This month we have seen terrible racial riots on both sides of the Atlantic and for that matter throughout the world. The aftermath is set to rumble on for many months if not years.
Yet sadly the ultimate solution will never be found until the source of this evil is sought out and destroyed deep down in the depth which Freud called the Unconscious, and Christians call original sin which can corrupt or even destroy the best of us. The majority like me, deceive ourselves into believing that we are somehow immune from this terrible affliction. Even worse, the ‘politically correct’ has the audacity to set themselves up not just to protest at the racism of others but to pontificate on how racism should be dealt with. Their solutions tend to be superficial, for if they only knew it they are racist themselves until this hidden spiritual infestation has been rooted out at source by the only power that can destroy it.
All the World is a Stage
Shakespeare said that all the world is a stage and the men and women merely players, each playing their part. Nobody wants to see themselves as they really are, let alone have others see what they cannot face for themselves. So we pass through life as if on a stage, playing a chosen part and posturing to make ourselves acceptable to those who we feel would not otherwise accept us. Nobody must be allowed to see what is below the surface, what is under the stage. The trapdoor to the grim and grimy underworld must be kept closed at all times. The truth of the matter is that despite all our play-acting, we are in fact determined by what we try at all times to keep locked away below the stage in our Unconscious. Racism is just one of the monsters that rule us from within. Sometimes what is called a Freudian slip takes place, when something is revealed that we have been trying to keep hidden away, not only from others but even from ourselves. It happened to me in a rather dramatic way fifty years ago. I received a letter from my brother Tony who was working in South Africa, to say that he was getting married.
The Trap Door to my Unconscious
His news was so important that my parents and I went out to South Africa to visit him. He told us immediately that he was to marry a black African, a Zulu whom he met at a local hospital. My parents were shattered and said so. You can imagine all they said on the spur of the moment. The racism that they had no knowledge of came pouring out. The atmosphere in the room was electric. I sat there as the still and silent centre amidst all the turmoil, and I said not a word. But I was horrified at what was happening within me. Everything that my parents were saying out loud I was saying to myself. Everything happened so quickly that I had no time to put my foot on the trapdoor to my Unconscious. The racism that I had never dreamt was in me came up and flooded my mind. I managed to close it quickly before anything more could come out, and managed to close my mouth too so that nobody would know that what was in my parents was also in me. I did not sleep that night. I was shattered to the roots of my being. There had been an evil spiritual cancer within me for years and I did not even know it. I had been the president of a branch of the Anti-Apartheid League and had spoken out and written about the pernicious disease of racism. I had demonstrated time and time again in Trafalgar Square in front of the South African Embassy in London, and all the time I was a racist myself.
Prejudiced Against Black Africans
I knew then, and I knew for sure that I had been prejudiced against black Africans. I knew it must have shown in the ostentatious way I demonstrated for them, and in a patronizing way, I treated them. And yet I did not see it, and never dreamt it could be possible, and I would have reacted violently to anyone who suggested otherwise. Just how many other prejudices lurked deep down within me? That was the question I asked myself as I tossed and turned my way through the night. Then I thought of the enormous pride that had blinded me to the truth. I not only managed to deceive others, I deceived myself about the real quality of the man who had the audacity to think he was a saint in the making just because of the religious pretensions that were probably born of some pride or prejudice of which I had no knowledge.
That night was the moment of truth in my life. Now I could see as never before that the man who was playing the would-be saint on his own little stage to his chosen audience was a fraud, a fake, a phoney, like the politically correct ‘wokes’ who set themselves up today to be the arbiters of contemporary moral rectitude. I was ruled from deep down within by the pride and prejudice of what St Paul called the Old Man. I think the worst realization of all was that even though I could see so clearly what I was never able to see before, there was nothing I could do about it.
Knowledge Alone Changes No One
I felt so helpless. I knew that I, the great moral crusader was a racist and I could do nothing to change myself. I remember a therapist who used to lecture in psychology at college, explaining how once the cause of irrational behaviour was discovered in the unconscious mind and shown to the sufferer in the conscious mind, they would be cured of their affliction. I thought he was wrong at the time. Now I know he was wrong. I was a racist although I had not known it, and the mere fact that I knew what I did not know before did not change me at all. I remember wandering through the streets of Johannesburg, looking at black African women and trying to imagine my brother married to one of them. I simply could not, nor could I do anything to free myself from the racism that had me in its power. How could I possibly be cured? It was only after they were married in England that I went to visit my brother and his wife at their home in Liverpool. I found the first visit terribly difficult and would have avoided it if I could. Subsequent visits became easier and easier until from becoming a duty they became a pleasure. Gradually, as I came to know my sister-in-law, Protasia, I came to like her; then I came to love her and experienced her love for me. It was her love for me that effected the cure. It did for me what no earthly power could have done, but after all, love is not an earthly power.
The Power of Love
To begin with, it was her love for my brother that uncovered the terrible racism that I had no idea was in me, but in the end, it was that same love reaching out to me that cured it. Her love enabled me to see the terrible truth that I shrank from, and then it gave me the strength to rise above it. The strange thing is that when a loving relationship changes your attitude to one member of a group or tribe or race that you were prejudiced against before, then your attitude can change to every member of that group. It does not make you think they are all wonderful, but it does mean that you treat them according to their merit, not your prejudice. As Martin Luther King put it, to be judged not according to the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Some years ago I travelled to Africa to give a series of talks to different groups of people in Uganda, Kenya and Cameroon. I felt completely at home. Many of them remarked on the ease with which I was able to mix with everyone without the slightest hint of the patronizing way I treated black Africans before. I have my sister-in-law, Protasia, to thank for that. That is what love can do. I do not mean to suggest that her love changed me completely. I was still full of a hundred and one other prejudices that I knew I would have to face up to one way or another if I was going to be the sort of open, balanced and Christ-like person that I ought to be. But what I learnt from her was that love and love alone can change a blind and prejudiced bigot like me into the person I would like to become.
