My last premium post seemed to open up a can of worms — at least for me. As I was writing about
the Rokkatru, I realized that historians may have it all wrong when it comes to the gods. The Aesir, Vanir, and Jotunn aren’t different races. They’re different clans. Which means that how they treat each other has implications for how we should treat each other.
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I’m tired of racism. I really am. I’m tired of the white supremacists claiming our beliefs. As I’ve said: there is no such thing as race. Whether your skin color is white, black, brown, yellow, purple, or green — if you’re human, you’re human. Science has a theory that is pretty much proves that we came out of Africa. And for those of you theory deniers, here’s my quote (so you understand what a theory is):in a previous post, I’ll state it again:
The word “theory” in science used to describe an explanation of why and how things happen. For gravity, we use Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to explain why things fall. “Theory” is not synonymous with “unproven.” “Theory” means that the statement is consistent with everything we know, including facts. However, if a new fact were to arrive that changes our understanding of the world, it may change the Theory. For example, depending on how you use gravity varies the terminology. If you’re using it in mathematics, it’s a Law. But if you’re talking about gravity and how it interacts with things, it’s a Theory.
I hope my Christian dad is in Folkvangr because, by the gods, he did the right thing. He arrived in Germany just after the war and told me he had been stationed at one of Hitler’s concentration camps that still held Jews. You see, with that many people displaced, the Americans had no choice but to keep these poor people in the same nightmare they had been in. Only they took care of these people. Don’t you dare try to tell me the Holocaust was fake. It most certainly was not. My dad was there. He saw. He knew.
My dad did a lot of searching for Nazi sympathizers and throwing them in prison. He never told me all he did, but I do know he was in Germany during the Berlin Airlift, too. Yeah, my dad was one of those who lived history.
He and I used to sit and watch WWII movies and documentaries all the time. He had nothing good to say about any of the Nazis. He felt that the Holocaust was terrible. And it was. Anyone who thinks the Holocaust or other “final solutions” needs to have their head examined. There is no excuse for it.
And I’m pretty sure that those who had a hand in the Holocaust have gone Náströnd for this. It is our equivalent of the Christian hell for those guilty of murder, adultery, and oath-breaking. 6 million people murdered. Hitler is dragon fodder. And good riddance.
I grew up hating bigots who oppressed people because of their religion, ethnicity, or skin color. I hate skinheads, and if you use my religion to further your white supremacist beliefs, you need to go back to whatever religion you came from. I don’t want you here, nor do many people who believe in our gods, whether they be Asatru, Heathen, or Pagan. It’s bad enough that our runes like Othala, Sowelu, and even Teiwas had been stolen by your kind.
Our gods are not racist. They can’t be. The reason is obvious: our religion came from one source at one time. Eventually it branched out into the religions we know today. Why? Because humans more than once nearly went extinct. (I cover this in the links above). We’re all related, with some minor variation of Neanderthals and Denisovian genes thrown in. We’re all one race. You and I have the same mitochondria from one woman who lived long ago. And guess what? So does every human on this planet including people of African descent, Jewish people, and your particular tribe.
Being silent is consent. If you’re not against these evil people, then you are for them. Plain and simple. Even if you don’t care/don’t think it’s wrong/don’t have a stand/think I’m exaggerating and being emotional, let’s look at the whole racism thing without the emotion attached. If you are Asatruar or Heathen who still puts up with racism and bigotry, even though you may say you’re against it, ask yourself do you really want this to be a religion where the first things people think of is racism? Because guess what? That’s what makes headlines. And what makes headlines is exactly what will attract more of the same white supremacists. Do you really want Asatru to be the religion of hate?
You might argue the No True Scotman defense, which is patently bullshit. Asatru and Heathenism by its northern roots often attracts those who are looking for something folkish. These miscreants twist the meaning of our religion and culture for their own use. And the press, knowing no different, paints us all with a broad brush.
I get exceedingly frustrated because most of them are Odinists. And I don’t have a problem with Odin being someone’s main god as long as they understand Odin doesn’t condone bigotry, even if he can be wonky at times. Most white supremacists are Christian, and yet no one points to Christianity as a religion of hate. The difference is that Christianity is pervasive. Asatruar and Heathenism is not. Is the press making the same misguided mistakes people do when they paint us all with a broad brush? Yes. It doesn’t matter what you think. You have already been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion if you don’t speak up.
Call me a Jew lover. You betcha. I’ll wear that proudly and Tyr will back me up one hundred percent. While I don’t agree with the Abrahamic religions, I don’t believe in persecuting anyone on account of being a Jew or Christian or Muslim. My roommate in college was Muslim and was the nicest kid I ever knew. I have had friends of different religions and no religions.
