racism

The Tiny Men Who Can’t Solve Anything

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Last column I wrote about how in our spiritual journeys, opening up to others is part of the path, that somehow by being smaller we become big, how we become more human and more divine by wanting the same for others. I’d like to talk about the opposite in painful and obvious detail.

So let’s cut to the chase. The racists, sexists, and bigot grifters that bedevil us make themselves and others smaller.

It seems we’re currently beset by a bunch of public bigots, Influencers of hatred, high on something beyond their own supply (probably ketamine or uppers) who are so ready to declare themselves superior. Their culture is superior (even as it churns out the same slop). Their genes are superior (they say from the position of luck). They are superior and they must fight the bad people (who look different and think different and also don’t send them money).

So thus the real thing is to fight the bad people, who somehow often seem to be the poor, immigrants, and various minorities. They’re the threat. Sometimes the bigots will invoke ANOTHER group to blame them for the threat. And by that I mean, 90% of the time, that eternal scapegoat – Jewish people. These bigots say we must fight the bad guys to preserve our culture, and by that they mean hate people and revive old bigotries.

But what is the culture of these small and angry bigots? A washed out Disney-meets-fascism version of real history. It’s often someones modern idea of the 1950’s idea of the 1800’s idea of the past. They’re preserving an image of an image of an image so many layers deep Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard would utterly shit themselves if they saw it.

There’s no growth to these haters’ idea of culture. it’s all about a replica of an imagined replica. It’s all about going back, not going forward or even going at all. It’s destructive, it’s isolating, and it’s not real – nor was it ever.

And thus there’s no real culture for these bigots except a simulacra of a simulacra. Burdened with hate, lashing out at easy targets, they’re constantly attacking others verbally if not physically. Their entire existence is attack for the purpose of nothing but a temporary high.

As they go on, unsatisfied, they only get more angry. Ultima Thule, Atlantis, the City on a Hill will never come because they can’t build. They will never have the illusinary genetic purity they crave for some reason because they’ll find reason to attack anyone as that’s all they have. Eternally unsatisfied, the Hungry Ghosts of Buddhism armed with bats and guns, making bad AI memes.

They are so very small and making themselves smaller.

They cannot develop a better society as they are trying to go back to an illusion. They can’t become larger people because they are cutting off the world, the people in it, and thus cutting off themselves. They think they are getting larger, but they are becoming so very, very small behind their walls. You’d almost pity them, perhaps you do – but it’s hard as they’re both so stupid and so vicious.

They’re spending so much time cutting off parts of the world they’re cutting off parts of themselves.

They could be larger, they could expand, they could grow, they could evolve. They could walk into this diverse world and be part of it. They could become smaller and thus become larger. But instead they try to be large and mutilate their souls, becoming so very, truly small.

–Xenofact

Seeking Immortality In Racism

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There’s a certain kind of man out there we’ve all seen who has a very predictable downward spiral personally and ethically.

He is aging. Perhaps swiftly, more swiftly than usual thanks to lifestyle choices and, ironically, attempts to extend his lifespan.

He starts to make very racist statements. This doesn’t mean he’s just become racist – indeed it is more likely revealing his beliefs and pathologies, and they’re often getting worse. He’s very concerned about other races and of course his. Almost certainly this person is what we’d call White – very White.

He becomes obsessed with genetics and fitness and pseudo-Darwinism. Again, this is perhaps more a revelation than an evolution. But suddenly he’s quite concerned, dare I say radically so.

He is obsessed with reproduction. His race (again, usuallyWhite) must reproduce, though what that race is doesn’t seem to make sense. Perhaps he invokes some kind of generic Whiteness, breathtakingly meaningless in its attempt to lump together people of many backgrounds. He might invoke “European” origins in some unitary manner, as if Europe hasn’t had a history of its people murdering each other in wars for ages.

Inevitably, his obsession with reproduction becomes creepy (or is revealed to be such). He tries to have children with many women. He discusses the fertility of underaged girls in obsessive detail. Perhaps he divorces his wife to marry someone that could be his daughter – or grandaughter. One gets the feeling that this is revelation of and justification of behaviors warranting not just consideration but investigation.

So let me propose that such a man – such men as we are all too used to – are seeking immortality in their racism. Racist they almost certainly are, but there is even more there in the pathology.

They are aging, aging before our eyes and theirs. They have lived life, perhaps being quite successful, but no one can bribe time, only live inside it. They may also be failures, looking back with regret, wanting something to look forward to. Rich or poor, famous or obscure, the flames of history slowly consume them.

