A while ago I wrote about white supremacists and allied groups as being the epitome of laziness. This basically covered the motivations and characterizations of people who want group supremacism to be true. But what about the result? Andrew Sullivan covers that for NYMag (third section):
Those marchers [in Charlottesville] were not merely propagating evil, they are also its victims. Believing that human beings are somehow inferior or superior because of their innate characteristics is not only to believe a lie; it is to live in a prison. It is putting you and others into a false category from which none of us can escape. To see nothing in one’s own body and soul but whiteness or blackness dehumanizes the self and others. Those marchers, like the president who excused them, are not just hateful; they are also miserable. Sometimes I think we see transcending racism as a delusion, and perhaps it often is. I share the view held by the civil-rights movement in its heyday that transcending it is only possible through a greater power than ourselves; and that its essential characteristic is liberation. It is a pathway to being fully human.
Bad beliefs become horrible destiny. It is horrifying. But letting loose of your basic belief in your own divinity then frees you from the prison which built it.
