Racism in A Biblical and Theological Perspective: Reconstruction and Populism

The Civil War destroyed slavery in the South, but it did not immediately establish a new political and economic order in its place.  The next three decades witnessed an intense, often violent, political struggle to determine the character of the South.  In the end, white supremacy was reestablished, but this was not a foregone conclusion (Ahmed Shawki, Black Liberation and Socialism, p. 63).

Today it is widely accepted that all whites had in interest in disfranchising the newly freed Black population and that poor whites provided the main impetus for reaction.  C. Vann Woodward argues "the escalation of lynching, disfranchisement and proscription reflected concessions to the white lower class" on the part of the upper class (C. Vann Woodward, American Counterpoint: Slavery and Racism in the North-South Dialogue. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1964, p. 239).

Restricting Black rights was a precondition for lower-class winning rights for themselves. The barriers of racial discrimination mounted in direct ratio with the tide of political democracy among whites (Woodward, p. 211).  Various left-wing academics share the thrust of this analysis, and therefore draw the inevitable conclusion that racist ideology among the mass of whites was the cause of continued Black oppression (Theodore Allen, The Invention of the White Race: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America. New York: Verso, 1997. Reluctant Reformers.)

The political conclusion of such an approach is simple: the majority of whites, if not all whites, have a stake in maintaining racism.  The prospects for Black and white unity are therefore slim, if not altogether excluded (Shawki, p. 64).

In the absence of the institution of slavery, on the one hand, and the presence and continuation of different forms and manifestations of white supremacy on the other, we ask then, how do we evaluate this condition from a biblical and theological point of view? While the Scriptures nowhere directly address the issue of racial or ethnic supremacy (depending, of course, on one's hermeneutical approach to Scripture), the thrust of the Gospel is to not only denounce this notion, but also to dismantle any structures or policies resulting from this notion. While in the past, the certain portions of the Bible have been cited to justify and support white supremacy, it does not take a rocket scientist to detect that this hermeneutical approach is a skewed one reflecting the warped minds of those who wish to read white supremacy into the Scriptures.

Are we then, expected to rejoice in the fact that slavery has been abolished while white supremacy continues to be perpetuated?  Hell no!  Anything that continues to divide people from each other along the lines of class, ethnicity/race, or gender, runs contrary to the grain of Scripture and theology.  While historical Western theology has maintained in very insidious ways the notions of white supremacy, Liberation Theology, emerging from the so-called "Third World" countries, deconstructs this lunacy and ethno-centric self-delusion.  As long as this notion of white supremacy continues to exist, even if sub-consciously, and unintentionally, we have the theological task to dismantle any biblical hermeneutic which seeks to perpetuate racist attitudes and systems.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Ayala-Carmona