In Part Thirteen of Us and Them, Shahid Bolsen argues that what many people casually label as racism is often something deeper and more pervasive. He is not primarily concerned with the obvious form—the conscious prejudice of an openly racist individual. While that type certainly exists, he suggests it is not what most powerfully shapes civilization. The more influential force is something quieter: a kind of emotional absence, a void where recognition of another person's humanity should naturally occur.

Bolsen contends that a society whose historical experience conditioned it to view suffering as an unavoidable feature of life—captured in Thomas Hobbes' description of existence as "nasty, brutish, and short"—developed a limited emotional response to the pain of others. Rather than reacting instinctively, people often wait for cues about what they should feel, when they should feel it, and toward whom those feelings should be directed. Compassion, in this framework, can become performative, transformed into a social contest in which individuals compete to display the greatest grief or concern.

He then introduces the metaphor of the lion and the hyenas. For non-white individuals who recognize these patterns within themselves, Bolsen suggests they have, in part, become products of someone else's historical conditioning—a lion that spent so much time cackling with hyenas that it forgot it was capable of roaring.

The discussion then turns to the mechanisms that protect these assumptions from scrutiny. Bolsen describes habits of deflection, obfuscation, endless argumentation, and moving the goalposts. In his view, many people approach difficult conversations not as investigators seeking truth but as prosecutors constructing a defense. Evidence is evaluated less by its accuracy than by whether it supports a predetermined position.

From there, he critiques modern therapeutic culture, portraying it not as a vehicle for healing but as a system that reinforces existing norms. Rather than addressing root causes, it can function like bringing a flamethrower to a house fire—an excessive response that often intensifies the problem.

Underlying all of these dynamics, Bolsen identifies a central drive: the need to dominate. Equality itself can provoke profound discomfort because genuine learning requires humility. To learn from another person, one must temporarily accept that they possess knowledge or understanding one lacks. According to Bolsen, the cultural operating system he is describing was specifically designed to resist that experience. The result is a civilization that struggles not only to coexist with others, but even to reconcile its own internal contradictions.

Pope Leo XIV issued a historic apology Monday for the Holy See’s role in legitimizing slavery and for failing to condemn it for centuries, describing the church’s record as a “wound in Christian memory” that continues to affect communities around the world.

In his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, Leo acknowledged that past popes granted European rulers authority to subjugate, colonize, and enslave non-Christians. He asked forgiveness in the name of the church, stating that the suffering endured by enslaved people and their descendants was incompatible with the Gospel message and the inherent dignity bestowed on every person by God.

The document marks one of the strongest Vatican statements to date on the issue. Rather than focusing solely on individual wrongdoing, Leo addressed the institutional role the church played in supporting political and economic systems that helped justify colonial expansion and the transatlantic slave trade. He said Christians must confront this history honestly and recognize the lasting consequences of those actions.

The pope also emphasized the importance of remembrance and education, urging Catholic institutions to teach the full history of slavery and the church’s involvement in it. He called on believers to listen to the experiences of communities whose ancestors suffered under slavery and colonial rule, arguing that reconciliation requires both truth and humility.

Scholars, historians, and Black Catholic leaders described the apology as a significant step toward accountability. Many welcomed the pope’s willingness to directly address the Vatican’s historical responsibility, though some noted that further measures—including expanded historical research, public acknowledgment, and initiatives aimed at healing and justice—may still be necessary.

Leo connected the church’s past failures to contemporary challenges, warning that exploitation can take new forms in the modern world. He pointed to human trafficking, forced labor, economic inequality, artificial intelligence, and what he called “digital colonialism” as areas where human dignity could again be threatened if ethical safeguards are ignored.

The encyclical concludes with a call for global solidarity, urging governments, religious institutions, businesses, and individuals to work together to protect vulnerable populations. By confronting the church’s role in slavery while addressing emerging forms of injustice, Leo said the Catholic Church must commit itself to defending human dignity wherever it is at risk.

In this powerful and emotional exchange, a Christian brother from South Africa asks Sheikh Ahmed Deedat a heartfelt question that many people around the world have struggled to understand:

Why does God allow Black people to suffer?

With wisdom, compassion, and deep insight, Sheikh Ahmed Deedat delivers a response that profoundly touched the audience and sparked deep reflection.

This rare conversation explores faith, suffering, racism, hope, and the deeper understanding of God’s purpose in times of hardship.

A meaningful discussion for anyone seeking answers to life’s most difficult questions about humanity, justice, and spiritual truth.

Watch until the end to hear Sheikh Deedat’s unforgettable response.

A response to a letter from an African American Democratic voter asking what Middle Nation has to offer her in place of voting.

Part 1 presents the diagnosis through data: the negative framing of Black political preferences, the stagnant wealth gap, the bipartisan foundations of mass incarceration, and the influence of the three major asset managers that effectively own much of the country. It then reframes the meaning of dignity, representation, and citizenship within a declining empire that her grandmother would scarcely recognize.

In Part 4 of the American Erosion series, Shahid Bolsen shifts the focus from the empire’s structural decay to one of its least examined casualties: the psychological condition of Muslims living inside it. He introduces two intertwined disorders. The first is psychological colonization — the quiet internalization of the colonizer’s worldview. The second, which he terms psychological colonizer‑ization, is more severe: the adoption not only of the colonizer’s sense of Muslim inferiority, but also of his supremacy, arrogance, and presumed right to dictate to others.

Bolsen argues that many Western‑based Muslims carry both conditions at once. The result is a fractured psyche: craving Western validation on one side, and looking down on the Muslim world on the other. Both impulses, he insists, spring from the same root — the unexamined belief that Western supremacy is legitimate.

He confronts diaspora Muslims directly on their reflexive attacks on Muslim governments, their habit of repackaging Western geopolitical narratives in Islamic language, their need to imagine the Muslim world as dysfunctional in order to justify their own place in the West, and their confusion of proximity to power with participation in it.

Bolsen ends with a blunt structural verdict: you are not part of the team. You are the soccer ball. And that demands a different posture entirely — not one of seeking acceptance, but one of witness, honesty, and real solidarity with the Ummah.