"Why do minorities blame white people for everything?"
The title is a question posted over at Quora. And the short answer is: Because critics who belong to minorities have a myopic view of reality.
They forget or ignore the crucial fact that all ethnicities have victimized other ethnicities at different points in history.
They ignore their own personal responsibility to be creative, industrious, and contributing members of society.
Both of the above factors, however, are manifestations of what I call “oppressionism”: the underlying assumption that life is all about oppressors-vs-oppressees. The mentality of oppressionism is always looking to blame someone other than myself for my problems, no matter what they are. Obviously some problems we run into in life are the fault of others—but “oppressionists,” also known as those with a “victim mentality,” always seek to blame others as an excuse to avoid personal responsibility.
And even if someone else did cause your problem—you’re still responsible for what you do about it.
The social disease of oppressionism actually began thousands of years ago, at the dawn of humanity. Look at how Satan, the first fallen angel, tempted Eve, the first woman, to rebel against her Creator:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which Yahweh God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
And the woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, ‘You shall not eat from it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die.’”
And the serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” [Genesis 3:1–5]
Do you see what the “serpent”—Satan in disguise—was doing there? . . . God had created a perfect world for the first pair of humans, Adam and Eve, to live in. But Satan wanted Eve to believe that God was holding her down; blocking her from achieving her full potential—and from being equal with God Himself.
In other words, Satan’s idea was that God was oppressing His creatures.
I’m convinced that this is what Satan believes God is doing to the angels as well. In a prophecy that, on the surface, is addressing the king of ancient Tyre, we get a glimpse of Satan himself behind the curtain of history, implying that it’s the Devil who inspired the human king:
“You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God . . . . You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created[,] until unrighteousness was found in you. . . . Your heart was lofty because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor.” [Ezekiel 28:12–13, 15, 17]
Generations later the Apostle Paul implied that Satan fell through “conceit.”
Being conceited, then, Satan thought he was entitled to equality with God. And ever since, the Devil has infected humans with the same attitude of entitlement.
That attitude has led to the utterly absurd phenomenon we see in Western society today: minorities blaming Caucasians for virtually everything under the sun—even cancer!
Yes, you read that correctly: racism is now being blamed for cancer. Or at least that’s what the writers of the NBC drama New Amsterdam believe. That’s what I’d call peak wokeness. I'm reminded of something Harrison Ford reportedly said to director George Lucas on the set of Star Wars, when they had a disagreement over lines of dialogue: “George, you can write this sh*t, but you can't say it.”
On the other hand, is it possible there's a grain of truth in such otherwise ridiculous dialogue? Maybe. If so, that grain of truth certainly isn't that “racism causes cancer.” Instead, it's possible that false beliefs—about racism, about climate change, about politics, about whatever your situation in life happens to be—produce stress that you internalize, rather than deal with properly, and that this stress then has an impact on your physical health.
This highlights the fact that one of the core elements of the Biblical worldview is that we must confront and destroy false beliefs in our hearts. It's been well said: “Ideas have consequences.” False beliefs are a subset of ideas that will adversely impact not only your lifestyle, but your physical well-being too. And maintaining false beliefs is sin, which is why “God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” (Romans 1:18)
That's from the Apostle Paul, who occasionally refers to the wrath of God that will fall on the unrepentant when history as we know it comes to an end. But in Romans 1 he's referring to God's present demonstrations of anger against sin. One way God expresses how He feels about sin is by built-in consequences: what we often call “natural consequences” are actually “built in” because that’s how God designed nature. Those consequences include effects on our physical health, which is why King David wrote:
. . . [M]y health is broken because of my sins. My guilt overwhelms me—it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief. A raging fever burns within me, and my health is broken. I am exhausted and completely crushed. My groans come from an anguished heart. [Psalms 38:3-8]
Tellingly, however, the first line of verse 3 is: “Because of [God’s] anger, my whole body is sick[.]” I don’t believe God literally struck David with illness because of sin; David is speaking poetically here about the consequences of sin that God has built into the fabric of creation. When we violate God’s righteousness, there’s inevitable blowback.
Yet this same God—who hates sin more than we could ever appreciate—is also the only One who can liberate us from both sin’s consequences and sin itself.
Have mercy on me, [Yahweh], for I am in distress. Tears blur my eyes. My body and soul are withering away. I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness. Sin has drained my strength; I am wasting away from within. . . .
But I am trusting you, O [Yahweh] . . . . My future is in your hands. . . . How great is the goodness you have stored up for those who fear you. . . . You hide them in the shelter of your presence, safe from those who conspire against them. You shelter them in your presence . . . .
Praise [Yahweh], for he has shown me the wonders of his unfailing love. . . . So be strong and courageous, all you who put your hope in [Yahweh]! [Psalm 31:9–10, 14–15, 19–21, 24]
All of us—no matter our ethnicity or color—need to acknowledge our personal responsibility for our own sins; that we have violated God’s character and creation. Instead of judging (and blaming) others, we should follow the counsel of the Apostle Paul: “if we took care to judge ourselves, then we wouldn’t have to worry about being judged by [God].” (1 Corinthians 11:31)
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More food for thought: