Tuesday, April 04, 2017

RAAN is promoting racism

I have stopped going over to The Aquila Report for quite some time, ever since they have shown themselves to be extremely biased and not conveying the truth when it comes to the ESS fiasco. That said, when I had cause to look at them again, I was dismayed that they had gone even further away from orthodoxy.

Meet RAAN, the Reformed African American Network, which is all about being a particular strain of "African-American," and not so much about being Reformed. The Aquila Report re-posted one such article originally published on RAAN, here, entitled The Cruelty of the Color-Blind Theory of Race in Evangelical Churches, written by one Jarvis Williams. In it, Williams took issue with color-blindness as reinforcing racism and especially white supremacy. This is of course astonishing given that at the core of color-blindness is the denial of racism. But what arguments and evidences does William produce for such a counter-intuitive accusation against color-blindness in favor of the neo-Marxist theory of Critical Race Theory?

Let us look at what color-blindness means when it is actually applied. It means that we are to treat everyone equally regardless of ethnicity and even culture. It means that I, as someone normally typed under "yellow skin," treat blacks and whites equally, and such color-blindness ought to be reciprocated. When I interact with an African-American, or interact with a Caucasian, or with an Indian, or another Chinese, I ought to treat them all equally as people all made in the image of God. I am not to discriminate against anyone because of his or her skin color! So, if in the event that someone discriminates against another based upon the person's skin color, that person is not practicing color-blindness! And here we see the problem with Williams' case against color-blindness. According to him, cases of racism (let's assume for the sake of argument they are indeed true cases of racism) invalidates color-blindness. But, if those people are not practicing color-blindness at all, why blame a theory when it is not practiced by racists?

It gets even weirder. Williams made the astonishing assertion: "The very racist social construct of race in 18-19th century Europe and America based on illusory biological traits and rooted in racial hierarchy and biological fiction proves that the color-blind theory is a myth." But are we to assume that color-blindness was held to as truth in the 18th and 19th centuries? Of course not! Color-blindness is a traditional [social] liberal theory, not one linked to the anciens regime in any shape or form! So why blame a theory for what it did not produce? Why blame a theory for the behavior of its non-practitioners?

As a "yellow" person, I find this attack upon color-blindness to be absolutely stupid. If color-blindness is rejected, why must we assume Liberation Theology and Neo-Marxist ideas of affirming the so-called victim races? If color-blindness is rejected, why should anyone not instead decided to embrace White Supremacy, or Chinese Supremacy, or any form of racism in response? Williams, and the Neo-Marxists who come before him, cannot produce a real answer here, because they have none. Liberation theology is assumed, not argued for, because this house of cards cannot be truly challenged otherwise the snowflakes will experience many meltdowns.

In practice, what should we do if we meet those who racially discriminate while claiming to be color-blind? Is the solution to reject color-blindness, or rather, that we ought to call them to live more consistently with their professed belief in color-blindness? The solution to giving lip-service to color-blindness is not less color-blindness, but more color-blindness. Ironically, it is Williams' approach that causes more racism if consistently followed. So, while I have no doubt the good intentions of RAAN, the sad but true fact is that RAAN is promoting racism and racial enmity, in the name of racial equality.

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