By Dr. I.D. Thompson, Contributing Writer
My life spans more than seventy years, as an American resident, a world citizen, and a living, breathing, conscious child of God. I’ve spent most of my years in Mississippi, one of America’s most racist states. I have also traveled, lived, and worked throughout the United States.
I know what racism looks like and I know what it feels like. I grew up under Jim Crow laws. I have lived every day with the constant emotional and memory pain of government-sanctioned terrorism, segregation, discrimination, and annihilation.
I know what it’s like to have camouflaged racism play me for a fool. And, I know what it feels like to go through life with the suffocating weight of racism on my neck. Yes, I know what it’s like to live in America and never feeling completely free, for seventy plus years.
Why would America do this to me? What did I do? What did I say? What’s wrong with racist white people? Why are they so hateful? Why all the racism?
These are all rhetorical questions. You don’t have to answer. But I’ll give you the answer: “Racism, America’s greatest sin.” You could also call it “The white man’s deal with the devil.”
It is the same swindling game that the devil ran on Adam and Eve, and tried to run on Jesus by promising Him all the kingdoms of the world as seen in Matthew 4:8. And even though they’ve read the Bible, they still fell for the devil’s game. The devil convinced white racists that God didn’t matter and that Jesus was a fraud.
And for four hundred years, white racists have advanced an ongoing battle with the greatest commandments of Christ as seen in Matthew 22:36-40, that we “love the Lord our God with all our soul and with all our mind, and that we love our neighbor as ourselves.”
Brothers and sisters, as long as America’s racists believe that they have the right to subject other races of people to their dominance and control for their advantage, America will suffer from the sin of racism.
Keep on fighting. Keep on pushing. Keep the faith.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, help us to fight the good fight. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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