Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% off We cannot continue to combat our oppressors within the framework of rules they created to control us. Instead, we have to go upriver. It’s difficult and time consuming to separate the toxins from the water. It’s more effective to prevent the toxins from entering the stream in the first place. As we look upon the structure of our reality, we have to recognize that child abuse has been normalized as a component of American culture. Throughout our childhood, malicious forces install triggers, which they use to deter us whenever we approach the keys to our liberation. We’re like captive animals bound by an invisible fence. Every time we reach the borders we receive a shock. Though we’re lectured we must be grateful for our established pasture, we have to recognize that freedom lies on the other side of the wall. The majority of our media, political, and even academic dialogues are bound by the walls of this cultural dungeon. We don’t even know how to go upstream. So, we regard the spoiled water as an inevitability rather than a choice. But what does it mean to go upriver? As with any intellectual undertaking, the activity involves reexamining the assumptions you’ve always believed to be true. Sometimes the process uncovers obvious lies that you never once thought to question. The topic of racism often draws a lot of false arguments. Some bad faith actors attempt to insist racism has already been eliminated. This requires a denial of the overwhelming empirical evidence that proves the extent to which racism robs us of prosperity and creates unnecessary conflict. What strategy must we employ to effectively combat racism? The tactics we’ve used in the past have been either ineffective or terribly slow. I propose that we could become more effective advocates for humanity if we focus on the engine that makes racism run. That engine is the historically misrepresented concept of Biblical sin. Sin was never intended to be a weapon of judgment and genocide. Originally, it was nothing more than a reminder that people make mistakes, but your mistakes do not define you as an individual. All people are worthy of forgiveness. But, as with many Biblical concepts, the idea of sin has been defiled and weaponized over time. Today, sinfulness is seen as identity. This is a clearly blasphemous perversion of the concept, yet it has somehow become normalized to the point where the mass of humanity doesn’t even think to question it. It is accurate to say that the concept of racism was an invention of the Catholic church to protect their profits from the transatlantic slave trade. When “heretics” realized they could escape slavery through conversion to Christianity, they did so. This caused the Church to retro fit the “Curse of Ham” into an argument that skin color equates to sin. Thus, racism was born. Furthermore, this perverse concept has continued to rot over time. Today, white supremacists have made it their individual identity that they are incapable of sin. They’ve deluded themselves into thinking sin is a consequence of race and race alone. Naturally, this is a complete defilement of Biblical teachings that grew out of the original evil intention of using religious dogma to protect ill-gotten profit. The consequence is that anti-racism activists always end up in a cycle of frustration and failure. We attempt to discuss the immorality of racism. But racists have adopted a contorted worldview that twists all the evidence we provide until it’s seen as a confirmation of their position. But what if we stopped denouncing racism, and instead attacked the existence of sin itself? What if we overcame our cultural indoctrination to concede that “sin” exists at all? Again, racism fuses skin color with sin. If we remove the concept of sin, there is no longer any racism. Once you accept that “sin” is problematic as it is currently understood, you find that this line of approach is an effective way to combat many social ills. For example, parents are lectured that their children are guilty of “original sin.” This is another example of Biblical passages being retro fitted to inflict harm upon the innocent. When you push back that sin does not exist, parents are no longer indoctrinated to maliciously interpret the actions of their innocent children. By going upriver and attacking the weaponized and defiled concept of sin, we can remove one of the main socially indoctrinated arguments that permits the justification of undeserved punishment. Racism is an unsubstantiated accusation of inherent sinfulness. That is how it functions. The anger that it churns up is a consequence of false religious indoctrination. The concept of both sin and racism are maintained by corrupt power structures that are rooted outside the boundaries of our cage of cultural identity. In order to dismantle these structures, we must push beyond the boundaries of what we’ve been conditioned to accept. The mass of people in the United States of all genders and races and sexual orientations are groomed and indoctrinated to believe in the weaponized and defiled concept of sinfulness. Any behaviors that meet an objection that’s rooted in this false concept of “sin,” therefore deserve our activism and protection. Once we have gone upriver, and brought this concept back within the parameters of our cultural cage, the population can be educated and the structure of oppression can be dismantled. Instead of cleaning the hate and racism from the water, we stop the malicious actors from pouring it into the river in the first place. Under scrutiny, it becomes obvious how absurd it is to associate the idea of sinfulness or non-sinfulness with any identity. After all, none of us are divine. None of us have the power to peer into another’s soul and determine whether they are wicked or good. To suggest we have that power, is a level of hubris that borders on evil. Without question, evil has been done on the basis of this assumption. Our purpose in this world isn’t to commit acts of judgment. Our purpose is to help each other. We are in desperate need of a reminder. Refocusing our activism on how the concept of sin has been defiled, opens up a variety of new academic arguments. It also helps brake us out of our existing cycle of ineffective denial and frustration. We’ve moved the argument to a different place. That action also expands the borders of our cultural containment. This is what it means to go upriver. We have to learn to train ourselves not to grapple with our opponent’s definition of a concept. Instead, we have to attack the pillars that support false and indoctrinated beliefs. We have to find the courage to explore outside the parameters of our cultural identity. Anything that we’re allowed to perceive without struggle does not contain the keys to our liberation. It does us no good to throw ourselves against the walls of our containment. Instead, we can work to expand the boundaries to expose larger swaths of unexplored territory. The less we are distracted by the limitations of our captivity, the closer we get to truth and freedom. Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% off I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe
