THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE
In a recent speech, J.D. Vance said that when “the settlers came to the New World they found very widespread child sacrifice.” Framing it as a core moral achievement of Christian societies, he went on to say that ending this practice was “one of the great accomplishments of Christian civilization.”
He is, of course, lying and he knows it.
Historians note that while there is archaeological evidence of ritual child sacrifice in some Meso-American and South American cultures, there is little evidence that such practices were “very widespread” among most North American Indigenous societies. Vance’s broad “New World” phrasing implies this to be true.
Critics also argue that his allegations ignore both the racial and religious violence and abuses carried out by Christian empires and missions around the world. They also ignore the fact that Western Hemisphere civilizations were already many millennia old long before European colonization and that Indigenous societies had their own complex moral systems.
Yes, Vance is lying through his teeth and he knows it. However, he is not lying without a deep and sinister motive.
The vice president is engaging in racist revisionism all dressed up as patriotism and unspoken White and Christian supremacy. It reveals exactly how far the Right-wing Christian Nationalists and White Supremacists who are running our country will go to rewrite history to justify their fascist oppression.
Of course Vance and his ilk will deny all this. However, American author Maya Angelou has couched Vance’s language in it’s proper contest:
“When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Leave a Reply