Being White Doesn’t Make Me Guilty of Racism by Dr. Daryl McCarthy

At the start of the Civil War, my great-great-grandfather Callahan Creighton McCarthy left his home in Missouri, which was a slave state. Callahan enlisted in the Kansas Sixth Cavalry. For four long and horrific years he fought as a Union soldier in battle after battle, defending the right for all to be free. He risked his life for the freedom of slaves.

I’m proud of my great-great-grandfather. I’m glad he did this. But I don’t get any credit for his brave actions 159 years ago. Those were his actions, not mine. That was his decision, not mine.

The converse is also true. If my great-great-grandfather Callahan McCarthy had fought for the Confederate Army—as 40,000 other men in Missouri did—it wouldn’t make me guilty. If he had fought for slavery, that wouldn’t make me, Daryl McCarthy, a racist, or an oppressor of Blacks.

I neither gain merit from the good deeds of my ancestors nor am I guilty for the sins of my ancestors. None of us are.

Ezekiel 18:20, “The person who sins is the one who will die. The child will not be punished for the parent’s sins, and the parent will not be punished for the child’s sins. Righteous people will be rewarded for their own righteous behavior, and wicked people will be punished for their own wickedness.”

And this settles the debate. Before God and under the law, I am responsible for my sins and mine alone.

Just as every individual is broken, every race is broken. No race can claim innocence or virtuous superiority. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). So, where am I going with this? You see, I am deeply concerned with the blatant dishonesty promoted by mainstream media and organizations like Black Lives Matter. They’re imputing guilt to all Whites for slavery and the consequences of slavery. However, we must remember one simple fact: Africans became slaves because they were sold by other Africans. To sell one’s own people into slavery is as evil as slaveholding—they are actually two sides of the same coin.

Should African Americans be held responsible for the sins of their African ancestors who sold their own people into slavery? No. Of course not.

Before the Civil War, more than a thousand free Blacks owned 20,000 Black slaves. Do we hold any African Americans responsible for the sins of those free-Black ancestors? That’s nonsense.

What about Native American tribes that held at least 8,000 Black slaves? As my wife Teri McCarthy explained in her podcast (https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-ra2zt-deb24c) earlier this month, Black slaves held by Native Americans weren’t released by the tribes after the Civil War. The tribes claimed autonomy and didn’t free their slaves until the 1930s. Interestingly, no one talks about the free-Black slaveholders nor Native American slaveholders. Not good for the “White Privilege” argument, I guess.

Holding a person responsible for the past sins and offenses of their race is simply another form of racism. This is called Critical Race Theory which sadly was approved by the Southern Baptist Convention last summer and is embraced by a growing number of so-called evangelical Christians.

If I assume you are a bad person because of your ancestry, then I am a racist. Judging someone because of their race, is in fact racism. This is true whether you’re a Black Panther or a KKK member; whether you’re a Black Lives Matter fanatic or an apartheid supporter; whether you’re a leftist neo-Marxist or a skinhead—it’s all based on the wrong thing. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s quote still holds true, “I have a dream 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.” This is also true for whites.

False guilt tastes delicious to the virtue signaler, but it is not only false, it’s dangerous.

If you know in your heart you’re not a racist, please don’t let virtue-signaling church leaders, destructive-agenda leftists, or the fake MSM lure you into a false sense of guilt. Strangely enough, once that lie is swallowed, a strange euphoria occurs. It leads to a self-righteousness that is in itself, well, sin.

The pride of “enlightenment” is perhaps the worst kind of pride.

But here’s the good news: In America, as in most Western republics, you’re not guilty for what your ancestors did or even for what your parents did. You are responsible only for your own crimes, sins, and offenses.

And this is also the Good News of the Bible as well. We are all in the same race—the human race. And in Christ, our identity is not based on our skin color, but on the allegiance of our heart to the One who created all. True loyalty to Christ destroys racism, but even more importantly, loyalty to Christ brings truth and helps us differentiate truth from a lie.

Truth shifts the burden on me – not to repeat the sins of my ancestors, but to repent for my sins and for those alone.

Does racism exist in the United States? Yes, it does. Because wherever there are fallen human beings, there is some sort of prejudice. But I don’t believe it is systemic. How on earth could a majority White racist nation elected a Black president for two terms?

It is important to remember all that America has done to declare, “This is wrong” and to right the wrongs of the past. Our nation not only has worked hard to change, but has actually made these ungodly actions illegal. We ended slavery. We ended Jim Crow. We ended segregation. We initiated Affirmative Action. We approved the 14th Amendment. We elected a Black president for two terms. There’s a reason why people of all colors from all over the world want to come to America.

I am sorry for those who have suffered because of their race. It’s wrong. And I’ll fight racism whenever and wherever I see it. But I will not carry the guilt of racism or discrimination and neither should you.