“Like the Aryan conquerors of India, white Europeans in the Americas wanted to be seen not only as economically successful but also as pious, just, and objective. Religious and scientific myths were pressed into service to justify this division. Theologians argued that Africans descend from Ham, son of Noah, saddled by his father with a curse that his offspring would be slaves. Biologists argued that blacks are less intelligent than whites and their moral sense less developed. Doctors alleged that blacks live in filth and spread diseases — in other words, they are a source of pollution. These myths struck a chord in American culture, and in Western culture generally. They continued to exert their influence long after the conditions that created slavery had disappeared.
In the early nineteenth century, imperial Britain outlawed slavery and stopped the Atlantic slave trade, and in the decades that followed, slavery was gradually outlawed throughout the American continent. Notably, this was the first and only time in history that slaveholding societies voluntarily abolished slavery. But even though the slaves were freed, the racist myths that justified slavery persisted. Separation of the races was maintained by racist legislation and social custom. The result was a self-reinforcing cycle of cause and effect, a vicious circle.”— Yuval Noah Harari.
If you are a new reader, welcome on board, and thank you for deciding to stop by. If you are a returning one, I want you to know how grateful I am for your trust and loyalty!
The real root cause of racism
What am I trying to say through the extract above? Racism is merely one of the numerous manifestations of a deeper problem: an invasive subconscious program full of limiting beliefs and distorted paradigms.
Like many noble movements, Black Lives Matter has been successful in mobilizing millions of people around the globe. No one can deny its tremendous impact so far. It is said that the movement activists have a chance to get their voice heard by the newly elected president of the United States of America Joe Biden, who partially owes his victory to black communities.
According to The Washington Post and given American-African citizens played a considerable role in electing the new administration, I quote:
“The proposal calls for divesting federal resources from policing and incarceration, greatly expanding funding for low-income schools, creating a universal basic income for poor Americans, overhauling drug laws, and ending mandatory minimum sentences, among other things.”
Interestingly, those solutions, no matter how urgent and empowering they could be for the discriminated communities, their effect remains limited and reversible. How come? Think of disease and symptoms. Let’s say I have some flu symptoms. I take medicine; my body recovers. Before two weeks are over, the symptoms are back.
The real problem is not the flu; it is my immune system. Thus, the medication effect will always be temporary.
Why do you think some of the new reforms that “activists successfully pushed in states and cities, including bans on police chokeholds, mandated body cameras and the creation of police accountability and review boards” were decided as mandatory?
Because the internal mental system driving the racist auto-pilot behavior is twisted, and that fear of the consequences is the only means to stop it. Racism is rooted in a limiting belief of grandiosity that comes with no surprise, I believe.
What is the solution then?
We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow. Perhaps the most important insight to be gained from the perception demonstration is in the area of paradigm-shifting, what we might call the “Aha!” experience when someone finally “sees” the composite picture in another way. The more bound a person is by the initial perception, the more powerful the “Aha!” experience is. It’s as though a light was suddenly turned on inside.
—Stephen Covey
This happened to me during my very first self-awareness serious exercise. Should you be interested, I detailed the experience here:
The Very First Limiting Belief I Destroyed: Homophobia
When we start being aware of the trap and realize anything that is violating the universal principles is nothing but a construct of our conditioning, we can break free from the grip of our false self and unleash the original being inside of us. Those principles are not mine or yours. We were all fairly granted this compass and natural constitution: our conscience. They are our core part at the moment of our conception by our parents.
Principles are self-evident and can easily be validated by any individual. It’s almost as if these principles or natural laws are part of the human condition, part of the human consciousness, part of the human conscience. They seem to exist in all human beings, regardless of social conditioning and loyalty to them, even though they might be submerged or numbed by conditions or disloyalty.
—Stephen Covey
The starting point is being honest with oneself to know thyself; then, meet the limiting beliefs and destroy them, that is we write our new principle-based program which would replace the old biased one that we never chose in the first place.
A limiting belief about oneself might be something as “My mother never listened to me or took me seriously as she does with my charismatic brother. There might be something fundamentally wrong with me…” Truth is: your mother might be a narcissist. Narcissistic parents assign different roles to their kids — a Golden child, a Scapegoat, and an Invisible child are the most popular ones.
To come back to the example, you are the Scapegoat, while your brother is the Golden child. In other words, nothing is wrong with you. Your mother is a self-serving person and an abuser. She never deserved the privilege to parent you.
The best limiting belief about the world that we could think of given the context would be, “Some people are rich, and others are poor; some people are ‘leaders’, and others are followers; some people are successful, and others are losers. That’s the nature of life, and I am part of the superior and privileged.”
This second kind of conditioning by-products is much easier to spot than the first one. All that we need to do is diagnose whether the belief is violating any of the universal principles (fairness, honesty, integrity, human dignity, respect, service, potential, patience, and the list goes on).
Destroying both types of limiting beliefs makes us reconnect with our intrinsic worth, learn self-respect, build healthy boundaries, and love ourselves.
Result? We will not feel the need to feel better about ourselves at the expense of others anymore.
