Posted on 07/11/2016 7:27:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
As America stands at the precipice of deadly, coast-to-coast, race wars, this is not the time to mince words. I would rather speak the truth in love, even if it means offending some, than avoid confrontation out of fear of offense. In return, I expect others to be just as candid with me.
I also recognize that, if racial tensions escalate in our nation and more blood is shed, the ones who are likely to suffer the most (and perhaps the longest) are Black Americans. And so, I write this column because I do believe that Black Lives Matter.
Prof. George Yancey, himself an African American, has also urged for open, candid conversations, writing, “Maybe now with people on all sides of the political and racial arguments feeling such pain, we can begin taking the necessary steps to move towards real racial reconciliation.”
It is in that spirit that I write this column, fully aware that I’m not addressing the concerns of Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, or other minorities in our midst, but that is the nature of this article. I trust all readers will understand.
Although I am a White American (more specifically, a White male, identifying more specifically as a Jewish believer in Jesus), I’m not speaking of “us” and “them” in this column. Rather, I’m addressing all of us together, letting the chips fall where they may.
Shall we proceed?
1) White Americans sometimes do not see racism when it is there; Black Americans sometimes see racism when it is not there. If we will take the time to hear one another out, filling in each other’s blind spots, we can move from perception to reality.
2) There is a real reason for Black frustration and anger. When Whites minimize the pain of Blacks or, worse still, claim that they are just being pawns of the media or political leaders, they deeply insult their Black brothers and sisters. Most Whites really do not understand what it is like to grow up as a minority culture, and they cannot relate to the historic suffering of Blacks in America, a history which is not as far in the distant past we would all like it to be.
3) All Black lives matters, not just the lives of Blacks who die at the hands of White cops. White critics have rightly asked, “Where are the rallies and protests when a three-year-old Black child dies from random, inner-city gun fire? And what about the disproportionate number of Black babies killed in the womb, not to mention Blacks killed by other Blacks?” A Black man named Richard wrote on Facebook, “We cannot pick and choose when we decide to make a stand. We're either all in (we must address black on black crime in addition to the murder of innocent blacks) or we're not in at all. We can't let these race baiting politicians further divide us; if you haven't noticed they want a race war. We must stand up and unite, both black and white and whatever other ethnicity and re-claim our freedom.”
4) All rhetoric that leads to violence, let alone that calls for violence, must be categorically renounced and repudiated. Not a few leaders in the Black Lives Matter movement need to do some serious soul searching in light of the intentional, targeted shooting of cops in several states this past week. (Yancey characterizes Black Lives Matter as “a group that pushes its own racialized agenda and expects compliance instead of communication.”) Their irresponsible rhetoric can easily lead to bloodshed.
5) Everyone must work together to address injustice and inequality wherever it raises its head, be it in the courts or on the streets. Blacks would be greatly encouraged if they saw their White colleagues standing up for their cause rather than always taking a defensive posture. Do Whites automatically give the benefit of the doubt to other Whites, assuming Black claims of injustice are illegitimate?
6) It is social suicide to launch a war against our law enforcement agents. The police do a good, important, often thankless, frequently life-threatening job, and without their sacrificial service, our nation would descend into chaos. The few bad cops who are out there are the exception to the rule (and they must be held accountable). Law and order is a good thing, not a bad thing, and as one black caller to my radio show noted (he was a career cop), when the bullets started flying in Dallas last week, the crowds ran from the shots; the police ran towards them to try to take out the killer(s).
7) It is important today to state that All Lives Matter. I understand that if a black man is bleeding to death on the side of the road, having been shot without cause by an irresponsible White cop, it is insulting to say, “Yes, he’s dying, but let’s remember that All Lives Matter.” But when White policemen lay dying in the streets it is insensitive not to say All Lives Matter.
8) There is no comparison between a policeman overreacting and killing someone and another person intentionally targeting policemen for death. I do not believe for a second that white cops get up in the morning and say to themselves, “I hope I can kill a black person today!” Sadly, a black man decided last week that he would murder as many cops as he could. There’s no true comparison between the two, whatever the skin color of the victims or perpetrators. An actual parallel to the evil the black Michael Xavier Johnson reportedly committed in Dallas on Thursday is the mass murder last summer that the white Dylann Storm Roof confessed to committing at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. In each case, an apparently evil, twisted, racist young man targeted innocent people of another race and murdered them in a cold, deliberate, premeditated fashion.