So they seek something to give them a sense of immortality, of pemanance in an ever-changing world, and settle on something easily seized on by the pathological – racism. They invest in the survival of their so-called race, whatever bundle of bigotries and demographics they’ve latched on to. They become obsessed with reproduction, both theirs and others, hoping for the immortality in future generations of a specific race.

Of course, their own personal problems become our problems as we’re all to well aware of what fearful bigots can do. Perhaps we didn’t realize how bad they were, but as they got older they got worse, rotting from the inside. Now, many of them at their peak – in age if not wealth – seek to conquer time and they can’t, and it’s our problem.

When I see some White man, aging, obsessed with reproduction and childbearing and demographics, I see someone grasping for immortality and permanence. They latch on to base bias to give them some comfort as their hair falls out and their skin wrinkles. They want something solid in the world as they face the Reaper, and we all know the world isn’t solid.

There, in the end, is the cry of so many bigots – “I am afraid to die.”

–Xenofact

Racism, Hell, and Insecurity

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Many strains of American Christianity have a racism paradox.  They are clearly bigoted in past and present actions, often embodied by their adherents and leaders in ways subtle and gross (and grotesque).  Now such bigotries clearly would go against almost any sane interpretation of Jesus, a pleasant fellow by all accounts who invited people to love each other and never set down any racial boundaries.  However we see such bigotries with painful clarity in our culture today (specially, 2023) even as some of these strains of Christianity seek to control our country.

I’ve also noticed a peculiar brittleness in practitioners of these bigoted strains of Christianity.  There’s a defensiveness and an anger, a kind of fear of a person who feels something can break any moment.  It may manifest as bravado or ever-speedier speech, but there’s something there that’s delicate.  I want to discuss this behavior, these moments of fearful eyes, cracked voices, and aggressive yet confused postures easily apparent in newscasts, recordings, and fundraisers.

(I am aware American Christianity has other sins, but I focus on this brittleness because it is a problem in America, and it utterly flies in the face of most interpretations of Jesus.  Honestly, the man deserves better.)

In exploring this brittleness, this insecurity that boils up in these strains of Christianity when they confront racism, it’s necessary to discuss the idea of Hell.  In popular Christianity the idea is simple – you get judged when you die and irrevocably go to the afterlife, which may include eternal torment for being a bad person.  Now I would argue that actual biblical literalism would argue for a resurrection, but again this is what is believed.

Now if you believe that bad people go to Hell, and one is a Christian where one is called to love people by Christ, then being a racist, simply means you’d possibly go to Hell.  I mean one is not just hating people, but not helping them when in need and quite possibly harming them directly and indirectly.  In fact, to spout racist rhetoric is to slander a person, and Jesus was pretty against that too (Matthew 5:22).

(It’s really hard to read the New Testament and imagine Jesus being fine with racism.  Of course many people try to imagine him being fine with many terrible things, but those take effort as well.)

This means many bigoted Christians are caught in a trap of fearing damnation but also very obviously doing what Jesus said would get you damned.  The racism is so ingrained in their culture – as history has sadly shown – they can’t give it up despite this fear.  Thus they have to go through many psychological acrobatics to ignore it.

And this is if they believe at all and aren’t just trying to cover up the stark truth that they’re just lying (and if caught, a better liar will steal their grift).

Thus I believe that the brittleness we see in bigoted Christians confronting their racism is in part due to this dichotomy.  Having internalized racism as part of their religion – yet not being able to reconcile it – there’s often that low level itch of “I am a bad person and am going to hell.”  To fear eternal damnation and continue to court it in your mind has to be, well, rather hellish.

Further, as one tries to reconcile blistering racial hatred with Jesus, one has to consider past actions.  American history has plenty of Christians excusing and participating in horrible racist atrocities.  To look at the words of Jesus and the threat of damnation is to open your mind to the possibility an enormous amount of your ancestors are eternally in the grip of Satan forever.

Obviously a book could be written on bigotry, the fear of damnation, and Christianity.  I certainly won’t explore it in a blog post or simple musing.  But I think as we deal with American Christianity and racism, it’s important to keep in mind this brittleness.  There’s a fundamental tension some American Christians have gnawing at the back of their minds – being racist and fearing damnation for it.

And as we deal with their actions and plays for power, we’ll want to keep that in mind.

– Xenofact