FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!
In the wake of the national elections, Catholic News Service has posted a series of columns from leading archbishops on key issues facing the church and the new Trump administration. This guest column was written by Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta, who was the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Task Force to Promote Peace in Our Communities.
Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory addresses the racial divide in the U.S. Nov. 14 during the annual fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. Archbishop Gregory says that whenever one can play on the fears of some people and depend on the ignorance of others, racism flourishes, and that as a political strategy, such taunting may win votes, but it destroys national unity and our future.
Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory addresses the racial divide in the U.S. Nov. 14 during the annual fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. Archbishop Gregory says that whenever one can play on the fears of some people and depend on the ignorance of others, racism flourishes, and that as a political strategy, such taunting may win votes, but it destroys national unity and our future.
Many diseases frighten us—as well they should. Over the years, we have learned important details about some of our most virulent illnesses—their causes and their cures—yet when outbreaks occur, even with our advanced medical discoveries, they can cause uneasiness or even panic.
Ebola, Zika, cancer, polio and antibiotic-resistant infections can elicit widespread fear among the most sophisticated populations.
Similarly, racism—the belief that one group is superior to another due to race—is a grave moral disease whose recurrence, aggressiveness and persistence should frighten every one of us.
Like a serious medical disease that may seem to have been brought under control, racism, people had hoped, was on the wane. The election of our first African-American president created a confidence that we were surely moving beyond our racist history and that the epidemic itself was on the decline. Others were not so convinced.
The venom of and the reaction to our recent presidential election have caused many to believe that whatever progress we thought we’d made was only illusory.
The recent rash of killings of men of color by law enforcement personnel and citizen vigilantes is a reminder of the blatantly racist lynchings and bombings of the last century that went unsolved and too often unnoticed. The disease of racism has clearly not been cured in our nation and in far too many other places on the globe.
Whenever one can play on the fears of some people and depend upon the ignorance of others, racism flourishes. As a political strategy, such taunting may win votes, but it destroys national unity and our future.
While a significant African-American middle class now exists, a disproportionately large underclass also still exists today in the United States. Such economic inequity weakens a population’s defenses and makes it susceptible to racism’s spread.
Read the full article HERE!:
https://georgiabulletin.org/news/2016/12/r...
Posted By: agnes levine
Wednesday, December 14th 2016 at 9:20AM
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