GUILTY FOR BEING BORN

Currently in the news this week are some people who are promoting a really stupid idea which is in CRT (Critical Race Theory), namely, that “being born white means that you are a racist. You cannot help but being a racist if your skin color is white.” Of course, that is just another form of racism itself It is reverse racism. Just as racism is a prejudice against a person simply because of the color of the skin (or some other superficial factor) so here, being white automatically makes you guilty. You were born guilty!

Martin Luther King Jr. would turn over in his grave. His vision was for a country where the color of one’s skin becomes irrelevant. He envisioned a national where the quality of one’s character would be the determining factor in how we think about each other and treat each other. The dream that he had and the hope that he offered up was a hope that — “... my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” It was the desire to “transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

There’s a reason why King focused on character rather than “race” (or what is falsely called “race”). Namely, you can do something about character! You can develop better attitudes, beliefs, actions, and skills. And since those words in the 1906s, people have been learning better. Today nearly everyone thinks and values treating each other as equals, especially as equals in the sight of the law. Only a small minority on the extremes would give any credence to the idea that some people are better than other people.

Yet if the condition for so-called “racism” is birth, color of skin, family of origin, then depending on what you were born with —you are doomed, you are stuck. The truth that sets us free is that we are each responsible for our thinking. You are responsible for what and how you interpret things, make meaning of things, and therefore act. You are responsible for how you treat people. That means that we can change. If we hate a person or group of people, we can learn to love. No matter what conditions and gifts you were born with, the character that you develop is in your hands.

The problem of racism is not about your birth, your genetics, your ethnic background, or anything that is “a given” in human nature. Racism refers to being prejudiced against a certain group, disliking them to the point of hatred or intolerance. That’s the problem— that attitude. The good news is that every person who wants to can change that attitude.

If you believe in change, then you will not, and cannot, accept the Critical Race Theory which presents a black-or-white, either-or, polarized view of things. CRT actually increases prejudice, dislike, hatred, and intolerance! It separates people based on something people cannot change— the color of their skin and something that is the most superficial distinction about a person. In

that sense it is completely infantile. Infants and small children are the ones who cannot distinguish between appearance and reality. They confuse what a thing looks like with what it is. Maturity begins when we can distinguish an external superficial feature from internal reality.

In NLP we have several belief change patterns so that if someone holds to a toxic belief about the superiority of one group of people over others, you can change that. Using NLP’s Meta-Model we distinguish that the very word “race” is a pseudo-word. We do not have multiple “races,” there is only one race— the human race. In Neuro-Semantics, we have meta-stating patterns for changing attitudes. Attitudes are composite meta-states and so, yes, we can change attitudes, especially dysfunctional attitudes of prejudice and hatred.

“Guilt” has to do with what you actually do which is wrong, rather than right. Being born is not what you do, it is an experience that you have, so you actually cannot be guilty for any characteristic of your birth, not your skin color, nationality, ethnic family, etc. Birth begins the human experience— let’s make it a great one!