Why Western Civilization is Not About Whiteness

This thing of calling Republicans racists and nativists by Democrats is absurd.  You know, of course that the Republican party was founded in 1854, in a Wisconsin school house as an abolitionist party.  That is, its first purpose was to end slavery, and here in America, that meant black slavery.  The first Republican president was Abraham Lincoln.  The Democrats have been the party of black slavery, of Jim Crow, of segregation, and continue to be the party of antisemitism.  It is as if by calling us racist, they hope no one looks at their own record of racism and bigotry.

So, it was with some interest that I read an article by Bradly Birzer over at The Federalist entitled Why It's Preposterous To Say Western Civilization Is About 'Whiteness'. Western Civilization is about certain ideas and concepts going back to the Greek civilization. The West was, of course, a pagan culture that was in the fullness of time, Christianized by St. Paul and other missionaries. The Wests great ideas came out of this amalgam of Greek thought and Christian morality.

One of the truly frustrating aspects of our all-too modern and post-modern era is how easily radicals dismiss anything to do with western civilization as a racialist celebration of “whiteness” and of Caucasians. To believe such a thing, one must first believe that “races” actually exist, something no scientist worth her or his salt would believe. Yet, even assuming that such a thing as “race” does exist, where does it matter in terms of history?

...snip...

The father of the Reformation and a Roman Catholic saint, Augustine serves as the most importance nexus between the ancient and medieval worlds, his magisterial “City of God” serving as the handbook of the Middle Ages. Importantly for our argument, though, St. Augustine was also from Hippo, a region of North Africa.

Just as Christ preached universal truths about the condition of mankind and offers a way out of these universal conditions, the Left rejects all of the things that make up Western thought. The ideas of Socrates and Plato, the idea that men have certain inalienable rights by virtue of their creation; these are the things the Left rejects in favor of dividing us into identity groups and pitting one identity against another.  But it is not out of a genuine love for mankind that they do it.  It is rather to secure their own power.

We can not let them have power.  In their hatred of both themselves and us, they will surely burn down the house around us.

The next time someone tells you that the West is about whiteness or racial superiority, remind them of several things: 1) that race is a modern construct, the fruits of progressivism; 2) that one of the greatest Westerners, St. Augustine, was an African; 3) that Heraclitus sought only unity; and 4) that the Spartans gave everything for dignity greater than any one people. You may very well fail to persuade them, but, at the very least, you can befuddle them.