Desensitization to Prejudice

When I was growing up, I received warning after warning that video games, movies, rock music, comic books, etc. would desensitize me to real world sex and violence. At the same time, many of the individuals who issued those warnings were desensitizing themselves and me to things like prejudice and hate.

Unintentionally Raised to be Racist

I think the first prejudicial messaging I received came from two sources — Reagan’s racist imaginings of the “welfare queen” and warnings to avoid riding my bike to *that* side of town. They seem unrelated, but they both have roots in the same thing. The image of the “welfare

queen” was almost universally Black, and that side of town? It was where the Black people lived. I mean, it’s not like my old hometown had separate water fountains or anything like that, but it still carried the vestiges of segregation. Without knowing it, I was forming a connection between being a good little person and internalized racism.

I was also raised on stories of how Christopher Columbus discovered the world was round (he didn’t) and brought civilization to the savages (he didn’t). I was taught to think of Black people as descended from slaves, like that was their natural state, rather than people who were *enslaved.* I loved stories of the Alamo and how the heroic white Texans stood against the evil Mexicans (nope). Every story of America’s history painted people who looked like me as morally, intellectually, and spiritually superior to others. My white cowboys shot brown Indians. My white police figures shot black bad guys. I started to internalize racism as part of being a good patriot, as part of what universal good and evil looks like.

This messaging intensified in my teen years as I grew more aware of the world around me and started consuming more books and media — especially news commentary and talk radio. I listened to Rush Limbaugh vilify black public figures and talk about celebrating Western (white) heritage. I heard Lou Dobbs dehumanize immigrants. From Bill O’ReilIy, I learned that the confederacy was about “freedom” and that the confederate flag was part of my heritage. From the early days of Fox News, I learned that black people were lazy, that Mexicans were stealing jobs (and also simultaneously lazy), and that Muslims were violent.

Most importantly, I learned that only Republicans love God and country, that patriotism was part of being a good Christian, and that liberals and minorities wanted to persecute me. As a white Christian man, I was the most persecuted demographic on the planet. And anything that questioned historic white goodness or questioned white American exceptionalism was propaganda from a great New World Order conspiracy to undermine and destroy white Christian America.

Sanctifying Prejudice in the Church

It came from pulpits too. Preachers jumped onto the Satanic Panic. They embraced culture war rhetoric and ingrained in me a message that everything that challenged me was a form of persecution. I was the victim, all while condemning those (primarily Black and brown) people who play the “race card” and play victim. (The irony is not lost on me.) I learned of the dangers of drugs and crime through pictures of mostly dark-skinned people. Sure, we’ll send missionaries to Haiti, to Africa, and to India — you know, where “those people” belong — but here they were degenerates.

I remember gospel preachers and Bible class teachers ranting about pressing 1 for English and about people who didn’t know their place. I learned that people like Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and Nelson Mandela were bad for not submitting to authority (while our own American revolution, which also bucked authority, was heroic and righteous). I heard preachers pray thankfully for their “God-given”’right to bear arms to defend religious liberty from liberals and foreigners. I heard preachers and Bible class teachers make jokes about Mexicans and Chinese people eating cats and dogs, how lazy Black people are, how stupid Polish people are. I’d hear white Christian comedians do gross impersonations of Black people, Mexicans, Indians, and Middle Easterners, and I’d laugh. And so racism became part of being a good Christian. It was also funny.

I could also go on about how misogyny grew in parallel with all of this, but that’s another day. The end result was that I grew into a young man who had deep racist and misogynistic prejudices and could express those views in a very palatable-sounding way. I was “just expressing an opinion.” “I’m not saying these people are less intelligent, but I can’t help but notice…” “Don’t be so sensitive. I was just joking.” I was completely desensitized to the hurt and bigotry my words and the words of those I saw as “free thinkers” were causing.

Deconstructing Ingrained Prejudice

I don’t know that it was any one thing that turned me around. It was a lot of little stuff.

