Louisiana is the first state to mandate that a poster-size display of the Ten Commandments be in every classroom; from Kindergarten to higher education classrooms. The state has its republican governor and its majority republican legislature to thank for this new rule. Gov. Jeff Landry said,
“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses.”
Similar bills requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms exist in other states including Utah, Oklahoma, and Texas. It is unclear what the punishment is for any school found to violate the law. With that said, the law is wrong for several reasons.
The first is that it violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Posting the Ten Commandments in a public facility, in this case, a school prefers a form of Christianity (and a form of Judaism). I’ve yet to see any parts of the Quran on display in school—because intense bigotry and racism shapes the Islamophobia that exists in schools nationwide, but I digress. In other cases similar to Louisiana, the result was the Supreme Court ruling that posting the Ten Commandments was unconstitutional.
Proponents of the law argue that the Ten Commandments are foundational to state and national government. However, that is not true. Capitalism and enslavement are foundational to state and national government. The Ten Commandments do not reinforce capitalism or enslavement. This nation’s founding documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—are rooted in the desire to enslave African people.
It can be argued (and even proven) that some politicians violate the Ten Commandments daily. That is, for me, the major problem with this law. It isn’t meant to promote religious virtue. The law was created with the specific purpose of lording white Christian nationalism over residents who do not identify as cis-gender white Christians – specifically Black people.
White Christian nationalists “believe in the idea that America was founded by Christians who modeled its laws and institutions after Protestant ideals with a mission to spread the religion and those ideals in the face of threats from non-whites, non-Christians, and immigrants.”
Consider Louisiana schools. According to the Civil Rights Data Collection, students of color make up the majority of students, with African American students making up 42% of all students in the state and Latinos making up 9%. That mixed with the instability of our nation—two wars (Ukraine and Israel) and economic instability—and white Christian evangelicals feel as though their way of life is under threat.
Sadly, whiteness isn’t under threat. It’s just receiving some pushback. But that’s too much. Freire shared that:
“Any restriction on this way of life, in the name of the rights of the community, appears to the former oppressors as a profound violation of their individual rights—although they had no respect for the millions who suffered and died of hunger, pain, sorrow, and despair. For the oppressors, “human beings” refers only to themselves; other people are ‘things.’”
Posting the Ten Commandments in school is about whiteness… not about Christianity. What we’re seeing in real-time is what Michael Emerson and Glenn Bracey identify as a religion of whiteness of (ROW) in their book, The Religion of Whiteness. They name the adherents of ROW as ROWers. The two define the Religion of Whiteness, on page 43 of their book:
“a unified system of beliefs and practices that venerates and sacralizes whiteness while declaring profane all things not associated with whiteness.”
Respecting the rights of all people is too much for ROWers to handle.
Books detailing the truth of history and how the U.S. is a white settler colonial project are too much for ROWers to handle. Critical critiques of capitalism, racial injustice, non-Christian religious intolerance, a woman’s right to choose, the freedom to love who and identify as you wish, and honoring the humanity of those arriving to the U.S. seeking a better way of life is just way too much for ROWers to wrap their collective minds around.
Their response is a law to mandate that the Ten Commandments are posted in classrooms across the state. It certainly doesn’t hurt Landry, who can parlay this into a national political profile for a potential presidential run.
As the demographics of the United States change, as well as the political and moral ideology of citizens—that lean away from the right—republicans will do whatever they can to “make America great again.” This means making it great for white people, as though white people have no power in 2024. A white convicted felon, Donald Trump, may become president. If that is not white power, I don’t know what is.
A law commanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in schools comes from a similar playbook as erecting confederate statues and naming schools after confederates. It’s about reinforcing whiteness. There’s no need to think Christianity is the white man’s religion… He already has his own.
