It seems to me that there is no other period in history where human arrogance reached its height than in the enlightenment period. This, mixed in with a healthy dose of Epicureanism, where the gods, or God, did not interfere with human affairs, turned the scale over to the over-reliance of human achievement, autonomy and power, governed by all powerful Reason, which, in the end made us the center of the universe.
Armed with Reason and autonomy, new constitutions arose, new ways of doing government saw the light of day. Modern day civilization was born. This peculiar civilization, however, was mostly European.
Those who adhered to this sort of mentality and worldview were view as "civilized". Missionaries bought into this mentality and included in their preaching of the gospel a good measure of "civilizing savages". That our civilized culture was superior was unquestioned.
And so, white Europeans were civilized, and therefore better, and the rest were "savages" with their only hope of redemption being civilized with western ideologies.
Western civilization was King, the god of the new age.
This disgusting arrogance only added more fuel to the fire of racism, where people who did not fully adhere to our enlightenment worldview were viewed as savages, and therefore, inferior.
Native-Americans, Africans, and those less "civilized" nations, were deemed as less than humans.
If this arrogance is indeed connected to racism, then part of our solution to racism has to deal with humility.
We still carry this arrogance, especially in the United States. Much has been said about our arrogance and sense of entitlement that I don't need to prove the point here.
How many times, with patriotic spirits, have I heard people proclaim "this is the greatest country of the world!"
How many times have I heard presidents proclaim the U.S. as the beacon of hope to the rest of the world, with the greatest insert virtue here "the world has ever seen".
This is nothing short than bullying patriotism, and it causes more harm than good. This is false love of country, for true love "does not boast..." (1st Corinthian 13:4).
Anti-racism without humility is like trying to be a democratic leader with a heart full of dictatorship dreams. A shift of worldview, away from the arrogance of western civilization, needs to happen for the fertile ground of anti-racism to fully materialize.
Maybe what we need, to address the poisonous state of racism in this nation, is to first deal with our arrogance, repent from it, and seek humility before God. Maybe, with this new-found humility, we can start seeing the other as they are: human beings made in the image of God.
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