Parodite wrote:jhQI4w1eV80
I really don’t begrudge these ladies their vacation. Hope they had a good time. However, if they believe that there is not rampant racism in Costa Rica or anywhere in Latin America, they have not stepped outside the resort and spent serious time with the less affluent locals. Much of South and Central America still struggle with the vestiges of traditional, plantation cultures to this day, where race, ethnicity, and color determined your strata and freedom in society and still impacts upon people's lives.
The one problem I have with what these women are doing is this. While any basic study of our history and culture would show that race and ethnicity as well as discrimination are deeply rooted in our history and also continue to challenge us to this day, racial justice can only be obtained through moral courage and not through isolation in such things as “healing retreats,” ”safe spaces”, and from hurtful words.
M. L. King understood that justice for African Americans was not just for them but for white people as well. Discrimination and oppression degrades both the victims and the perpetrators. He knew that the destinies of the races are tightly bound in our culture and history, an understanding that is rarely shared today across the political spectrum, and King was challenged by both white segregationists and black separatists who did not get this either in his own day. Being fundamentally a preacher, he also understood his non-violent resistance to oppression as redemption for
both races. So, when he marched, he faced all kinds of physical and verbal abuse, but he faced these directly with love, not as “emotional bosh” in his words, but with real spiritual courage. Christian love was offered to the oppressors not because those who beat, jailed, and cursed him and others were somehow good or worthy, but because we are all unworthy sinners in God’s eyes in need of Christ’s redemption.
King preached and acted to make our souls and worlds larger to embrace "all God's children," while "giving up" on our mutual destinies, and fractious identity politics, both on the left and the right, makes our worlds so much smaller. This is not only a recipe for social decline and disintegration, it also is a path to intellectual, moral, and spiritual decay.