Racism

There were a couple of news items that made me think:

The German magazine Spiegel reported this morning that racism is prevalent across the EU countries and "and discrimination is a sad fact of day-to-day life".

The President of Dartmouth apologized to the President of Harvard for some racially tinged heckling that the Dartmouth soccer team shouted during a Dartmouth-Harvard Squash match. The Dartmouth soccer team apparently "pelted Harvard’s men and women players with obscenity-laced insults that some witnesses described as misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-Semitic" (AP).

Racism is not an American problem. Racism cannot be solved with more education. Racism is a heart issue, it is borne out of my desire to belittle another so that, in my arrogance, I feel superior. If it is not skin color, it will be religion, gender, weight, education level, sports team - whatever my heart can find to differentiate myself from another solely so that i can feel superior.

Here is racism in a nutshell:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
James 4:1-2

- I get angry when I don't get what I want, or feel the way I want to feel about myself
- so I tear you down
- because I don't look to Christ, for he has all that I need