COMO encara as raças? Especificamente, considera que os brancos são inerentemente superiores às pessoas de cor? Sem levar em conta sua resposta verbal, o que revelam suas atitudes e ações?

As pessoas amiúde afirmam que não têm preconceito racial. Todavia, a realidade é que os conceitos racistas há muito predominam. E, assim, persiste o conceito, entre muitos, de que os negros são inatamente inferiores aos brancos, e foram feitos para ocupar permanentemente uma posição inferior.

Como se originaram tais idéias? O que as torna tão persistentes?

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As igrejas lideraram em justificar a escravatura. Ensinavam que os negros são uma raça amaldiçoada, razão pela qual sua pele é preta. Em 1844, os metodistas se dividiram entre o Norte e o Sul por causa da escravidão. Os batistas, em 1845, e, por volta da mesma época, a Igreja Presbiteriana, dividiram-se bem na linha política de Mason-Dixon [popularmente considerada como linha divisória entre estados não-escravistas e escravistas]. Já em 1902, uma Casa da Bíblia, em S. Luís, Missúri, publicou o livro amplamente difundido, “The Negro a Beast” or “In the Image of God” (O Negro, um Animal ou À Imagem de Deus). Inclui um capítulo intitulado “Evidência Bíblica e Científica Convincente de que o Negro não É Parte da Família Humana”.

Assim, com aprovação das igrejas, os negros foram encarados como inerentemente inferiores aos brancos.

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É provável que poucas pessoas, hoje, afirmem que os negros “não são gente”. Todavia, muitos ainda crêem que eles sejam inerentemente inferiores. Suas taxas mais altas de filhos ilegítimos e de crimes, sua condição econômica e social inferior, e, especialmente, seus escores médios inferiores nos testes de QI, são considerados “prova” de sua inferioridade biológica. Mas, será que tal evidência é realmente prova de inferioridade biológica? Existem circunstâncias responsáveis pelas deficiências dos negros, em média, em comparação com os brancos?

É errado estereotipar raças, afirmando que uma raça é naturalmente obtusa e lenta, enquanto que outra é agressiva e militante, ao passo que ainda outra é branda e subserviente, etc.

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Mas, tais ensinos não têm nenhuma base na Bíblia. E houve gente, nos séculos passados, que mostravam que a maldição proferida por Noé estava sendo aplicada erroneamente aos negros.

The negro race is supposed to be descended from Ham, whose special degradation is mentioned in Gen. 9:22, 25.

We have received letters from several of these, who had intended engaging in the volunteer work, expressing surprise that in the call for volunteers in the March 1st issue we restricted the inquiry to white Protestant churches. They rightly realized that we have not the slightest of race prejudice, and that we love the colored brethren with just the same warmth of heart that we love the white, and they queried therefore why such a distinction should be made in the call. The reason is that so far as we are able to judge, colored people have less education than whites — many of them quite insufficient to permit them to profit by such reading as we have to give forth. Our conclusion therefore is based upon the supposition that reading matter distributed to a colored congregation would more than half of it be utterly wasted, and a very small percentage indeed likely to yield good results.

While it is true that the white race exhibits some qualities of superiority over any other, we are to remember that there are wide differences in the same Caucasian (Semitic and Aryan) family; and also we should remember that some of the qualities which have given this branch of the human family its preeminence in the world are not such as can be pointed to as in all respects admirable....The secret of the greater intelligence and aptitude of the Caucasian undoubtedly in great measure is to be attributed to the commingling of blood amongst its various branches; and this was evidently forced in large measure by circumstances under divine control.

[...]we have been compelled to assign the colored friends to the gallery, which, however, is just as good for seeing and hearing as any other part of The Temple. Some were offended at this arrangement.

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If nature favors the colored brethren and sisters in the exercise of humility it is that much to their advantage, if they are rightly exercised by it.

Question: Is there anything in the Bible that reveals the origin of the Negro? Answer: It is generally believed that the curse which Noah pronounced upon Canaan was the origin of the Black race. Certain it is that when Noah said, 'Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren,' he pictured the future of the Colored race. They have been and are a race of servants, but now in the dawn of the twentieth century, we are all coming to see this matter of service in its true light and to find that the only real joy in life is in serving others; not bossing them. There is no servant in the world as good as a good Colored servant, and the joy that he gets from rendering faithful service is one of the purest joys there is in the world.

Though once as black as charcoal, the Rev. Mr. Draper is now white. His people say that his color was changed in answer to prayer.

How can all men be brought to perfection and which color of skin was the original? The answer is now provided. God can change the Ethiopian’s skin in his own due time.