The Foundations Of Racism

Readers of this blog will know that I despise racism.  This post would not mark the first time I have proven that the Bible explicitly condemns racism, but it will mark the first occasion I have addressed the foundations of this deplorable atrocity.  I have recently thought about two potential motivators for this evil and I wanted to write about them here briefly.

Arrogance is one major root of not only racism, but sexism, nationalism, and many other manifestations of sin.  Individuals or entire tribes or societies can come to think so highly of themselves that they act as if or believe that those who have a different ethnic background, physical appearance, or nationality are inferior to them.  To reach this threshold of depravity one must suppress the obvious intellectual fact that all humans--black, white, Hispanic, and so on--are whole people that share many traits.  Equality of humans is one of the cornerstones of human rights, and racism tramples on the status that all people share simply by nature of being human.

Fear can be a foundation of racism also.  While pride surely serves as motivation for a great deal of racism, fear can also be a powerful impulse that fills the same role.  It is not necessarily uncommon for people, especially those who have absorbed certain social conditioning, to fear what they do not understand.  With this mindset such people may respond to those with different skin colors or backgrounds with fear because the objects of that fear are foreigners with whom they are unfamiliar.  Totally ignoring the fact that these beings are men and women just like the fearful ones are--who possess intellects, feelings, aspirations, and volitions just as they do--they may allow their fear to escalate into the cruel discrimination and oppression of racism.  This kind of fear forgets that we humans physically and spiritually have much more in common than the rather superficial differences we can sometimes become frightened by.

Neither pride nor fear justifies looking down on someone else simply because of their ethnicity, skin color, or other racial differences.  Other roots of racism may exist--insecurity, irrational hatred, faulty worldviews--but I suspect that arrogance and fear often form the foundations that lead to this grievous sin even if other factors are present.

Although the Bible is sometimes accused of racism or "xenophobia", I have repeatedly emphasized on my blog that it explicitly and repeatedly teaches that ALL people bear God's image (Genesis 1:26-27), that salvation is for ALL people (Galatians 3:28), that legal discrimination against foreigners and certain ethnicities is evil (Leviticus 24:22), and that mistreatment of people for ethnic differences (as well as their country of birth) is an abomination (Exodus 22:21, 23:9), and that the obligation to love one's neighbor (Leviticus 19:18) extends to those of other "races" and nationalities (Deuteronomy 10:19).  The Bible's teachings do not at all even near racism.  Indeed, it is asinine and irrational to insist otherwise.

Those who despise racism will certainly find that the Bible concurs with them, for, from the point in Genesis where God imbues his image into all humans to the verse in Revelation where God has redeemed people "from every tribe and language and people and nation" (Revelation 5:9), specific commands and theological principles alike viciously oppose the scourge of racism and all the evils that can accompany it.