How far have we come since Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech?
Sometimes, I’m not so sure. While our society has made tremendous progress toward the idea that all men are created equal, anti-whiteness seems to be all the rage these days. And that is no less racist than hating anyone of any other color.
Yet, in the book, A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal, there is a prayer called “Prayer of a Weary Black Woman” that asks God to “help me to hate white people.”
Dear God,
Please help me to hate white people. Or at least to want to hate them. At least, I want to stop caring about them, individually and collectively. I want to stop caring about their misguided, racist souls, to stop believing that they can be better, that they can stop being racist.
The book, published in February, was a New York Times bestseller.
The offending prayer was written by Chanequa Walker-Barnes, Ph.D. According to her bio, she is a “theologian and psychologist” and “her mission is to serve as a catalyst for healing, justice, and reconciliation.”
So, wanting to hate white people serves that mission? Really?
On Saturday, one of the members of my church sent me these images of a “devotional” she found in Target. This kind of thinking is a direct result of CRT and is completely anti-biblical. I shared the first page on Saturday but let me now share the whole thing for context: pic.twitter.com/oiRxHQXY53
— Ryan McAllister ن (@RyanTMcAllister) April 5, 2021
As you can see in the above screenshots, the whole prayer is a hateful screed against white people, and even specifically calls out “Fox News-loving, Trump-supporting voters.”
My prayer is that you would help me to hate the other white people—you know, the nice ones. The Fox News-loving, Trump-supporting voters who “don’t see color” but who make thinly veiled racist comments about “those people.” The people who are happy to have me over for dinner but alert the neighborhood watch anytime an unrecognized person of color passes their house.
[…]
Lord, if you can’t make me hate them, at least spare me from their perennial gaslighting, whitemansplaining, and white woman tears.
How is this not racist? She basically claims that if you’re white and watch Fox News and voted for Trump, you’re a racist.
How does something like this get published and make the New York Times bestsellers list? Imagine if there was a daily prayer in there that began “Dear God, Please help me to hate black people.” There would be outrage—and justifiably so.
The editor of the book, Sarah Bessey, says recent outrage about the book, and Chanequa Walker-Barnes’s prayer in particular, is not justified, and points to the line in the prayer that says, “I’m not talking about the white antiracist allies who have taken up this struggle against racism with their whole lives…”
But then there’s this passage:
Lord, if it be your will, harden my heart. Stop me from striving to see the best in people. Stop me from being hopeful that white people can do and be better. Let me imagine them instead as white-hooded robes standing in front of burning crosses.
Can you honestly read through the whole prayer and conclude it’s not racist? Again, you can read the whole prayer in the above screenshots.
But hating white people is in vogue, especially amongst privileged left-wing white Americans desperate to prove how tolerant they are by virtue-signaling their manufactured disgust for their own race.
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