A brief definition of the concept of the HORIZONTAL paradigm as compared to the vertical paradigm is alluded to, in this second book of the trilogy.  The horizontal paradigm exposes the vertical paradigm as among the enduring and pernicious applications that has generated great controversy and antipathy, vis-à-vis, a “patriarchal” system and society. The patriarchal system is a vertical paradigm, which is based on a hierarchy that is inherently unequal in application. A fundamental example of a patriarchal system is the conventional relationship between men and women. In this context, the patriarchal system by way of the religions of Abraham, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, offers salient examples of inherent inequality… Nevertheless, this hierarchal paradigm represents a conventional wisdom that has endured for millennia as it is enshrined in the respective canon of scriptures. The vertical hierarchal paradigm is the way in which the general public thinks particularly in regard to the process of human relations.

By way of full disclosure, we use the religions of Abraham patriarchal analogy for the purpose of establishing the contrast between the vertical paradigm and the horizontal paradigm, and does not represent a critique of the patriarchal religions. Additionally, the writer observes that a critique of the popular patriarchal religions could only be appropriately offered in a theological treatise on the topic. We explore the patriarchal vertical paradigm in the framework a historical overview relative to a comparison between the vertical and horizontal paradigms as they operate in human relations… Accordingly, we briefly review matriarchal society which essentially predates the contemporary patriarchal system that we are familiar with. It is generally known that ancient societies in Africa and in other regions there were matriarchal societies. In this context, we observe that the Queen of Sheba represents the last matriarchy in Ethiopia, (Axum Empire), before the empire became patriarchal by way of the Queens son, Menelik I (son of King Solomon), first emperor of Ethiopia in 1000 BC.

The fundamental difference between the vertical (patriarchal) as compared to the horizontal (matriarchal) paradigm is the hierarchy which is associated with the vertical paradigm, which is intrinsically unequal in its operation… On the contrary, the horizontal paradigm is intrinsically equal because there is no structured hierarchy, as human relations tend to be based on practical necessity. However, the general public is not oriented toward viewing phenomena in horizontal terms, particularly in the context of human relations. Higher and lower, superior and inferior, important and insignificant, master and slave etc., are examples of the terms by which the popular imagination tends to think and conceptualize in human relation terms. The relationship between men and women, the patriarchal vertical paradigm is the conventional model and motif that has endured over the millennia. Specifically, the marriage between a man and a woman is generally considered a sacrament in the religions of Abraham in particular, and patriarchal marriage is a secular phenomenon as well, and is enshrined in civil codes and standards. We explore patriarchal society in the framework of the religions of Abraham from a theological perspective in the third book of the trilogy entitled “THE TABOT.” The “Tabot” is an Ethiopian word that means “Ark of the Covenant, a Mosaic relic that links Judaism with Christianity. We dedicate the remainder of this work to another enduring concept that is a perplexing conundrum that some argue is a congenital disease that ultimately handicaps the potential of the America idea. We are referencing the hierarchal vertical paradigm associated with the “race” idea.

The hierarchal vertical relationship that distinguishes the “races” is a global phenomenon, but it is a comparatively recent concept as race based distinctions did not exist in the ancient world, from the Sumerian to the Roman Empire. The modern concept of race occurred parallel with the Protestant Reformation during the 16th century in the context of the “age of reason” and “age of discovery” etc. Advances in the material sciences and the authority associated with empiricism formulated a quantum leap in scholarship and intellectual curiosity and speculation, during this dynamic period. In this context, the idea of race as differentiating human beings was a “bright idea” in the framework of expanding the empires of the European Christian monarchs in their effort to civilize the heathens. Hence, the “Negro” was born and a theoretical and practical social construct became structured, systemic and institutionalized.

Scholarship, academics, literature, and text books substantiated and sustained the pseudo science of the 1600s, and currently, race based distinctions and their relative hierarchal relationship is a global phenomenon. In the United States of America, electoral politics, economic and social systems, education curriculum and many of the structures and institutions are formulated around the race hierarchal paradigm. Regarding the “Negro” race, we would be remiss not to observe that the controversy associated with the enslavement of Africans threatened to destroy the fledgling “America” experiment, by way of the civil war pitting north against south. Although there is a popular historical narrative that argues that the civil war was based on “States rights” and against federalism, on the part of the south; there is a counter persuasive argument that “states rights” was in fact a pro-slavery euphemism. The issue of slavery was in fact an impetus for the civil war, and emancipation of enslaved Africans was an outcome of the civil war.