The Perfect Psychiatrist
I realized that it is not just loving but the experience of being loved that frees a person from the prejudices that make so-called rational human beings behave irrationally towards one another. However, I could see that it was no good depending on chance encounters to purify me of the innumerable other prejudices that I knew corrupted me from within. Only the Perfect Psychiatrist, the Holy Spirit, God’s all-powerful love who was sent to the spiritually sick on the first Pentecost day could do that. Only he could show me the real truth about myself and give me the love that would empower me to rise above it.
Prayer beyond first beginnings is the place where the Holy Spirit can gradually purify us of all the spiritual corruption that is spawned within us by original sin. That is why I continually quote St Teresa of Avila who said, ‘there is only one way to perfection and that is to pray if anyone points in another direction then they are deceiving you.’
15 thoughts on “The Only Solution to Racial Prejudice”
Mea culpa, mea culpa! How about wearing a hair shirt and whipping ourselves for the sin of “racism”. Now “feelings” are the thing, and rational thinking and common sense have gone out the window! This is absurd. As long as you treat others as you would like to be treated, forget about negative feelings you may have about other people! That sort of thing happens to all of us. How about some concern for the rape, torture and genocide of whites going on in South Africa now!
I would note that the flip side of the coin of patronizing is lionizing. For the objectivist, a good starting point to evaluating others is simply to do ones best at determining facts. Once preconceived notions are shed it becomes much easier to evaluate the qualities of individuals clearly. Needless to say, this pretty much obviates group think and imaging. An interesting article but has a tendency to reflect back on the very thing it is critical of.
I came across the following from the Little Flower:
“I met Jesus on a Thursday afternoon in June when I was 9 years old and he told me that He thinks I’m adorable (no, He doesn’t worship me). He also told me he would always be with me and that He loves me and will always love me.”
If we realize that Jesus thinks the same of us, we can get a small glimpse of God’s great love for us. But He loves everyone in that same way. We need to try to see God’s great love for each person we meet, regardless of ethnicity, political views, or faith. If we can see others as the Lord does, we can begin to eliminate the scourge of prejudice. It’s easier said than done, but we must keep trying and praying. And, yes, I suspect we all have prejudices. It’s probably one of the things a lot of us will have to work out in Purgatory.
As a side note, I’m hopeful that increased inter-racial marriages will break more families out of their cocoons and open hearts.
Thank you for your insightful comment Dan
Even the Hatfield-McCoy clans had an inter-feud marriage…although that did came after one of the Hatfields abandoned one pregnant McCoy for her cousin…hope never disappoints.
A black professor says all he wants for Christmas is white genocide. A Hispanic man says the world would be much better off without white people. Anti white racism is out in the open everywhere and yet we’re told that we are the only ones who are racist! Inter racial marriages are promoted in movies and TV. I’m sick and tired of it and all the feel good bromides posted everywhere because white people are afraid of saying what they really think rather than be accused of racism! If that makes me a racist, so be it! No one can makes us feel guilty unless we allow them to do so. Personally, I don’t see why we have to marry people of other races in order to prove that we’re not racist. Apparently the white race has developed a death wish and those behind the Coudenhove-Kalergi plan would be delighted!
Original sin means that we are all sinners, who are filled therefore with pride and prejudices of every sort. However there are two types of sinners those who accept that they are filled with pride and prejudice and try to do something about it, and those who do not. Those who do not pretend, like the Pharisees, that they are ‘not like the rest of men’ and look for ‘scapegoats’ to project, for instance, their own hidden racism onto others. In this article I have tried to show from my own experience how human love can free one particular person from one particular prejudice. In the next I will show how this enabled me to realise that divine love can free us from all forms of prejudice but this depends on searchers who have the humility to admit that ‘they are like the rest of men’ and have need of the physician which is Christ and the Holy Spirit which is his love, his divine love.
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The extent to which this site denounces racism and refuses to name Trump is amazing.
Now we have someone who protested apartheid identifying himself as a racist. Tell me, what does that make Mr. Trump??
I see you’ve already thrown one stone. Perhaps there have been more that you’ve thrown. The stones are free and they are easy to throw. But the repercussions of this stone-throwing can be disastrous if you don’t take the words: “Go and sin no more” to heart.
Your position is that no politician can be criticized. That is not the position taken at Catholic Stand.
I don’t know what an apartheid protester confessing personal sin “makes Mr. Trump”. Isn’t the better question what it says of any reader of this article who finds an occasion to do anything other than look at their own lives and how their attitudes and prejudices clash with their public face?
There are sad people who would take a discourse on the joys of flying a kite, and turn it into a referendum on our President. TDS. It’s real.
Who? Mr. Trump is about as relevant to this discussion as Mr. Roberts is. Sad.
Sigh, another Catholic article dropping the name of that denier of Christ’s divinity.
Ken, who are you referencing?