Editorial: The Souls of White Folk?

This title may have offended you. That was my intent. We are used to thinking about soul of Black people or Native Americans, or Meso-Americans or Asian peoples. It sounds somewhat blasphemous to talk about the souls of White Folk.

We are the villain- repression and conquest personified. To be a white person today is to lay claim to the spoils and crimes of generations of white people who came before. So I think this question is very relevant? What happened to the souls of white folk? Where did those souls go?

The African born slave could dream of returning to Africa. And in that dream there was a connection to an identity- a soul that gave him or her purpose and meaning and validation. An American born African-American can still look to the heritage of that past in Africa. And if that identity is too distant, the modern African-American can find identity in the struggle to be free. Where can white folk turn for an affirming identity that gives them strength and morality?

There is not a square inch of North America that is not occupied land. Every patch of earth is testimony to the crimes of white folk. Every shopping mall or high rise is a tombstone to murdered Native Americans and raped eco-systems. There is nowhere in North America that does not call out to the white person and call them a monster and murderer and betrayer and rapist. What about Europe? There is not a plot of land that is not stained with the blood of women and children. There is no arable land that has not been fought over by kings and conquerors, despots and tyrants and raiders and bandits and butchers. Nowhere is there not an unmarked grave from some injustice. On both continents, the landscape itself indicts the white person for crimes against life itself.

So where can the white person reclaim the soul lost so long ago? Are we doomed to be villains and monsters forever? People better hope not, because if the white folk don't find their soul and reclaim a collective identity that is positive- the world won't survive for much longer.