist.

So an individual who is arguing with a liberal will inevitably be called a racist. Anyone who essentially is standing in the way of something that an African-American wants, they're going to be called racist.

Anytime anyone resists anything that the political left is trying to shove down your throat, you're going to inevitably be accused of racism in one way or another. If you have eyes in your head, you're going to be accused of racism.

And so when you think about this idea of racism right now, the truth is that if everything is racist, then there's nothing that's racist. And so it's a word that is remarkably overused, and it's overused to the point where most people are somewhat sick of it.

And it doesn't have the same kind of terror-inducing, gut-wrenching kind of fear associated with being labeled as a racist as it used to. I mean, it used to be that, you know, people were so afraid of having that label attached to them that essentially they would do whatever the left wanted them to do.

They would apologize and follow all over themselves to, you know, essentially give in to whatever demands were made of them because they were so terrified of that label and the canceling power that was associated with that.

Now it's just being used to such an extent, it's so overused that it's just functionally meaningless. But then it is a word that had a unique historical meaning that is associated with what's described as scientific racism.

And so scientific racism was the idea that essentially humanity is divided into various races of people who were almost what you might consider subhuman categories of people, subhuman species. And so you think about in an evolutionary framework, this is an idea that Darwin essentially advanced to where, you know, humanity was evolved from a common ancestor with apes.

And the different groups of people, whether it's, you know, Africans or Asians or, you know, Europeans or Caucasians or whatever, each one of these races are basically in an evolutionary sense descended from apes, this common ancestor with apes to varying degrees.

And so Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of the Favored Races and the Struggle for Life, this idea of scientific racism was found in his actual, his book there.

He wrote a follow-up called The Descent of Man. And essentially in that he said, the Western nations of Europe now so immeasurably surpassed their former savage progenitors that they stand at the summit of civilization.

And then he says, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. And so this idea of racism was built into the fabric of Darwinism. And it was essentially this belief that mankind could be divided into various subspecies of humanity, almost subhuman species that were further along on the evolutionary ladder than others.

But then it was this idea that basically gave a basis for chattel slavery that we see. And so like the idea of enslaving blacks was perceived through a Darwinian lens as being basically okay because they were lower on the evolutionary ladder than the favored races were.

And so under that kind of idea of scientific racism, I would say that there's very few people today who actually think that way. I mean, you're gonna have some Southern redneck guys out in the middle of the Ozark or whatever, who basically think that Africans are essentially apes or something along those lines.

And so you'll have those kinds of individuals or on the left, you'll have Nick Cannon essentially arguing that white people are essentially devils and subhuman and due to their lack of melanin, he says, their lack of melanin, they're unable to have basic morality and inherently savages.

And so, but that kind of thing is basically pretty rare in America in general. Very few people actually think of humanity as being divided into these quasi subhuman kind of species as far as that's concerned.

So when you think about the idea of racism in general, there really isn't this overwhelming or pervasive racism in the scientific sense around today. Most people realize that the human race is essentially unified and we more naturally talk about different ethnicities than we do races.

Or if we are talking about races, we're not races in general or we're more naturally appealing to a concept of ethnicity for the most part in the vast majority of cases, particularly with Christians. But I would say, no, I mean, America in and of itself is not fundamentally racist anymore.

We all, not in the scientific sense for sure.

Okay, so not in the scientific sense, are we racist? At least as a general statement, there's not really groups of people that are going around saying, hey, this other group of people are barely human.

Yeah, I mean, that's what the Nazis did with the Jews and that's what we did during chattel slavery, but very few people are like, it's so anti-PC to even talk that way at this point, but I don't think most people even think that way anymore that people are almost different species of humanity as far as that's concerned.

With the genetic advancements nowadays, I mean, we realize that we're more alike than we are different.

Yeah, yeah.

And just as a side note, I do think it's really funny that evolution in general is pretty, even though it's just a theory that hasn't been proven, it's pretty much widely accepted as fact in the secular world, but then the downfall of the theory of evolution is you get stuff like this, and it's totally, if you want to stay consistent with that theory, it's totally okay to be a scientific racist.

Well, yeah, I mean, it makes the most sense of a Darwinian worldview. I mean, the idea that we are all one in shared humanity descended from Adam, that comes from a biblical worldview, but then the idea of survival of the fittest and natural selection, Hitler was following the logic of Darwinianism.

The slave trade was following the logic of Darwinianism. I mean, that's where it naturally leads. It makes right survival of the fittest. There are some people groups, obviously, who were more technologically advanced than others.

