Siding With the Past

 by Edward Waverley 

Racist is a very curious and troublesome word. We know what liberals mean when they call someone racist. Liberals use 'racist' to mean that the person they are debating believes that there are deep, obvious, and unchangeable differences between the races; liberals also mean that such beliefs are demonstrably false; and liberals also mean that to think such things is absolutely evil.

The first part of this accusation applies to me with complete accuracy; if assenting to the idea that there are deep, obvious, and unchangeable differences between the races makes a person a racist, then I am a racist. But if 'racist' is defined, a priori, to include the judgment that all such beliefs are evil and primitive, then I am absolutely not a racist, because I reject the idea that such beliefs are immoral. On the contrary, I think such beliefs are wise, true, and realistic. The liberal tries to shut down debate on many topics by smuggling in an absolute moral condemnation of all reference to the idea that the races are different, and he also imputes to his opponent the idea that simply by noticing such differences, his opponent is also implying that there is a moral hierarchy of races. But I need not believe that whites are morally superior to other races in order to believe that whites are very different from other races. I do believe that whites are very different from blacks; I deny that whites are in any important sense morally superior to blacks. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but not all of the races have built an enduring Christian civilization where charity reigneth. In fact, only one race has done as much, and that is the European race.

Recognizing the obvious and undeniable historical and spiritual differences between the European race and all other races has nothing to do with pride. The differences are obvious to anyone who has eyes, ears, heart, and brain. It is a difference of burden. All of the heavy lifting of building and elevating Christian civilization has been done (yes, by God) through the European people. And what was it that enabled the European race to turn away from paganism and toward the light? What allowed the Europeans to produce unparalleled achievements in art, music, science, medicine, architecture, literature, and poetry? Obviously it was made possible because the Europeans had hearts on fire for Jesus Christ. Why haven't there been any similar achievements among Africans? Among Mexicans? Among Asians? Is it because the gospel has gone unpreached to those people? Obviously not, because the church has been reaching out to those groups for centuries. Then why do black people commit an inordinately disproportionate number of violent crimes in America compared to all other races? And why do white people commit almost none of them, in spite of having so much larger a share of the population? How does that work? Is it because black Americans have not been told about Jesus Christ? That's absurd. Africans have inhabited North America for as long as Europeans have; both races arrived at the same time, and have been coexisting in this nation throughout its history. Blacks have always had, at best, a very tenuous grasp of Christian truth; the more that blacks are worshiped and given everything that they demand from white society, the worse and worse grows their behavior. Please don't try to tell me that black behavior has been improving over time since the civil rights revolution. We know that the opposite is true.

I can hear the objection already: but haven't the morals of the whites in America gone just as much into the sewer as those of the blacks? To an extent I grant that, but that's because a small number of anti-Christian liberals co-opted the true gospel and turned it into the hyper-liberal social gospel of social justice, race-mixing, and related multicultural utopian nonsense, and the American churches swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker. So in a country where only 100 years ago perfectly decent American Christians would never have blushed to tell you that they considered blacks to be a more primitive and backward race, and that they had no desire to share space or business with them, now we live in a country where even to mention such an idea is an invitation to have your head cut off.

Let me ask a question: if wanting to live in a majority white country, and being opposed to integration and interracial marriage, and wishing to live separately with people who are a natural and spiritual extension of my own blood is such an evil, anti-Christian attitude, then why is it that this was exactly what was believed by the vast majority of Christians for 1300 years prior to the 20th century? How do you explain that? Is it that all those older Christians, like Rudyard Kipling, and Walter Scott, and Shakespeare, and RL Dabney, and John Taylor of Caroline, and Thomas Hughes, and Charles Dickens, and Andrew Jackson, and John Calhoun and millions more, were they not really Christians? According to the new racial gospel, those old jerks were confused racists, who misunderstood the Bible and didn't understand reality. Well I am choosing to side with the old jerks.

But I will never accept the new and postmodern idea that such beliefs are evil. Such beliefs are neither evil nor especially virtuous; they simply reflect reality. All Europeans prior to the 20th century believed that firm barriers existed between the races, and that such barriers were necessary for the maintenance of civilization. This definitely includes Christians. It's not as if I believe that black people are unable to enjoy the blessings of salvation; I don't believe that at all. Race is no barrier to God, but there is no other civilization besides the European one that has actually followed through with the biblical mandate to center itself upon the person and work of Jesus Christ.