In episode one of our podcast with Christopher Bell, Christopher talks about his path to understanding white supremacy and explains his use of the term white superiority. He talks about his childhood and goals for the future.
Christopher C. Bell Jr. was born a black male in the mid-1930s, and raised in Campostella, a small, poor, Negro suburb of hard-wired, racially segregated Norfolk, Virginia; one of the most progressive cities in Virginia. He luckily dodged many of the pitfalls that endangered many of his friends as he escaped into Boy Scouting and reading. Chris attended Virginia State University, obtained a degree in Chemistry, and upon graduation was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army.
Chris served twenty (20), bitter-sweet years in the army and retired as a Major. Twelve (12) of those years he served overseas and most of the time his duties required him to serve elbow to elbow with the natives of the country concerned. He served 2 years in Germany; 5 years in France; 2 1/2 years in Korea; 1 year in Vietnam; and 2 years in Ethiopia. Chris credits his foreign living and travelling with opening vistas of sensitivity and awareness in his “made in America” mind, and moved him toward more self-examination and critical thinking about things he had always taken for granted. While in the army, he completed a Masters of Education (Ed.M.) degree from Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts.
After retirement from the military, Chris resumed his graduate studies. He earned a Certificate of Advance Graduate Studies (CAGS) in Administration, Supervision, and Social Policy from Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and a Doctor of Education Degree (Ed.D.) in Organizational Development from Boston University Graduate School of Education. Dr. Bell’s employment history includes; managing and supervising Job training programs in the U.S. Department of Labor, mid-level management positions in the District of Columbia School System, and serving as a management analyst at the U.S. Department of Education
Dr. Bell’s studies of the works of scholars and his own observations regarding the workings of the societal structures that surround human beings have led him to conclude that one of the root causes of what he defines as the White Superiority Syndrome is the “White male God and White Male Savior myth” promoted by Christianity. This White Superiority Syndrome promotes a feeling of racial superiority in White people and prompts them to build a white racist culture. This White Superiority Syndrome promotes a sense of racial inferiority in Black people and prompts them toward behavioral patterns of self-abuse, low self-expectations, and self-disparagement.
Dr. Bell has concluded that racism is an inherent feature of the” White male God and White male savior myth” that is taught by Christianity, and he has committed himself to explain this problem to all who will listen. He teaches that black people must free themselves from believing in this “white god, white savior myth” if they are to ever see themselves as beautiful, and as competent, and as deserving of life’s treasures as they imagine white people to be. Other black educators, psychologists, and thinkers have written tangentially about the need for black people to stop believing in this “white god and white savior myth” in order to authentically feel equal to white people, but most of them have gone unheeded. Dr. Bell dares to write “right on.” He trusts that his small contribution in his book “The Belief Factor and the White Superiority Syndrome” will help the “new” theological change-makers of the twenty-first century to begin their work in earnest.