And why wouldn't you think it was because they were higher on the evolutionary ladder than others. And if they are higher on the evolutionary ladder than others, what is to say that they didn't have the right to exterminate other groups of people?

It's basically we're all fighting over shared resources, and that was Hitler's thing. I mean, we're all fighting over the same shared resources. Scarcity of resources is a thing. And eventually, given enough time, we're all going to be going to war anyway.

So why not circumvent the process and let the higher races prevail as they're destined to do, right?

Yeah, definitely a faulty worldview, to say the least. But I think when it comes to the conversation, if you can really call it that over the last few years in America, I don't think most people that would say America is racist, I don't think they're probably, I don't think their critique would typically be, well, most people in America view, you know, normally African Americans, most people in America normally view African Americans as essentially subhuman.

I think, at least from my perspective, it seems more like the critique is, hey, it seems like most of America might view black people as humans the same as everyone else, but then they still, we as a country still treat them in a way that we don't treat white people, basically.

That's the critique I see more than anything else. So that seems different than scientific racism. So addressing that critique more directly, do you think America is racist in light of that?

Yeah, I mean, there are any number of reasons why individuals could be treated in a way that's different based on certain, that has some sort of correlation with skin color, for sure. But like in terms of just, you know, your standard definition of racism in the dictionary, one of the things that you're gonna find is you can just look up racism in Merriam-Webster and it's a belief that race is fundamental, the determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

So I read that again, 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. So even the definition of racism in the dictionary is largely appealing to that notion of scientific racism there.

But then, you know, there's also what now is being described as the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic and political advantage of another. And so that's essentially what's happened is we've changed the definition from, the common usage from what normally is called, you know, scientific racism more to what is being described as systemic racism along those lines.

And so people are now are asking, you know, like, because there are disparities in the world between whites and blacks or between, you know, Asians and whites and Asians and blacks, because there are these disparities then in a simplistic way, essentially what's being argued is that all those disparities ipso facto are evidence of systemic racism.

And this is essentially what David Platt was arguing in his infamous T4G sermon on Amos, let justice roll down like waters, where he without any thought whatsoever, essentially listed economic disparities between blacks and whites, economic and social disparities between blacks and whites as ipso facto evidence of systemic racism.

And so now we're using racism, basic racism now is being used to basically as an all purpose explanation to explain why these disparities exist. But then that's moving away from what might be described as conscious prejudice towards members of an opposite race, if you wanna use that unhelpful category to implicit bias and microaggressions and all these things like that.

And so, you know, as you're answering that kind of question, if you're gonna talk about, well, is America systemically racist? In that way, I would say, well, the only systemic racism that exists in America as far as the actual laws that are there is laws that favor African Americans over whites or Asians.

Okay, yeah. So basically what you're saying is there's a lot of people who are looking around and seeing that, you know, when it comes to African Americans, typically it seems like they're normally not as well off financially.

They don't normally have, which stands to reason, they don't normally have the same high paying jobs that white people might normally have. And so their answer to that, their explanation for that observation is to say, well, obviously, this means that there's systemic racism involved.

Which, yeah. Yeah, and essentially, yeah, that's defined as like prejudice plus power. So because white people are in power, then they're creating a system which inherently favors white people over black people.

And so in that way, they may not even be conscious of, you know, the nature of their exercise of power in that way, but they created a system which inherently is going to privilege people of their skin color over and against others.

And, you know, individuals like Robin DiAngelo, who wrote a book, White Fragility, is essentially arguing that, you know, racism is the normal state of affairs in our country. But then, you know, racism is defined in that way as prejudice plus power, meaning it's only white people who are able to be racist and not blacks.

And that's why, you know, a lot of individuals basically say, I'm black, I can't be racist. It's because we've changed the definition from the scientific notion, which, you know, Nick Cannon is certainly guilty of, a black man, and rednecks, some rednecks.

But then you have, now it's prejudice plus power. And so then you have the system, supposedly, that's rigged against African-Americans, you know, in favor of whites. And it may not be, you know, conscious racial animosity towards members of a different ethnic group, but there's a system that's in place.

And so, you know, Robin D 'Angelo basically would be quoted as saying something along the lines of, it's not whether racism occurs, it's how did it occur in any interaction? And so racism is the normal state of affairs.

And basically, you know, basically you're getting that from the notion that any economic or social disparity is, there's only one explanation for it that can possibly be conceived, and that is the systemic racism, essentially.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I guess that really leads to two inevitable questions, I guess. And the first would be, number one, is the claim true then that African-Americans, you know, for example, financially, are typically much worse off than Caucasians in America?

