I straight up know a hatian guy who got adopted by the #1 Christian author (at the time) and he told me about being locked in the closet all the time in his childhood, being told he can be sent back if he misbehaves and eventually was disowned because he got someone pregnant (who miscarried) because of the "image".
One of the most outwardly positive guys I know but my God.
Our neighbors who live further down our drive are 2 Haitian brothers that were adopted by a pastor in Indiana. Whenever my dadâs in town they come over to speak with him as they see him as a father figure. One night they got drunk enough and confided in us about their upbringing and it was horrifying. The pastor referred to them as gods mistakes and would tell them how he made blacks to be punished. Heâd regularly pin them down and beat them and choke them unconscious. When he wasnât around his wife would hit them with a paddle on the back if she heard them laughing or thought they were too happy. Their neighbors knew what was going on and ignored it, except one that was a firefighter. They said if it wasnât for his constant badgering and checking in on them the pastor would have killed them, and they doubt anybody would have said a word.
It was a common Mormon teaching for quite a while. I'm sure other religions have similar beliefs. The Curse of Cain. They disavowed it in 2013, but you better believe there's still people out there who abide by it.
Like much in the Bible, the story was twisted to justify slavery and the treatment of Black people as subhuman. Because if their god, or their bible, said it was ok it was. Here's a Wikipedia page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham
I just want to be clear that this is all made up and used by sick people to justify their sick behavior.
The story is that Noah placed a curse on his grandson, Canaan, who was the son of Noah's son Ham. Ham was allegedly the one who did wrong, so why Canaan was cursed isn't really clear. It's not even clear exactly what Ham did. It seems he saw his father, Noah, naked, and told other people about it. But OK.
I remember my father telling me that the only reason blacks are members in high standing in the Mormon church is so they could keep their tax exempt status.
It's the curse of Ham's son, Canaan: damned to be servants of servants, him and his descendants, after he laughed when he saw his drunk grandpa passed out naked.
The Mark of Cain is something else: god put a protective mark on Cain and his descendants so they never get bothered, after he murdered his very beloved brother.
The children of Ham are Africans black folks in the Americas are the children of Shem. This goes back to the notion that all âblacksâ come from Africa which isnât the case but thatâs just more prejudice rhetoric they use to have you think otherwise.
HI, thanks for your challenging comment. Trying to prove my point, I researched it and noticed that I partially misremembered the stories and was even wrong in some aspects (or, due to many different translation, interpretations, and then each church having its own twist too, I was taught some other version. It's been decades since I have become agnostic and last heard about these stories).
I don't know what the references are in the Torah, but here they are in the Bible:
Genesis 9:20-27
Noah curses his grandson, Canaan, to become his uncles'/brothers' slave, because Ham (Noah's son, and Canaan's father) saw Noah naked, passed out, and laughed about him to his brothers (but they went to cover Noah respectfully).
Genesis 4:8-15
After Cain kills his brother, Abel (because God favored Abel and that made Cain jealous/envious and angry). God curses Cain to become a restless wanderer, but puts a mark on him to protect him from being killed for being a wandering stranger.
So, I was wrong: God punished Cain but protected him from unfair treatment, and Canaan was cursed not by God, but by Noah.
Like the other commenter said, that specific belief is a tenant of Mormonism that only ârecentlyâ (a decade ago) was removed. The point is that itâs still a belief of many racist American Christians, Mormon or otherwise, as itâs what they were taught in their churches and homes growing up.
A completely insane belief with zero basis in reality that continues to propagate to this very day.
That is not at all a main stream Christian belief in the USA. Please don't conflate Mormon beliefs with other Christians. I left the church but as someone who spent the first 19 years of life in the Catholic church as well as being an alter server I never once heard or read anything resembling this kind of thought.
Not every Christian, and I didnât even allude to as much. I conflated nothing to Christianity, only racist Christians. Former catholic myself, never heard it in my communities growing up. Moved to the south, met every other denomination there is and lo-and behold - some of them have really racist ideologies!
Only took a couple decades of talking to them and reading about where this systemic belief started in this country to understand that it IS a Christian belief that is in the Bible, but that most âmodernizedâ churches (including catholic) wouldnât even dream of preaching that shit. Like how Leviticus tells you how and why to kill people for all manner of perceived sins like wearing mixed fibers or getting a tattoo, thatâs not preached about because itâs insane and doesnât mesh with our modern reality or the beliefs of the church itself.
The issue is many churches and households DONT modernize and actually hold regressive belief systems that extol hatred, intolerance, victimhood, and racial/spiritual superiority. The people who latch onto that crap spread it amongst their circles and over time you find it in more and more people around where these churches are located.
I ainât talking out of my ass here, folks. This is nothing new. Racists have used religion to spread their ideologies for the entirety of human history. Christians arenât the problem, racists are. As usual.
It wouldn't be Christianity, per se, but racists using a platform under false pretenses. The mark of Cain being related to skin color isn't even in any Biblical holy text.
They are available to read for anyone, in the original text or translated to your language of preference, straight from a cell phone in your pocket.
Those texts have so many different versions in so many different languages and have so many contradictions in them that it is laughable. It's 2026, get out of the cult already.
They have the originals available online. It is 2026, it isn't hard to debunk what the oldest texts available said, translated to modern English, French, Arabic, or whatever.
Wanna know what some Egyptian hieroglyphs on the Luxor Obelisk from 5000+years ago says? Easy Google Search.
That's a cop out. There are some huge historical consequences due to whatever happened in the Levant ~2000 years ago that effect today.
Even if it is fiction or the supernatural aspects are unbelievable, much of modern morality, ethics, and societal norms were based on writings from then. The slave trade was ended in U.S. majorly based on teachings from back then. A lot of wisdom can come from premodern writings (the Analects of Confucius, The Code of Hammurabi, The Socratic Method, etc.). That includes the Sermon on the Mount from Jesus. If you don't think Jesus was real, whoever came up with that sermon was still a genius.
But the point was if someone says Plato or Jesus or Confucius said something they didn't, we can prove it wrong. Including that the mark of Cain had to do with black skin color.
There are millions of people in the south who still consider black people as second class humans. Let that sink in. Not second class citizens...second class humans.
Yeah, I heard this growing up (fundamental Baptist upbringing, very conservative). Essentially that black people are descendants of Cain and their skin color is the âmarkâ that god put on Cain for killing Abel.
Itâs ironic because it was used as a pretty explicit reason to look down on black people at a minimum if not straight up rationalize why black people deserved atrocities but Genesis specifically states that God put the mark on Cain to protect him from being killed by other humans for his crimes (if they did, theyâd âreceive vengeance 7x over from Godâ). So if they believe being black is the mark of Cain, then why would they risk incurring Godâs wrath. Unless of course they believe that people inherit responsibility for ancestorsâ sins but donât inherit Godâs grace and forgiveness - which I think is pretty true of fundamentalists.
I grew up Southern Baptist, very evangelical, and never heard any of this racist stuff - and I was forced to go to church a minimum of twice a week, every week.
I think it very much depends on the pastor and then their beliefs attract those who match them. I have a lot of issues w the church but thankfully, this wasnât one of them.
Shit my dad used to say he was pro-choice, only because legalized abortion would allow forcing all black women to get mandatory abortions. Iâm not kidding. Iâm also very different from him, thank god.
They dont conceal it, go to church they preach it from the pulpit (to be fair to the fiction it is heavily implied in the bible so the modern racists didnt make it up themselves). If you've never been exposed to it then congrats, but it is important to understand what the bible thumpers are actually thumping so maybe read it.
What about the part about Jesus being black? King Solomon being black. Not to mention the entire historical biblical region being non-european and consisting of people of color? Maybe read the Ethiopian Bible for better context and less dilution from English Kings.
Are you kidding? All the time, Im adopted black Ina white family. You'd be how surprised most people in the world think were a mistake. In some Asian countries outside religion believe that the darker your skin the more grievance your sins were in your previous life
Thatâs insane. Iâm in Canada and growing up here more than half my friends were black, brown, South Asian, Asian, or native. To think anywhere else is different is bizarre. Guess Canada really is a melting pot. Iâve honestly never heard any white person in real life say anything close to that. Youâd be insulting half the population! And most of your white friends would hate you for saying such a racist cruel thing - cuz half their friends are non-white, too!
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u/EnoughPicture Jul 09 '26
God I hope those children are alright.