The "White Burden" of Progressives
Exploring How Marxism Built on the EuroChristian Racist Drive for Perfection
By Earon S. Davis
Feb. 12, 2023
Today, many EuroChristians and their descendants do not understand that anti-Black racism was literally invented during the supposed European "Enlightenment," and that antisemitism was also tremendously intensified. Both things happened in the name of science, in compromise with Christianity. Cognitive dissonance and cultural conditioning both mask these facts for most of us today. How can we see them more clearly? It may be helpful to be a relative outsider to this culture, in this case, a Jewish and/or a Black person. I am Jewish.
From the “scientific” racism and antisemitism of the European "Enlightenment," came "white" Christian virtue and supremacy, which was intensified and institutionalized by racist global colonization and by brutal wars with Islam. It also manifested as what became, or was rationalized as, “White Man's Burden.” My theory is that this burden persists today, except in different forms, and that it remains racist. One form was the Christian supremacy that justified colonization, massive wars, enslavement, and genocide, including “missionary work” to bring “primitive” people to Christianity. Another form, which has become dominant more recently, was the guilt, shame, and regret for all of the above.
Yet, that later form, the guilt and shame of Christian evil, took shape as a Christ-like quest for perfection and self-sacrifice to cleanse us of our evil and redeem ourselves. It did not reverse the supremacist ideology, but rather sought perfection through the “uplifting” of those they had victimized. This was not about providing equal opportunity, but about making these people more like Christians, although toning down the expectation that they must convert.
This altruistic “uplifting” may have been contaminated by a supremacy filtered through Christians proselytizing as saviors rather than as equals. And here comes the most interesting twist. As the 1800's progressed, some of the Church and its institutions moved politically to the far left and adopted Marxist approaches into the Christian Bible, eventually as 'Liberation Theology." The new imperative became to uplift Christianity's victims, especially those forced to convert, by making them more like European Christians and empowering them to morph from being "the least of us" into the dominant group in their home countries through missionary work.
Yet, the zealotry was contagious and helped cement an important new thread in the United States. Black and Native Americans had been treated as subhuman in unique and brutal ways for centuries. “Emancipation” was but a technical declaration. The reality of “otherness” persisted through American caste and apartheid. What was the remedy? Affirmative action was a good start for African Americans who survived centuries of enslavement. However, the unique situation of Native American survivors of genocide has still not been addressed.
Enter Marxist determinism, which I theorize as an adjunct of Christian perfectionism. After all, Karl Marx abhorred the Jewish people, from whom he desperately needed to separate. When liberation theology is posited as missionary work and weaning colonialized people from Christian imperialism, we must face the charge that this was just a more subtle neo-colonial effort. When it pertained to supporting South and Central American opposition to the institutionalized oppression adopted by new nationalist movements in the transition out of colonialism, the Church acted out of conscience. Yet, the merging of Marxist radicalism and Christian perfectionism proved unholy in its rage and brutality.
So this project of repentance was brought into the U.S. and applied to our Black and Hispanic communities. Revolutionaries acquired purity, glorification, and even the halos of martyrdom on the political far left, moving into the center-left over the years. Their sins were “whitewashed” in the name of social justice and “power to the people.” Terrorists were accepted as “freedom fighters.” And this “licensing” of the oppressed to overthrow governments and institutions was not given to Black Americans or Native Americans within the U.S., where they continued to be oppressed. Here, in the U.S., idealism was only willing to sacrifice land and economic interests outside of the U.S.
By the 1970’s, this had been changing. Marxism had brought its class warfare and its assertion of the “racist” war in Vietnam into Churches and political parties in the U.S., and into the American left’s mainstream. As a result, much focus shifted away from the the U.S. brutal history against African Americans and Native Americans, allowing those problems to fester. It began to refocus on “people of color” as the new Marxist target for global revolution. During the “cold war,” the Soviet empire was building an ideology that would unite the world against the U.S. and Europe, from South and Central America, to the Middle East, and South and East Asia.
In the U.S., most EuroChristians were turning to “American” nationalism in order to counter the Soviet and Chinese threats. Yet, with the temporary collapse of the Soviet empire, Americans let down their guard. Many believed the delusion (supported by both Christian and Marxist theologies) that “history” had ended and that human perfection was now possible. The U.S. had been brutally exploiting Mexican immigrant farmworkers for decades, people who were seeking better lives because of the poverty and political disruptions in their country. Yet, this exploitation was not of American citizens and it was nowhere near the unique and brutal treatment of Native Americans and Black Americans.
This is where the “people of color” became the new political entity that would reshape leftist politics. It was not an entity, of course, and these groups were in competition with each other for the chance to reach prosperity, the American Dream. But to wealthier “white” EuroChristians and Marxists, we see that “one-shame-fits-all.” The tent of oppression was growing. Over the years, it swelled to include immigrants from North, South and Central America, South and East Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. When it was projected that these “minorities” would soon become the majority of Americans, shock waves predictably awoken white nationalism and white supremacy in the U.S. And here we are today, deeply polarized and vulnerable as a nation.
Can we unwind some of this process and draw back from the growing polarization? Are Muslim immigrants from Syria really a persecuted minority in the U.S. because of their skin color? Are South and Central Americans really a persecuted minority in the U.S. because of their skin color? Do their histories in the U.S. warrant the same treatment as African Americans and American Indians? Does the nation even have the capacity to empower everyone “of color” globally while still giving opportunities of other Americans – AND maintaining a functioning society and economic system?
This trend has been expanding further and further, beyond LGBTQ people, to include multiple nonbinary or transitioning gender identities, atheists, bias against “white” women (Beckies and Karens) and men, and absolution of those “of color” who hate “white people,” and any successful Asian Americans and Jewish Americans. As the new patchwork majority arises to claim control over this nation, it is important to see where this is coming from in order to know where it is going. This has never happened before. And large segments of the “white” society, whether progressive or center left, are welcoming it, meeting all resistance with the resolve to push harder to empower people of color, as if they are a “thing” that happened on its own.
Communism was never a “thing.” It was always a plan for world conquest. Its ideology was always a sham, a new face for the ancient totalitarian empire-building obsession. The resurgence was led by Russia, and has spread to China, the Middle East, and the Americas, with growing influence in the U.S. and the E.U. It was always about power, never skin color. It was always about absolute power to an unelected elite, never about “power to the people.” The “white man’s burden” was always racist. It enabled colonization, conquest and empire building, and it still does, whether it is driven by the empires of antiquity or by today’s Russia, China, Davos, Liberation Theology, or the World Bank.