That would be the first question. So, you know, basically the claim that America is racist is based off of that premise. So that needs to be true, right, in order for the claim that America is racist to be true.

The second question that would have to be asked then.

Is...

Can you clarify that question real quick? What was the question there?

Oh, yeah. Basically just saying, number one, you know, are Black people, for example, financially worse off or more...

Disadvantaged.

Disadvantaged. Yeah, that's probably, I think that's a term that they use a lot. Disadvantaged compared to white people. So that would have to be true, right, for their claims to make any sense, right?

And then the second question would have to be, well, is the only explanation for something like that, that they're being oppressed, whether consciously or unconsciously, are there any other explanations that could be given for why that's happening?

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I mean, I think I could probably answer both of those in one question, essentially, or in one response. You know, the National Museum of African American History put out their infamous poster online.

Do you remember that coming out?

I do. Yeah, I saw that.

So, you know, this poster is essentially talking about race and so essentially it said, aspects and assumptions of whiteness or white culture in the United States. And so it's basically this flyer that they put out that they received a lot of heat from.

And it's difficult to know what to make of their retraction of this, because this is essentially what's being argued. But then they put it this way. They say, white dominant culture or whiteness refers to the way white people and their traditions, attitudes, or way of life have been normalized over time and are now considered standard practices in the United States.

And since white people still hold most of the institutional power in America, we have all internalized some aspects of white culture, including people of color. And so basically, like you have to, in order to interact with something like this, you have to put on your multicultural lenses, essentially.

And you have to basically, basically view all cultures as being fundamentally neutral. So think about it that way. All cultures, under their view, are perceived as being fundamentally neutral. And so then, like the fact that white people are basically ahead in the world that we live in today is basically because white people built the culture and society we live in.

And there are certain aspects and assumptions of whiteness or white culture in the United States that black individuals, by and large, don't share. But then when you actually examine their list of things, that's what is somewhat shocking about it.

So basically, here are some characteristics of what they call whiteness. The idea of rugged individuals. Vigilism. So the individual is considered the primary unit. There's this idea of self-reliance or independence and autonomy are highly valued and rewarded.

Individuals in this way are assumed to be in control of their environment. So you get what you deserve, in other words. Now, so far, maybe, okay, maybe white people are more individualistic and black people are more communitarian.

Okay, whatever. But then you think about family structure, assumptions of whiteness. You have the nuclear family, a father, a mother, and two to three children is the ideal social unit, right? So that's not an aspect of whiteness.

That's an aspect of the Bible, right? Family, husband is the breadwinner or the head of the household. That's not an aspect of whiteness. That's an aspect of the Bible, okay? That's Western civilization was built on a Christian worldview.

The husband is the breadwinner, the provider. But then this has to be an aspect of whiteness because black illegitimacy rate at this point is 78 or something ridiculous along those lines. But then think about this.

The wife is the homemaker and subordinate to the husband. So, but that again, that's biblical Christianity, right? Children should have their own rooms, be independent. Okay, that's the individualism component there again.

But then where it gets really crazy is, so right now whiteness is being viewed as predominantly a biblical worldview, okay? Responsibility placed on the individual and all that. But then they go on to say emphasis on the scientific method.

So objective, rational, linear thinking is characteristic of whiteness. Well, what's the inverse of that? Being irrational and being subjective? Like, so again, I mean, these are biblical values. This isn't just multiculturalism that one, you can't criticize any kind of culture.

These are problems that if, and essentially the National Museum of African-American History is saying that black people are irrational and illogical. They don't understand cause and effect relationships like white people do.

Sounds pretty racist if you ask me.

Meaning if you shoot someone, you're gonna go to jail, you know? Like they don't like, like that's just a matter of whiteness, right? Quantitative emphasis, right? So like these are just, this is scientific method.

This is how we built our society. I mean, you can't send a rocket into space without an emphasis on scientific method. You can't build a car without emphasis on scientific method. You can't accomplish anything in life without emphasis on the scientific method.

Like this is, these are, you know, if God is an orderly creator, he made the world in such a way that reflects his character. Like we're not gonna be able to subdue the earth and have dominion over it if we don't have an emphasis on objective, rational, linear thinking, okay?

So basically, you know, then the bottom it's like a Protestant work ethic, you know, hard work is the key to success. I mean, my goodness, like go to the, you're sluggered. I mean, just read the Bible, read the book of Proverbs.

This is straight out of the book of Proverbs, right?

I didn't know. King Solomon was blinded by whiteness.

