Read on Twitter
Days ago I read a tweet by a Black woman and I've been thinking about it ever since. Wish I could remember her name to give her credit but essentially she said:
"I told my kids I'm Santa. No way in hell am I going to let a white man take credit for all my hard work."
"I told my kids I'm Santa. No way in hell am I going to let a white man take credit for all my hard work."
Her tweet had me connecting the dots to my childhood and how I was raised to believe in and praise powerful, magical white men. A white male god made the universe. A white male saviour died for me. A white man travelled the globe bringing me gifts. Who do these stories benefit?
How are these magical myths used to elevate white men to powerful status? Boss. President. Head of Household. God of the Universe. How are they used to oppress all others? All these stories, throughout the ages, told over and over again, have one theme: white men are in control.
I remember in college when I took World Religions and learned other countries are raised with other mythical, magical men who ruled the lands and created the Universe. I was stunned. So many of us in America have never heard of any other creation stories, other than Christianity.
But it was a student in my class who said, "That is if Jesus even existed..."
That simple phrase. If he even existed. Opened my mind. It had never occurred to me that Jesus could be a fictional character meant to inspire, like Jane Eyre or like Luke Skywalker?
That simple phrase. If he even existed. Opened my mind. It had never occurred to me that Jesus could be a fictional character meant to inspire, like Jane Eyre or like Luke Skywalker?
It's the sentence that sent me on a trip of self-discovery, to other countries, to study other religions, from monasteries to hermitages, to pilgrimages, to vows of silence. I'll leave that for another day. But what I learned is that America has perverted Christianity and myth.
And it's been done specifically to elevate white straight men at the expense of all others. And we may discover it all leads to where we are today, in a power play of racism, white supremacy, and a caste system, all because we, as a society, are taught white men are all powerful.
