Are you a priest?

Were the levees blown? Would relief have come faster to New Orleans had the city been predominantly white? Testimonials to congress said so, and whether these claims are true are not are pretty much beside the point. Thanks to Katrina (and the government and media's various responses) race relations in the United States have been thrown back decades.

Genocide? American Holocaust? Those terms mean something to the world, and the fact that New Orleans Katrina victims are using them, true or not, has to be addressed.

Conservatives are writing that the charges of racism are fantasy, while liberals are fanning the flames. Who's right? It ultimately may not matter, because what is being said reflects a world view.

Racism has taken on a life of its own. It has become an ingrained filter on our perceptions of reality – a stand-alone belief system.

A religion.

Like all religions, it gives the faithful comfort by ordering events without requiring analysis or thought. This religion has priests - like David Duke and Louis Farrakhan. It has parables - like the "murdered white children in the Superdome" and the "blown levees". And like all religions, it cannot be challenged without risk of being branded heretical.

This is not to deny that there is racism. Racism absolutely still exists, in the United States and all over the world. Yet every time whites and blacks interface, is an outcome driven by race? Of course not. Racism is a toxic “belief system”; a secular religion to which people belong – sometimes unknowingly. In fact, some of the strongest pillars of this religion are supported by those who oppose it - the liberal media - and as much as I hate it when people say, "I told you so"... well... I told you so.

Before you dismiss or embrace the claims of racism surrounding Katrina events, ask yourself whether your reaction fits your own "world view". Don't just take it on faith. We don't need any more priests.

Polimom said this @ 8:48 AM