While the popular historical narrative asserts that the Union (north) won the civil war, a compelling argument can be made that the north won the decisive battled that ended the war. On the other hand the Confederacy (south) won the political war on the ground. This argument is salient in view of the fact that the “great compromise” of 1876 that resulted in the Republican Party candidate for the president with the caveat that he, President Rutherford Hayes to recall the federal troops that protected the civil rights of the recently freed African Americans. The “great compromise” ended the brief period of Reconstruction which facilitated the establishment of Jim Crow laws, Black Codes, voting prohibitions, lynching’s and wanton terrorism. These egregious acts crimes and barbarity continued against the segregated African American community until the advent of the modern civil rights movement. During the brief decade embodying the period of Reconstruction black Americans achieved substantial success in the political and economic realms that remain unprecedented

The modern civil rights movement of the 1960s followed up with substantial success to address the state of black America under Jim Crow, and segregation after the demise of Reconstruction in the 19th century. The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 respectively, among other statutory, social and political advances were touted as measures that would ameliorate much of the bigotry, discrimination and racism against the black community. Nevertheless, structured, institutional and systematic discrimination based on race remains percolating in America, while much of the political and social advances had been rolled-back or effectively nullified.

Race in general and black folk in particular are typically perceived as the 800 pound gorilla in the room… Similarly there often tends to be a subtext and politically correct narrative that awkwardly accommodates the presence of African Americans, yet a glass ceiling or social undercurrent is omnipresent. In the early 19th century Dr. W. E. B. Dubois raised the specter that race was the central issue in America. In 1968 the Kerner Commission Report authorized by President Lyndon b. Johnson, concluded that America was comprised of two societies, on white and the other black, and the report offered recommendations. In addition, 21st century science has spoken on the subject of race with great authority and without equivocation.

Recently scientific evidence published in magazines and produced on TV programming air conclusive evidence that there is no biological basis to the concept of race, and asserted that all humans living on the planet today have a common ancestor who lived millennia ago in Eastern Africa. Therefore, the human race can trace their ancestry to the same woman. These unequivocal findings utterly debunk and discredit the popular socio-political narrative relative to race and the contrived hierarchal significance, which has a color ranking in the popular imagination. But despite the scientific truth that establishes all human beings as one race, the respective stakeholders and role players managing the various structures, institutions and systems, apparently didn’t get the memo… Hence, the conventional race hierarchal paradigm continues to articulate the popular narrative. And interestingly enough, the need for a comprehensive and meaningful conversation on race continues to be a refrain of the politically correct.

Circumlocution and obfuscation characterizes the issue of race and the various iterations of the “race conversation” in particular. Unfortunately, many among the sincere and innocent are animated by this sophisticated and sublime deception calling for a conversation to address the “race problem” in America. No conversation about race is adequate unless it begins with the scientific fact that there is only one race of human beings on the face of the earth and as one human community we need to consider cutting our loses and stop looking at each other based on a fallacious racial hierarchy. If the race conversation is not based on the scientific fact that the human family than where should it begin? If the human race is comprised of one family than personal relationships should be based on a horizontal, not a vertical hierarchal paradigm…

It is noteworthy that is was theology, and the religions of Abraham that posited human beings are one family who ascended from Adam and Eve. This popular biblical idea of human beings comprising one family was until recently, at odds with the conventional scientific narrative, and academic scholarship about various races of mankind, and their relationship to each other. In addition to “race,” patriarchal society in general applies a hierarchal vertical paradigm, which positions Adam as superior to Eve. There are religious patriarchal societies and there are secular patriarchal societies, but the vertical hierarchal paradigm remains the same. In the United States both religious and secular society confirmed the vertical paradigm undergirded with religious on one hand a secular laws on the other with the male superiority motif. America was founded and established in the framework of the “Protestant ethic” relative to Christianity. The Protestant branch of Christianity established the American form of secular government with the provision of a separation between church and state; nevertheless, the country is predominantly Judeo-Christian.