Yeah, my goodness. Yeah, well, you work before you play, right? It's like, yes. I mean, like, yes, we all have eyes. We know that African-American culture is obsessed with sports and, you know, and games and everything else.

And so, you know, but like, that's what you're telling us. You're telling us that essentially African-Americans are lazy and that they're illogical and everything else. You know, if you don't meet your goals, you didn't work hard enough, Protestant work ethic, you know, and it goes on to talk about, you know, being polite and things like this.

And so, you know, but if those are like, so what's happened is you have to put your multicultural lens on this kind of framework. And then essentially you're viewing all cultures as neutral and you're not allowed to criticize any cultures.

And basically, you know, the idea then is just that white people have created a society that prefers the things that they subjectively decided to value for whatever irrational reason they decided to value it.

But then if you have a black built society, then essentially that was characterized by laziness and, you know, disrespect and, you know, single motherhood and, you know, irrational, illogical thinking, then, you know, then essentially in that kind of society, then blacks would excel.

But then the problem is, it's just, this isn't reality. This isn't the way the reality works and this isn't biblical. And so, you know, that they were forced to take that down because everyone was basically, they could read the, you know, the subtext there, you know, essentially.

So you're saying that I guess white people are hard workers and nice and polite and logical and African-Americans are lazy and, you know, prioritize playing over work and are rude and illogical. And so they had to take it down.

But then part of the problem though, is you do have a clash of values that are happening and there are a clash of values that are happening in our society right now. And that matters. And so like a lot of these things aren't just, I mean, there's an objective standard in the Bible about how to get ahead in life.

And it's largely with what the National Museum of African-American History calls whiteness, essentially. And so, but if that's an accurate reflection of reality, which it seems to be, you know, you're not allowed to say it, but they knew what they were saying and we all can understand what they're saying.

But if that's the case, I mean, like, look, I mean, you're not allowed to say these things, but I mean, it is just to give examples of the way that this actually works. I mean, it is a very different experience to go to Hardee's than it is to go to Chick-fil-A.

Okay, related to the idea of niceness, like one culture prioritizing niceness over another culture, you know, as far as that goes. And as far as just hard work and everything else, I mean, like emphasis on the, you know, logic and scientific method and everything else.

I mean, like just watch a rap video and you're going to see that there are problems in the African-American community. The African-American community right now is profoundly anti-intellectual in the same way that Southern white redneck culture is profoundly anti-intellectual.

And so there are problems there that, from a biblical worldview, but if there is such a thing as objective truth and the Bible does give us a way to get ahead, then these aren't just issues of whiteness.

I mean, these same traits are at work in Asian societies too, right? This is not just something that white people invented.

Well, I think Asians are now considered white.

Yeah.

It's not supposed to make any sense.

If I'm up to date on all of my social media stuff, I'm pretty sure Asians are now considered white people.

They're also people of color, colorless people, right? Over and against the people of color. Now, I mean, so you look at these things and it's like, no, I don't believe that there's some kind of systemic oppression of black people that are holding black people back.

In fact, there's a systemic favoritism towards black people in our society right now. If you try just a little bit in our society, you'll get ahead. If you're an African-American person who just tries to speak English and tries to apply yourself to your studies, you'll have any number of people who will fall over themselves to try to give you whatever you want in our society.

And you don't even have to try near as hard as the standard white person. I mean, I went to seminary and I had an African-American friend and my African-American friend, he had professor after professor after professor.

He had 20 professors offer to be his mentor, his personal mentor during our education there. And you can imagine how many professors offered to be my mentor.

I'm guessing not 20.

Zero.

No, and I don't begrudge that. I don't begrudge that, but I'm just trying to say that there are opportunities there. The fact that I was a quarter Mexican didn't even count. No, I wasn't minority enough, but it didn't count.

But I mean, the thing is we're living in a society that's falling all over itself to be diverse and show reverse partiality there. We're not living in a society trying to hold anyone back. And there are simple ways to get ahead in the world.

And if African-Americans want to take them at this point in history, there's nothing to stand in their way. But then the problem is that you have testimony after testimony of individuals like Ben Carson or Bodie Bauckham or those kinds of individuals who basically describe their childhood of them trying to learn and as being accused of being white at various points.

And so there's a cultural pressure within the African-American community to keep the African-American community back. And that's one of the biggest threats that's happening right now.

Speaking of biblical teachings, racism ultimately is a question of morality above all else. And so we as Christians, we wanted to go to the Bible and let God tell us what is right and what is wrong. And so we spent about 30 minutes talking about pretty much how the world would define racism.