I destroyed a friendship for making a joke at the expense of another religion based on an incorrect stereotype. They didn’t hit me (and did they ever want to), but I’d have deserved it.
I went to college and studied and worked alongside people I’d been implicitly taught were “less than,” who could only get ahead by taking the spots of white men like me through quotas. And they were better students than me, even tutored me at times.
I married a strong woman who had no problem pointing out my sexist nonsense. (I credit my mom too, who always had a backbone and never shied away from sassing nonsense.)
I went to teach in a predominantly Black and brown school and saw firsthand how wrong the stereotypes I held were. Some took longer than others to dissolve.
There, I saw firsthand the generational harm caused by both individual and systemic racism, segregation, Jim Crow laws, redlining, etc.
I also saw the effects of racial profiling and a two-tiered justice system where my black students would see their fathers ended by authorities where the white fathers would get a comparative slap on the wrist for the same things.
I saw my Muslim and Middle Eastern students get bullied and grow scared to come to school after 9/11, and I could hear parents’ and political figures’ hateful rhetoric reflected in the bullies words and fists.
I heard Ann Coulter call a Democrat candidate a “faggot,” and, while I had heard plenty of vile and dehumanizing language about the Left, for some reason that homophobic slur opened my ears to how much hate and vitriol had seeped into conservative commentary and rhetoric. Then I couldn’t unsee it.
I started reading more memoirs and accounts by people on the receiving end of hatred and prejudice. I started listening to people that made me uncomfortable rather than only those voices that targeted “them.”

I could go on and on with further examples. But the worst realization was just how much all of this was part of American conservative Christianity. People I loved and respected were completely desensitized to hateful speech. They even defended it as “free speech.” Some turned on me when I started confronting this issue, calling me a false teacher, accusing me of politicizing the message when all I wanted was to divorce the church from our political influences and decolonize the Word from white supremacism. (I take some responsibility here for perhaps being a bit overzealous at first. But who isn’t overzealous on the other side of a revelation?)

The Cumulative Effect of Desensitization

But the desensitization continued, and where are we now?

We can hear someone say, “Black women don’t have the brainpower…” and not view it as misogyny or racist.
We can hear about “sh**hole countries” and not see racism and hate.
We can listen about how immigrants are criminals, r**ists, and m**derers, and don’t hear racism.
We can look at a whole people being rounded up due to language or skin color and not see the hate or bigotry behind it.
We can watch a people be bombed out of existence and justify it by overgeneralizing the actions of a few and glorifying vindictive violence.
We can hear someone say, “Black people were better off as slaves,” or “Slavery was actually good for them,” and treat it like a respectable and rational opinion.
We can totally justify authority figures ending unarmed black people.
We can see and hear white supremacist messaging and shrug it off as simply holding an opinion, man.

And if anyone gets held accountable for their hate speech that we’ve grown desensitized to or even accept, then “they were just joking,” or they’re being persecuted for their “political opinions.” We blame the people who’ve been subjected to generations of hate speech and racism for being “too sensitive.”

And it’s easy to do that when you’re not the victim.

You don’t get to tell people on the receiving end of generations of racism, fear-mongering, misogyny, or any other prejudice how they should feel about it. You don’t get to shrug off harm to others because it doesn’t hurt you. You get to grow up, self-reflect, and genuinely ask yourself why you think such rhetoric is worth defending.

Conclusion

I haven’t spent a lot of time in scripture here, but here are some to maybe help with growing in this area:

My brothers and sisters, do not show prejudice if you possess faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For if someone comes into your assembly wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, and a poor person enters in filthy clothes, do you pay attention to the one who is finely dressed and say, “You sit here in a good place,”and to the poor person, “You stand over there,” or “Sit on the floor”? If so, have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters! Did not God choose the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor! Are not the rich oppressing you and dragging you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme the good name of the one you belong to? But if you fulfill the royal law as expressed in this scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show prejudice, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as violators.
James 2: 1 – 9 (NET)

Contribute to the needs of the saints, pursue hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil; consider what is good before all people. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all people.
Romans 12:13 – 18

For every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and sea creature is subdued and has been subdued by humankind. But no human being can subdue the tongue; it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in God’s image. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. These things should not be so, my brothers and sisters. A spring does not pour out fresh water and bitter water from the same opening, does it? Can a fig tree produce olives, my brothers and sisters, or a vine produce figs? Neither can a salt water spring produce fresh water.
James 3:7 – 12

Stop asking why others are so sensitive, and ask how you have perhaps grown to be so callous. It’s the only way I could grow past my own prejudices, and I want the same growth for you.