The “America” experiment was and remains a unique phenomenon in comparison to all previous nation states by way of the separation between church and state. All previous European nation states were generally Christian monarchs at the base, vis-à-vis, the Roman Catholic Church, and / or a precarious marriage between the Catholic Church and Christian Monarch. Hence, it was the Protestant Reformation movement and the Puritans component particularly, who advanced the concept of separation of church and state. But the separation between church and state was not the only distinguishingly unique feature associated with the establishment of the United States of America.

Dynamic advances occurred in science and scholarship as well as from the massive wealth that accrued to colonial European due to the free labor of enslaved Africans, accompanied the Protestant movement. World events conspired that ultimately shifted the balance of international trade, commercial and economic development in favor of Western Europe. Literature, academic pursuits, intellectual curiosity and the printing press particularly, documented and advanced ideas, conventions and the popular narrative, promoting and marketing European culture to the world. The advent of the “Negro” race occurred during this period and as an acknowledge beast of burden, the “Negro” was justifiably the property of white man, and the object of free slave labor in perpetuity. Scholarship and science laboriously documented and illustrated the inferiority of the “black race” (African), and the vertical hierarchy was firmly codified with the white race on top, with relative positioning of the other races, with the black race pulling up the rear.

In addition to science and scholarship extrapolating in all spheres on the efficacy of the race paradigm, the black race was ultimately calculated and quantified as being less than a human being. Thus the Constitution of the United States posits that a black person amounted to 3/5th of a person. With the inferiority of the black “race” being enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, the argument that black folk are born to be slaves justified the proliferating plantation system in the New World. While some argue that subsequent Amendments to the Constitution have nullified the 3/5th Clause, it remains an albatross, and casts a profound shadow over America… Moreover, there mental and psychological pathologies remain in some cases among black and whites, but perhaps more pernicious is the thinking habits that have developed over the centuries. The vertical hierarchal race paradigm remains as crystalized consciousness that automatically perceives and thinks in race based terms.

Four hundred years hence, a critical mass of white people in the United States and colonial Europe became recalcitrant and in some cases activists and militants, acting with blacks on behalf of the anti-slavery movement. The collective efforts of black and white people successfully petitioned their governments and slavery was abolished in America (1865), the British colonies (1834) and the Danish West Indies (1848), for example. But, while physical bondage was outlawed, economic bondage remained albeit voluntary. A compelling argument can be made that voluntary slavery remains because of the mental slavery that generally pervades the black community.

Accordingly, the mental slavery component is sublime and sophisticated and it reinforces the conventional vertical hierarchal paradigm which accompanies race theoretical and social construct dominating the public imagination. The post slavery struggles within the black community is focused on mental emancipation which cuts across all aspects of society. It is worthy of note that the Roman Catholics and Protestants can be seen on both sides of the slavery question. During the 19th and 20th centuries the Christian Church played a consequential role in the anti-slavery movement and the civil rights movement respectively, on behalf of advancing black Americans socially and politically.

On the other hand the Christian Church (Catholic and Protestant) institution was generally complicit with the slavery and plantation system, by way of cooperation with secular colonial governments, as well as direct supportive functions. In this regard we would be remiss not to observe a sublime collusion between scholars and social scientists and Christian Church authorizes who embraced the “Negro race” inferiority theoretical and social construct in the framework of popular theology. Beginning with the appropriation of Judeo-Christianity by Emperor Constantine, establishing the Roman Catholic Church, the imagery and iconography personified European figures primarily, and over the past 1900 years Christianity became popularly perceived as a white man’s religion.

Both “race” and patriarchal society operate based on a vertical hierarchal paradigm which is pernicious and insidious in its own right. The vertical hierarchal paradigm is intrinsically unequal and in the context of human relations the correlating information and ideas that underpin the paradigm must be sound and unequivocal to maintain order. On the other hand, order in the framework of a vertical hierarchal paradigm will inevitably deteriorate if the scholarship and concept is undermined by authoritative ideas and information. Hence, the truth in terms of the objective historical facts may be perceived by some as dangerous…