‘And who is my neighbor?’
Across the nation, schools and school boards, not to mention individual teachers, are being assailed by those who object to the teaching of what is termed “Critical Race Theory.” They call looking at the white race’s role in the subjection and abuse of Black people a “theory” that requires balancing opinions. My question is: what could be a balancing opinion? That none of this ever happened? Let’s face it. The facts are just as clear as Trump-lost-the-election. And that’s VERY clear.
So let’s look at some factual American history about race. It began with Christopher Columbus. Here he is in his journal during his 1492 sojourn in the Bahamas writing about the natives: “They would make fine servants. … With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” On the return trip to Spain he packed in 500 of the finest males to be sold as slaves back in Spain. Two hundred of them died along the way. (Zinn, Howard, “A Peoples History of the United States,” 2015)
In 1493, for Columbus’ return to the Indies, Pope Alexander VI published “The Declaration of Discovery,” providing Columbus with whatever justification he might still need for cruelty. It stated that “the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.” This “Doctrine of Discovery” became the basis of all European claims in the Americas, as well as the foundation for the United States’ western expansion. In the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1823 case Johnson v. McIntosh, Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in the unanimous decision held “that the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands.” Here’s what Columbus got from it: “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.” (Zinn, ibid.)
This was the beginning. Add in centuries of slavery to produce the white man’s world, decades of Jim Crow laws to keep the Black man “in his place,” lynching and “separate but equal,” followed by more decades of redlining and other forms of racial prejudice and you have racism, not race theory.
If it’s critical, it’s only so in giving an objective look at the actual history of Black/white relations in the United States and evaluating them in light of a more honest awareness that has dawned in white consciousness and should be shared in the classroom because it actually happened. It does not need to be presented in such a way as to make children despise their own race. It should, however, encourage integrity in American education and a healthy sense of compassion for the present state of our Black sisters and brothers.
All religions have a time of year to reflect on how well we are living by the ethics of whatever religion we advocate. It is not a time to despise ourselves, but to acknowledge our desire to become more whole. This should include counting ourselves among those who can admit that there is nothing theoretical or “revisionist” about racism in America. After all is said and done, the ancient question from Luke 10 remains: “And who is my neighbor?” The answer was “the one who showed compassion” to the man “at the side of the road.”
Bill O’Brien is a consciousness coach and shamanic practitioner. He and his wife Linda lived in Shepherdstown from 2005-2021, before relocating near family in Blue Bell, Pa. He can be reached at billobrienconsciousnesscoach@gmail.com.