9) The elephant in the room is the breakdown of the Black American family. This was stressed to me by another black caller to my show. The disastrous, generational effects of fatherlessness are well-documented, and with illegitimacy in Black America at an almost unimaginable high of 74 percent, this is not simply a Black crisis; it is a national crisis. We got into this situation together, and we can only get out of it together.
10) There is far more that unites than divides us. We are, after all, one race, with each of us equally created in God’s image and equally loved by our Creator. And all of us as Americans have the same right to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is the devil who wants to divide and destroy us and the Lord who wants to unite and strengthen us. Let us work with the Lord, not against Him.
Speaking now as a White American to my Black American brothers and sisters, I say from the heart: America cannot be great unless you are thriving, and my own life will not be full if your lives are not full.
I noticed also that it is the lighter-skinned blacks that tend to be the most militant. As if they feel like they aren’t accepted by neither blacks nor whites, and they want to be accepted by blacks, so they tend to say the most outrageous things. Just look at Jeremiah Wright, his skin color is whiter than a lot of whites.
And this in turn is the result of the fall of mankind, a voluntary communal act of all souls if the biblical grammar is correct. “WE sinned” in Adam. This would look something like what we call ESP today, but much more powerful, just as an aside. I go to this trouble to point out the fact that we truly don’t have a “bad luck and celestial monster God” problem — Christianity and its warnings about hell are often viewed in this light — but a “we screwed up and did the wrong thing” problem.
I think we worry too much about what 0, hillary and the DOJ have created in this country when we have powerful and revealing ‘under sight’ hearings going on in Congress.
Issa was on Faux News this morning declaring HIS hearing will be very effective, Oh... and pimping his book.
BUMP!!!
Well intentioned nonsense.
It is election time. The Dems must energize their base. Break out the Confederate flag controversies, hype police attacks against blacks, blame a biased justice system, demonize whites, and play on white guilt. This is the tried and true formula for the Dems to win elections.
We would do well to identify specific fallacies. This has become a panning contest.
I expect it to get worse before it gets better. They are going to use the meme that Trump is causing the hate, causes all this instability. Sociological Blackmail, you give us what we want or we will continue to hate. Same logic as an abusive parent says to the social worker..if he\she would just listen I wouldn't have to be so mean. Bottom line is we are winning, they know it. Vote fraud in Philly and Chicago are not going to overcome the massive landslide about to happen. That infuriates them. God has not given up on this country. See Lot and Sodom\Gomorra
We are winning, they know it.
Over-polarization may not be a win for the Dems this time around, however, because it makes Donald Trump look more and more reasonable. Having met up with a BLM protest late last week (though it was not as unruly as some) I chuckled quietly to myself... keep it up folks, you are one of the best advertisements for Donald Trump I’ve seen.
There has long been an undercurrent of ad hominem towards people whose philosophy we don’t agree with.
This is what the evil devil (of literal hell) wants.
Number 9, number 9, number 9...
[God made it so easy by providing ONE way, The Way, His Son.]
I agree one hundred percent although I know nothing about His Plan, perhaps He is allowing this to occur to activate our population into action.
I have no crystal ball, but I do have hunches, and a hunch is that some combination of Donald Trump and faith revival is on the horizon. It will need both. Trump alone won’t be able to hack all the hate.
“And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.” -Luke 17:26
Which is a pretty broad time schedule. Jesus sparks controversy because He is about love (but not about blind excusing) and those who are about hate want Him out of the picture.
Just another bit player in the DC Kabuki Theater.
As long as he recites his lines properly, the rewards will be bountiful.
While the rest of us scramble to be in a good position to grab for the table scraps...
I flat out reject this one way bogus notion that only whites are 'racist'. In addition 'race relations' is not only whites responsibility.
Agreed. It is the last resort when an idealogue loses to logic and reason in an argument.
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