“And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31a)

And God created a palette of colors and painted a broad array of beauty upon His universal canvass. He created a breathtaking light show in the night sky known as the Northern Lights, and the multicolored rainbows seen in the light of day. He created the bright colors found in the feathers of birds of the air, the scales of fish in the sea, and petals of flowers of the field. 

Changing of the seasons allows us to see the shifting of the colors of the leaves, creating a live display before our eyes. He went with a palette of muted colors for various animals, plants, soil, and the skin of human beings, adding more melanin to some and less in others to cover a wide spectrum. The color range is spectacular, mind blowing, and makes us thankful for eyes to see and appreciate the wondrous works of the Creator.

So, how did we get here? How did we get to a place where many actually despise the artistry of God’s handiwork when it comes to people? 

The simple answer is, it’s just one aspect of a fallen world and the sin nature of man. However, when we examine the specific nuances of what lies behind this derailment and its accompanying psychology, we find ourselves face to face with personality pathologies stemming from the cancer of America’s racialized roots.

Racism was the tool used to create a divide and conquer strategy to turn the spotlight from the oppressive behaviors of the wealthy and powerful, and onto any group deemed “the other.” 

Racism made it possible to use the same eyes which embrace and celebrate God’s world of beautiful colors, to then cast hate upon various groups of people based upon some of those same colors. Oh, how far we have truly fallen.

Groups deemed “the other” are seen as a threat to one’s way of life, a threat to one’s comfort, and even a threat to one’s very existence. 

By definition, “personality pathology refers to enduring patterns of cognition, emotion, and behavior that negatively affect a person’s adaptation. In psychiatry and clinical psychology, it is characterized by adaptive inflexibility, vicious cycles of maladaptive behavior, and emotional instability under stress.”

And such are the manifestations exhibited by people who fear, “the other” and this fear is magnified by racist rhetoric and even the subtle teachings of the Daughters of the Confederacy’s school curriculum of white supremacy which still dominates our educational system today. 

The aggressive and often mindless pushback against “CRT” exposes this defense against this well-established cancerous curriculum. So much gets swept under this rug when the reality is that actual CRT (Critical Race Theory) has been reserved for law students at a university level, not K-12. 

What is being proposed is, simple truth telling in history and an inclusionary approach of various people groups. In a spirit of fear, we find this senseless push-back against America’s deeply rooted DNA and race-based foundation.

These manifestations were behind Jim Crow segregation and the denial of human rights and civil rights legislation and can be seen today in the continued and creative ways to deny voting rights to POC.  

With the ever darkening of America’s human landscape, those who buy into this fear-based narrative exhibit these personality pathologies, which defend and help maintain America’s white supremacy at an institutionalized level. And these responses can be seen in what I call the 4 D’s of defense: 1. Denial, 2. Deflection, 3. Discrediting, and 4. Dismissal.

Whenever we see ourselves straying away from what God made beautiful through His divine color palette, and we redefine it as ugly, this should be a red flag that we have boarded the wrong train, a train leading to our own ultimate destruction.

By Tobias Houpe