This is why it has shocked me it has become fashionable lately to be bigoted toward Jews again. I see more and more outright aggression toward a group of people who have suffered so much. These are humans. They are people who have different beliefs that were forced into certain cultural roles due to intolerance and persecution. I’ve seen this bigotry among college graduates and people who claim to be liberal, but are clearly motivated by their own forms of hatred. My dad, who was conservative, was less bigoted than they are.
As for race, remember: there is no such thing as race, although there is ethnicity. (Again you can read the posts I cited above to understand the difference.) If you want to be proud of your ethnicity, fine. But don’t think that another group is inferior. We’re all the same people with minor genetic differences.
I’m asking you now why you hate a particular group of people? Is it because you remember someone of that ethnicity was mean to you? I remember being treated badly by a black kid when I was growing up — I didn’t think that kid was bad because she was black. I thought that kid is mean because she was mean. She was just one mean kid in a group of bullies, who, incidentally, were mostly white. I didn’t think in terms of color. Color was just another thing.
If you’ve been treated badly by someone not of your ethnicity, maybe it’s time to look at the person and not the color of their skin. There are bad people of all ethnicity. Hel, there are bad people of different tribes that are looking to harm us, but those are their ideologies and not their actual genetic makeup. If you’re looking for bogeymen or scapegoats to blame because of your circumstance and think hating and blaming others is okay, think again. It’s easy to demonize the other, especially when you put yourself into one tribe versus another mode.
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. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I’m probably going to be stepping into something rather unpleasant, but here goes.
One of the headaches Heathenism has is the racism that is often disguised as Odinism and Folkishness. In an attempt to find a religion that is northern based, some people believe — wrongly, I might add — that heathens are racist. Therefore, these people jump heartily into Heathenism thinking that all people who belong to Heathenism are racist.
That just isn’t so. There are many good people who follow the gods. Some aren’t white. The gods, I believe, are colorblind. The reason is obvious. No matter what people and the government state in terms of race, there aren’t any separate races when it comes to humans. We’re the same under the skin.
Race is a construct. You can’t take a look at someone’s DNA and say, “wow, that person is white” [or black or Hispanic or Asian or whatever.] There is ethnicity, but not race. Ethnicity is where a certain social group of humans have a historical and cultural tradition that is often aligned with geography. It includes being nationalistic. So, if your ancestors came from Sweden, my guess is that you might have some influences from Sweden, even if you live in America and your family has lived in America for several generations. Maybe you’re a fan of pickled herring and Swedish pancakes because that’s what you grew up with. (Or maybe you just like beer and pizza.) Anyway, whatever you like and dislike may have been due to the ethnic influences you grew up with. Obviously, if you didn’t grow up eating pickled herring, maybe you might find it weird or nasty. And you might look at your ancestors as being odd for eating it.
I have seen where ethnicity changes a person even though they were adopted into that ethnic group. One friend of mine was adopted from Asia and his parents were British, but they lived in America. (Got that?) My friend has Asian features but is highly influenced by British, and ultimately American, cultures. This guy has virtually no cultural association with his former country (to be honest, I don’t remember what it was.) If you were to drop him into that country, he couldn’t speak the language and would find it as foreign as I probably would. Another friend of mine had come from a Welsh family but was adopted by a Swedish woman. His ethnicity was clearly Swedish even though at one time he was considered Welsh.
We are all Homo Sapiens. Some of us have Neanderthal and Denisovian genes running around in our DNA, but we make up the same species. If you want to talk about pure Homo Sapiens, the people who come from Africa, who haven’t mingled with people with Europe or Asian ancestry, are probably the most pure. Something to think about if you’re a bigoted, narrow-minded white supremacist.
So, if we’re a mix of various hominids, we’re all mutts, and talking skin color, differing features, and whatnot, is patently absurd. The fact that every single one of us has mitochondria from one woman and the fact that human beings nearly went extinct not once, but at least twice proves that we’re all a bunch of inbred gorilla cousins, and that when you look at someone “not of your race,” you’re actually looking at yourself with some ridiculously minor genetic variations. Science doesn’t lie.
The problem is that when racist people start following our gods, it taints the rest of us because the media is quick to paint everyone with a broad brush. It’s not fair, but that is how life is. And, as I’ve pointed out in the past, life isn’t fair. So get over it.
If you’re one of those people who use Asatru, Heathenism, Odinism, or Folkishness to justify your racism, stop. The gods really don’t care what the color of your skin is, whether you’re from the northern latitudes, or whether you’re some bullshit made up “master race.” If anything, they’re probably annoyed at your behavior.