Darrow Miller and Friends

What is “Whiteness”?

  1. Racism and Black Lives Matter: Worldview Reflections
  2. The Human Race, Antidote to Racism!
  3. Two Forms of Racism
  4. Postmodern Racism: Ideological Social Justice
  5. What is “Whiteness”?
  6. Racism Is in the Human Heart
  7. Three Important Distinctions Regarding Racism
  8. Hope in the Midst of Racist Despair
  9. Envy, Emulation and Racism
  10. Envy, Emulation and Racism, part 2

Modern racism is rooted in the physical: skin color and facial features. In postmodernism, race is rooted in ideology, i.e. “whiteness.”

The Smithsonian National Museum of African History and Culture–NMAAHC–has an online teaching tool based on Critical Race Theory, titled “Talking About Race” which says, “Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups are compared.”

The course has a graphic titled “Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness and White Culture in the United States.” The graphic summarizes “whiteness” and its vices. Among these are,

  • The significance of the individual and personal responsibility,
  • The natural or “nuclear” family composed of father, mother and their children,
  • Objective thinking, i.e. the pursuit of truth, through science and rationality,
  • Dignity of work and entrepreneurship,
  • Delayed gratification.

So, if these are the vices of whiteness, are their opposites the virtues of non-whiteness? If hard work is a vice, is idleness a virtue? If delayed gratification is a vice, is instant gratification a virtue? If the natural or nuclear family is a vice, then broken families and non-binary families must be the virtue. If personal responsibility is a vice, is negligence the virtue?

I do not think so! Is anything more racist than this perspective? To be black is to be a victim, incapable of using one’s God-given gifts?  No! This idea is demeaning and robs the image bearer of dignity, worth, value, opportunity, etc. His life is only good if others DO for him. This again denies the mandate given by God to ALL His image bearers. People who have embraced this have done amazing things with their lives. Think of people like George Washington Carver, Harriett Tubman and Sojourner Truth.

“White virtues” originated in the Middle East!

These virtues and vices have nothing to do with whiteness or blackness, everything to do with a cultural mindset, or worldview. Your worldview determines not only how you see the world, but how the world works and the kinds of communities and nations you build. A worldview is a set of ideas, a mindset that may be held by any person and has nothing to do with skin pigmentation.

The ideas and virtues that NMAAHC identify as “whiteness” were born in the Middle East, from an ancient Afro-Asiatic language family of Semites. The “patriarch” of this family was likely a brown-skinned male, from Ur of the Chaldees, now modern day Iraq, not far from the Persian Gulf. The man’s ancient name was Abram, later Abraham, the father of the ancient Jewish and Arab peoples.

The Jews gifted the world with virtue

The Jews abandoned their acenstor’s tribal deities and family altars. They repented of animism and turned to the one true God. Their concept of reality was transformed. It changed them, and not only them. It changed the world forever. In his book The Gift of the Jews, historian Thomas Cahill observes:

The Jews gave us a whole new vocabulary, a whole new Temple of the Spirit, an inner landscape of ideas and feelings that had never been known before. Because of their unique belief—monotheism—the Jews were able to give us the Great Whole, a unified universe that makes sense and that, because of its evident superiority as a worldview, completely overwhelms the warring and contradictory phenomena of polytheism. They gave us the Conscience of the West. …

The Jews gave us the Outside and the Inside—our outlook and our inner life. We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words, in fact—new, adventure, surprise; unique, individual, person, vocation; time, history, future; freedom, progress, spirit; faith, hope, justice—are the gifts of the Jews.

If people, communities, and nations are to flourish, this outlook is critically important. It is metaphysical capital, a mindset that reflects reality. Truth sets people and nations free to thrive. Metaphysical capital is more important than physical capital in the flourishing of nations.

These ideas and virtues represent the transforming mindset of monotheism, originally witnessed by the ancient Jewish people in the Torah and later by followers of Jesus Christ. What the NMAAHC has called white vices have nothing to do with skin color. These ideas have been embraced by people from all over the world of every skin pigmentation and people group.

The new racism promotes racist thinking

The postmodern view of racism is rooted in ideology–Critical Race Theory. It springs from atheism, a very different worldview from Judeo-Christian theism, and is marked by very different set of ideas and virtues. These ideas are bringing a cosmic shift to the western world. While it purports to be against the racism of the Nazi/neo-Nazi type, it is actually a new form of racism, a hatred of people who are white. But ultimately the new form of racism is hatred of a set of ideas born in the ancient Middle East that have done more to bring flourishing to people of all skin colors and ethnic groups than any other system.

As a result, people of color like brilliant economists Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and cultural commentators Larry Elder and Candice Owens who embrace these ideas are considered “Uncle Toms” and traitors to the black community. They are ignored or even “erased” by those in the press, academia and politics. Why? Because these men and women are free thinkers who challenge the Critical Racial Theory narrative and BLM.

Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee  for the Democrat nomination for President, stated on a popular radio talk show, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

While Biden later apologized for this incredibly racist comment, it is a reflection of the narrative that to be black you must think a certain way and you must vote for a particular political party.

Race has moved from biology to ideology.

The “anti-fascists,” as exemplified by Black Lives Matter (the organization) are the new racists. They segregate people into smaller and smaller victim classes and declare that all white people, by being white, are racist.

  • Darrow

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About 
Darrow is co-founder of the Disciple Nations Alliance and a featured author and teacher. For over 30 years, Darrow has been a popular conference speaker on topics that include Christianity and culture, apologetics, worldview, poverty, and the dignity of women. From 1981 to 2007 Darrow served with Food for the Hungry International (now FH association), and from 1994 as Vice President. Before joining FH, Darrow spent three years on staff at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland where he was discipled by Francis Schaeffer. He also served as a student pastor at Northern Arizona University and two years as a pastor of Sherman Street Fellowship in urban Denver, CO. In addition to earning his Master’s degree in Adult Education from Arizona State University, Darrow pursued graduate studies in philosophy, theology, Christian apologetics, biblical studies, and missions in the United States, Israel, and Switzerland. Darrow has authored numerous studies, articles, Bible studies and books, including Discipling Nations: The Power of Truth to Transform Culture (YWAM Publishing, 1998), Nurturing the Nations: Reclaiming the Dignity of Women for Building Healthy Cultures (InterVarsity Press, 2008), LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day (YWAM, 2009), Rethinking Social Justice: Restoring Biblical Compassion (YWAM, 2015), and more. These resources along with links to free e-books, podcasts, online training programs and more can be found at Disciple Nations Alliance (https://disciplenations.org).
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