By Mark Charles | YouTube | 1h 4m
Published in January of 2017
SUMMARY: Skip to 4:20 to get to his speech. A sobering, challenging speech where Mark Charles argues that America does not know about race, gender and America’s history.
Charles lays out the case that America was setup with racist systems from the beginning to benefit white, land owning men. He traces America’s attitude towards race back to Constantine and his establishment of a Christian empire which resulted in just war theory that lead to a theological excuse to wage war on indigenous people and people of color.
KEY QUOTE: “Jesus never came to establish a Christian empire. He came to plant a church. He came to bring a community. He came to reveal God and Himself to the world through a church not a political entity.”
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LEARNING CAPSULE: Tulsa Race Massacre
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BOOK: Unsettling Truths
Exceptionalism. Triumphalism. White Supremacy. Mythology. These are just a few of the words that are the bedrock of the United States of America and the white American church. The blending of Christianity with conquest dating back to the 1400’s to the Doctrine of Discovery influencing the racist and sexist wording of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution to boarding schools and internment camps justifying white supremacy what people of color and white people have experienced living in the United State is vastly different.
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