The White Devil

Raphael Warnock is a Black Democrat presently running for the Senate in the state of Georgia. His diagnosis of the problems confronting his nation is perhaps best expressed in his recent statement that “America needs to repent for its worship of Whiteness.”

Attacked by his opponent, Kelly Loeffler, for other similar statements as well as for several of his past affiliations, Warnock has of course denounced her as an instigator of hate.

When one gets beyond the onslaught of flattering entries that riddle Google’s initial page on Reverend Warnock, some rather disturbing facts become apparent. One is his reverence for fellow clergyman James H. Cone, the father of so-called Black Liberation Theology. Cone no doubt had every right to loathe the bigotry to which he was subjected as a young man in the Forties and Fifties but like many on the Left he succumbed to the stereotypes of Identity Politics, inveighing not against vile behavior wherever it occurs but denouncing Whiteness as the source of all evil. Referring to White Christians as “satanic,” he literally called for “the destruction of everything White.”

Warnock of course tries to distance himself from such statements. But in a 2013 book he is distinctly supportive of Cone’s movement and in 2018 he gave the eulogy at the man’s funeral. Naturally, on a recent CNN interview he was not asked for his views on “whiteness,” he and his female host clearly disgusted by Republican attempts to impugn his reputation.

I have no intention of launching into a detailed history lesson. But as I have pointed out elsewhere, slavery has existed as an institution throughout the species for the entirety of its history, those who sold Africans into American slavery being almost exclusively other Africans. And while this hardly signaled the end of racism among White Westerners, it was unarguably the Brits and the Americans who launched the first concerted attacks on the inhumane practice. So how valid are the claims of both Cone and Warnock that Whiteness is the most pernicious force on the planet?

What we are dealing with once again is the nonsense spewed by Ibram X. Kendi, the refusal to consider the efficacy of Principles and Values by reducing the human dynamic to mere issues of oppression. It is a narrative that has its roots in Marx who saw all of history as a struggle for power and it is an expression of Racism pure and simple.

The characteristics of Whiteness, it would seem, are as follows: a basic reliance on Reason, respect for the nuclear family, devotion to the work ethic, the delay of gratification in the cause of future benefits, reverence for intelligence and achievement as absolute human values, and acceptance of the fundamental existential need to take responsibility for one’s life.

To the multitude of Black “conservatives” I admire, these are not White Values, they’re simply Positive Values, failure to honor them being primarily responsible for many of the disparities that continue to plague American society and indeed the world in general. To those who cannot get beyond the color of their skin, of course, this statement is just another example of White arrogance.

Coincidentally, Joel Patrick, a Black “conservative” whom I follow, posted on his website today: Your skin color does not determine your success in life……..your choices do.