Truth to Power
A consistent theme in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was his defiance of political correctness. Trump’s willingness to explicitly call out “radical Islam” was seen as a prime manifestation of his refusal to be politically correct.
Critics of Islam dismiss the assertions that ISIS and Al-Qaeda are not representative of Islam but instead are perversions of the faith. Such discourse they believe is saturated in “political correctness. “ They argue that ISIS’s action must be the result of Islam; after all, ISIS uses Islam in its very name and appropriates Islamic imagery.
So, in their eyes, it must be obvious that Islam is responsible for ISIS and the refusal to acknowledge this they argue is attributed to political correctness Let’s take this flawed pattern of reasoning to its logical conclusion and apply it to White Christendom.
The Boers utilized a radical interpretation of Christianity to justify usurping South Africa from the indigenous people and establishing an apartheid regime. The Catholic church and the Pope directly evoked the Bible to justify the enslavement of blacks and slave ships were named after biblical figures such as “Jesus” and “”Solomon.”
When Conquistadors first showed up to the Americas, they murdered the Aztec people and conquered the entire continent in the name of Christianity. Despite his reality, when it comes to discussions of religious extremism, there is a profound double saturated in a culture of political correctness which has fidelity to white supremacy.
When asked how one could justify this decision in light of Dylan Roof‘s shooting and Alexandre Bissonnette attack on a Quebec Mosque, representative Sean Duffy argued, “there’s a difference. You don’t have a group like ISIS or Al Qaeda that is inspiring [attacks] around the world. That was a one off.” The belief that white supremacist violence is an anomaly and not linked to a singular radicalizing ideology is ubiquitous in counterterrorism discourse.
Far from being “one off” as Sean Duffy argued, white radical Christian extremists have a history written in the blood of darker peoples of the earth.
Sean Duffy’s ability to see white supremacist violence as isolated, noncontinuous, unconnected and as something which is not linked to a singular radicalizing worldview (white supremacy) is only a result of a world in white terrorism has become normalized that it simply does not warrant condemnation. Neither Dylan roof’s shootings nor the white supremacist shooting of the Quebec Mosque are “one off,” they are linked to an over 500-year history of white supremacist violence which continues to this very day.
Political scientist Charles Mills writes that literary and media discourse won’t mention, “The basic political system that has shaped the world for the past several hundred years. And this omission is not accidental.” His refusal to name white supremacy as a political system according to Mills demonstrates that whites “take their racial privilege so much for granted that they do not even see it as political.” If there is anything which is politically correct, it is the refusal to name and acknowledge global white supremacy as a structural system. If there is an textbook example of how a religion can be distorted with a holy book to justify violence – that history exist firmly in white Christendom.
Radical Christianity
With a radical interpretation of the Bible, an organization known as the Christian Knight of the KKK established itself with the stated mission to, “Establish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible.“ Demonstrating its commitment to the Gospel, the KKK asserted that, “Jesus was the first Klansman.” The Klan believed that Jesus fully endorsed their ideals.
In the Klan’s magazine Kourier, a Christian Minister boasts of how he found Jesus Christ through the KKK, “As a protestant minister of the Gospel, I joined the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan because: I believe in Jesus Christ and His church; I believe in a Militant Christianity; I believe in the Cross a symbol of service and sacrifice for the right.” The Ku Klux Klan further described its deep commitment to biblical principles:
The Ku Klux Klan utilized its interpretation of the Bible to carry out wanton acts of violence against black people. An article in 1903 written in The Chicago Herald reads, “A Fiery sermon by a pastor was blamed today for the lynching last night of George White.” The burning of a cross frequently accompanied the lynching of black people.
Explaining the religious basis of the cross burning ritual, one Klansman stated that, “We also light the CRoss, as a tribute to Jesus Christ in recognition of his sacrifice, and willingness to die for our sins.” In every step of the way, the KKK utilized the Bible to justify brutal crimes against black people and Christian ministers even utilized the Klan as a pivotal tool to increase Church retention.
As a further consequence of white Christian extremism, the land of native Americans, “were entrusted by the Christ to the Pope” and a Christian document, “provided justification for the dispossession of land and immediate enslavement of the indigenous people.” The descendants of radical Christian extremists can promulgate islamophobic tirades in the very western hemisphere that was taken from Native-Americans in an act of religious extremism.
Due to political correctness, Pastor Robert Jeffress, who was invited to speak at Trump’s inauguration, can refer to Islam as “evil” and white Christians can moralize upon Muslims whilst putting on a facade as though they are angels of light who have never done anything wrong. The reality is that the real political correctness which needs to be addressed are white Christians who apply a moral standard to Muslims which they are unwilling to apply to themselves.
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