Confessions of a Racist
I am having to reconcile myself with the fact that I am a racist. I will not march with BLM and even worse, I defend the police. I go even to the depths of claiming that racism is not systemic in the UK. How did I sink to such a level?
I think it is because I am an older person. You know, we were brought up never to accept anything as true, until we had solid evidence. We also read about the rise of Hitler and how the Communists won Russia, by crushing free speech and personal freedoms. It was a good education and our teachers never once tried to win us over to their point of view. So how did I become a racist? I think it was this urge within me to question everything and even to look things up rather than being one of the sheep who follow the latest fashions in thought, so that they are one of the crowd. I still am a challenge to many people in the Portsmouth Diocese who followed the myths of Vatican 11, I got rid of the myths by reading the documents. But how did I get into this position where I am so despised?
When I came to London from Scotland in the 1960's, my local Church was full of people from the West Indies. I really loved them and so I became a parish visitor. They were jovial happy people, and it was a pleasure to be with them, I even became a Godfather to a baby boy, born of Jamaican parents. When I moved to Basingstoke at the beginning of the seventies it was a mostly white congregation with just a few people from other countries. Immigration started in my community as white people fell away and more and more people from Africa and Asia joined us. They were devout catholics and a pleasure again to be with. It is a strange background for a racist
I must say my religion played a part. I had been watching over the years young people being abandoned mostly by their fathers. It left a terrible gap in the child who often believed that their father left their mother because of them. But mostly their need to be loved by a father, which other youngsters had, made them give up on life. In a society where marriage is becoming more and more about sex partners than spouses, people often come together, children are born, then one partner just walks out. This is not the image of Marriage that Jesus Christ gave Christians. There can be no doubt that he hated Divorce and said so. But unfortunately many Catholics do not really take Jesus seriously. Perhaps he was just joking. But of course what he said two thousand years ago does not apply now. Of course not. We follow our consciences, not Jesus, though going to Church is nice.
But let me get back to my West Indian friends. Many of them were single mothers, often of two or three children to different fathers. This scandalised many at that particular time. But there was a reason why this was their culture. Slave Traders did not allow them to marry. If a woman became pregnant then after birth the girls mother would bring up the children to allow her to return to the fields and do their master's work. Unfortunately it was a difficult culture to break and the UK culture was already breaking down as morality made way for sexual pleasure, with women and men seen as sexual objects to be used.
It was when a Commissioner of Police in London, talking of how black youths were stabbing other black youths, remarked that these Afro-Carribean youngsters had no fathers, and lacked parenting, that I became a racist. Instead of charging the police with racism, as we all were invited to do, because they did not search white youths, I saw the wisdom of Jesus in opposing the dissolution of marriage. These young people were being brought up in single parent homes, with mothers who tried very hard but did not have the education for a high paying job The constable's heart went out to them as mine did. They were little boys with no future, and the Government of whatever colour were always the ones called to solve the problem. Politicians posture and shout about the poverty in the UK, but they are the very ones with their determination to destroy the nuclear family who are creating the poverty. Children in homes with a father and mother, who love each other, and the children experience that love between them feel secure. And the love of a father and a mother for their children gives them the model of family to follow in the future.
So I am called a racist for daring to suggest that racism is not systemic in our society. I can only in my defence claim that I believe in Jesus and Christian values.
I think it is because I am an older person. You know, we were brought up never to accept anything as true, until we had solid evidence. We also read about the rise of Hitler and how the Communists won Russia, by crushing free speech and personal freedoms. It was a good education and our teachers never once tried to win us over to their point of view. So how did I become a racist? I think it was this urge within me to question everything and even to look things up rather than being one of the sheep who follow the latest fashions in thought, so that they are one of the crowd. I still am a challenge to many people in the Portsmouth Diocese who followed the myths of Vatican 11, I got rid of the myths by reading the documents. But how did I get into this position where I am so despised?
When I came to London from Scotland in the 1960's, my local Church was full of people from the West Indies. I really loved them and so I became a parish visitor. They were jovial happy people, and it was a pleasure to be with them, I even became a Godfather to a baby boy, born of Jamaican parents. When I moved to Basingstoke at the beginning of the seventies it was a mostly white congregation with just a few people from other countries. Immigration started in my community as white people fell away and more and more people from Africa and Asia joined us. They were devout catholics and a pleasure again to be with. It is a strange background for a racist
I must say my religion played a part. I had been watching over the years young people being abandoned mostly by their fathers. It left a terrible gap in the child who often believed that their father left their mother because of them. But mostly their need to be loved by a father, which other youngsters had, made them give up on life. In a society where marriage is becoming more and more about sex partners than spouses, people often come together, children are born, then one partner just walks out. This is not the image of Marriage that Jesus Christ gave Christians. There can be no doubt that he hated Divorce and said so. But unfortunately many Catholics do not really take Jesus seriously. Perhaps he was just joking. But of course what he said two thousand years ago does not apply now. Of course not. We follow our consciences, not Jesus, though going to Church is nice.
But let me get back to my West Indian friends. Many of them were single mothers, often of two or three children to different fathers. This scandalised many at that particular time. But there was a reason why this was their culture. Slave Traders did not allow them to marry. If a woman became pregnant then after birth the girls mother would bring up the children to allow her to return to the fields and do their master's work. Unfortunately it was a difficult culture to break and the UK culture was already breaking down as morality made way for sexual pleasure, with women and men seen as sexual objects to be used.
It was when a Commissioner of Police in London, talking of how black youths were stabbing other black youths, remarked that these Afro-Carribean youngsters had no fathers, and lacked parenting, that I became a racist. Instead of charging the police with racism, as we all were invited to do, because they did not search white youths, I saw the wisdom of Jesus in opposing the dissolution of marriage. These young people were being brought up in single parent homes, with mothers who tried very hard but did not have the education for a high paying job The constable's heart went out to them as mine did. They were little boys with no future, and the Government of whatever colour were always the ones called to solve the problem. Politicians posture and shout about the poverty in the UK, but they are the very ones with their determination to destroy the nuclear family who are creating the poverty. Children in homes with a father and mother, who love each other, and the children experience that love between them feel secure. And the love of a father and a mother for their children gives them the model of family to follow in the future.
So I am called a racist for daring to suggest that racism is not systemic in our society. I can only in my defence claim that I believe in Jesus and Christian values.
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