Lest we forget

NATIVE AMERICANS

European culture took their land by force or by cunning, put the children into schools, cut their hair, punished them if they spoke their native language or prayed to their spirits, forced tribes onto reservations far from their migratory or ancestral lands and sacred places, placed them on soils with which they were unfamiliar and expected them to survive, manipulated them to sign treaties in exchange for giving up ancestral lands, made promises of education and food and basic life-sustaining subsistence, enacted genocidal programs and some Native survived all of these challenges.

Where were the churches in all this? When the religious folks were involved was it to destroy Native peoples and cultures or enhance their flourishing?

AFRICANS

European culture bought Africans from Africans in Africa, cruelly shipped them across the seas under inhumane conditions, forced them to submit to barbaric torture to backbreaking labor, reduced their minds to robots by systematically dehumanizing them, sold children and mates to further break family loyalties, prevented them from learning to read, used their women as sex slaves.

Where were the churches in all this? What role did religious people play in maintaining and perpetuating domination, manipulation and exploitation. In what way did the white church justify such treatment?

WOMEN

Patriarchal culture placed women at a level far below being human, used their bodies to reproduce their line, used their labor in exchange for a marriage contract, violated the contract by dishonoring marriage vows with impunity, taught little boys to be head of the family, allowed cruel and brutal methods to maintain control, taught their little girls to submit to authority, to obey, to yield, to sacrifice herself and be grateful for being able to place her life on the alter of her husband, brainwashed them into thinking the way to success for women was to think and act according to her husband’s imperatives without regard for her own thinking or benefit, objectified women’s bodies for their own pleasures, refused to take seriously the thoughts, needs or benefit of women.

Where were the churches in all this? What role did religious people play in keeping women submissive? In what way did the male church justify this outrageous treatment?

LGBTOI

Sexual deviants imposed sexual norms on others without sanctions from the courts or population. Men trained to be in charge of women and slaves and Native Americans believed they had the right and responsibility to be in charge of who had sex with whom, what position to use, and criminalized natural, normal sexual orientations.    

There are those who believe we should forget the stories told by those who suffered under such fascist leadership, that we should get on with out lives and forget that our history is real, there are facts to be denied to be replaced by delusions of a level playing field and equal opportunity. To make such suggestions is the height of hubrus. Who benefits by forgetting our past? Who pays the price of failing to understand our history? Why should mentally repressing our memories be a healthy endeavor? When did suppression of feelings and thoughts help build to a flourishing individual or culture.

The Chick-fil-A  episodes reveal the depth of our dysfunction, gathering to eat chicken prepared by a bigot to a fawning public who do not understand the bigotry of such action tells us all we need to know. To realize the uneducated or poorly educated or deliberately lied to public becomes nothing more than a herd of sheep being led to the slaughter.