By SUSAN K. SMITH

Crazy Faith Ministries

It is interesting to witness the cognitive dissonance that allows so many racists to deny that they are just that – racist.

The R-word is almost as offensive to them as the N-word is to Black people, but the reasons for the offense by both groups are different.

The N-word originated from the Latin word “niger” which means “black” and was created as a code word for White people to use to ever remind Black people that they were “less than” White people and would always be. The White race had no justification for applying the label. White supremacy is a myth, one that White people have always worked desperately to protect. Labeling Black people the N-word helped objectify and dehumanize them, allowing Whites to treat them cruelly and to deny them justice, without feeling any bit of remorse. These “objects” were merely property, and thus deserved no humane treatment, according to The Washington Post and The African American Registry.

There is no agreement as to when the word “racist” was born, but it came out of the belief by White people that only they had the understanding of what the social structure was supposed to be. In this country, that assumption played out when the English landed in the New World, and seeing Native Americans on their land, decided that they were less than human and needed to be annihilated or made to assimilate into White culture.

In 1902, a man named Riched Henry Pratt – who was considered to be a progressive – advocated ideas and practices designed to bring the “heathen” Native Americans in line with the values of White Americans. Schools for Native Americans were set up that prohibited the children from speaking their own languages or observing any of their cultural practices.They were also “Christianized” in such a way that taught them, as enslaved Africans had been taught decades before them, that they were inferior to Whites and their culture was inferior to White culture, no matter what others might say, NPR reported.

The belief by Whites – even progressive Whites – that non-White, non-Christian people are inferior is a part of their psychological, emotional and spiritual DNA, yet they deny it vehemently. The innate racism that has resulted in the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, or the continued decimation and destruction of Native American lands, is what drives politicians to make – and oppose – the policies they support and reject.

Black people are being disenfranchised from voting – again – and White people are being “reminded” of the racist images of and beliefs about Black people in the unsurprising political ads that are emerging. Female voices provide the voice-overs for these ads, almost whispering that a vote for “the Democrat” candidates will mean more crime. The Willie Horton commercial has never died; it has just evolved, and racist candidates know that when all else fails – when they have no policy, no answers to current questions, and no desire for anything but raw power – that using the buzz words that say to White people that a vote for their opponent is to vote for the “bad” Black people that the other side seems to want to support.

Using race to stoke fear amongst White people is a tactic that has been used over and over again, and the political strategists who plan campaigns know it, but they will rise up like a frightened and angry cat if anyone ever calls them racist.

It is painful and maddening to watch.

I hope that in all the states where qualified Black people are running for office, that voters will not listen to racist-based ads that will only increase. I hope people will understand that the quest in the upcoming midterm elections is to keep White people in power and to put all whom they call “other” in their respective “places” and be made to stay there.

We don’t have to use the R-word to describe what is going on. We don’t have to use it to describe the former president or Ron DeSantis or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. We know who they are and what they will say because of who they are.

Our job is to step over and around them and fight the evil they present individuals and the government in their quest to achieve total control. Racism, regardless of where and how it originated as a word, is not, the end, greater than a band of people who know Who they are and Whose they are.

Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith is the founder and director of Crazy Faith Ministries. She is available for speaking. And she is an award-winning author for her latest book, “With Liberty and Justice for Some: The Bible, the Constitution, and Racism in America,” available through all booksellers. Contact her at revsuekim@sbcgloba.net.