So Tim, why don't you explain for us now how the Bible would categorize racism? How does the Bible define racism for us?

Yeah, I think this is hard because racism is obviously not a word that's found in the Bible, but then the problem is the concept of race really isn't found in the Bible either in the same kind of way.

And so the Bible doesn't teach that individuals are essentially a subhuman species that are higher up on the evolutionary ladder. I mean, the Bible teaches that the entire human race is descended from Adam and it's basically kind of inappropriate to talk about like race, like the concept of race, because there aren't races in the scientific Darwin sense of races.

I mean, we have different ethnicities, we have different nationalities and it's not entirely true that everyone of a particular skin color really even shares the same traits in any kind of homogenous way.

And so all Caucasians aren't obviously the same in any way. There's vast cultural differences between different types of Caucasians and the same thing is true of African-Americans. I mean, there are politically conservative African-Americans, but they don't apparently count as African-Americans because the Southern white, or the Southern black redneck culture is basically defined as true blackness at this point now.

But then biblically speaking, like this idea of race isn't really, it's a figment, it's a figment of people's imaginations. We do better to talk about ethnicity at that point because we're all one human race descended from Adam and then Noah and his family.

So with that, the Bible doesn't address this topic of racism because racism is really kind of a new concept that has happened. But then if you were to think about like some of the things that are called racism, then what you would do is try to ask, what are the things that are being called racism that the Bible either approves of or disapproves of?

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah.

So like the idea of what you might call ethnic pride or something like that, the idea of like a sense of moral superiority to be found in one's own ethnicity, that would be repugnant to a biblical worldview.

I shouldn't think of myself as being superior because I'm a particular skin color to any other.

Because you're a poor Mexican.

Yeah. Well,.

What's hard about that is that I guess apparently because of the effects of critical theory in the world, 75 of myself wants to deport the other 25%. And so I can't,.

I just,.

I mean,.

Living in a permanent schizophrenia there where it's just 75 is racist and the other 25 is an oppressed minority.

And I mean,.

Just imagine the psychological damage that happens with that kind of thing. But no, I mean, look, so I mean, there's plenty of people though that have a sense of ethnic superiority based on who they are.

I mean,.

Chinese people can be pretty, as I've interacted with Chinese people, there's a strong element of that within Chinese culture. That is this ethnic superiority there. Like that, almost a pride. And that's different than just like general thankfulness for who you are, your people, your country, where you came from, a general kind of patriotism kind of thing.

That's different.

Like,.

Then like, you know, black pride. Or,.

You know, like all,.

You know, all the kind of pride that individuals are told that. Black pride could be as innocent as just, you know, Thankfulness for how God made you and your culture and everything.

Else.

But at times it appears to be more than that. And certainly no one's allowed to say white pride without being Hitler incarnate or something like that.

But,.

But we,.

I think like the Bible would repudiate a kind of glorying in your own. Like superficial characteristics or background. To where you consider yourself superior to anyone else. So that would be a type of racism that I think the Bible would.

Validate as being wrong. If you can distinguish it from just general patriotism, thankfulness kind of thing. Love of your culture. You know,.

It,.

It may be that like in an innocent way, you think,.

Oh man,.

You know, I'm Italian and,.

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I'm not actually Italian,.

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I'm Italian and we have the best food in the world or something like.

That,.

That would be somewhat innocent, you know,.

But we,.

As a people are superior to every other people that would be where you would get in trouble. That kind of racial pride. Like the idea of discrimination is much more complicated. So a common element of racism in the way that we think of is like any discrimination.

But that's,.

That's,.

That's a lot more complicated than.

What.

The simplistic way that we're viewing. Discrimination right now.

Okay.

So.

To discriminate between two things is essentially to say like this, this and not that. So a man of discriminating taste would be a man who was able to pick a high quality, you know, Couch or car or something like that, or suit, you know?

So like discrimination,.

Like.

Is not necessarily. As problematic as what we point out. And that would be, you know, making certain assumptions about certain groups of people that are either positive or negative. That would be in some sense.

In some sense.

Fact I based on facts.

Right.

So when Jesus comes up to Nathaniel, he says to Nathaniel, you know,.

Behold,.

An Israelite in whom there is no deceit or no guile.

Right.

Yeah.

Now that's, you know, that would fall a fly of our common definition of racism because like we think of racism as.

Any negative.

You know,.

Any negative like stereotypes related to any particular people group. But then the problem is that like, it, it doesn't matter. If like you're.

If, if,.