In 2016 I came across a video (~4 min) of a man who went into a neighborhood with a “Black lives matter” sign, asking people (who were mostly white) if they supported it.
Most of the people said yeah, and added that “all lives matter”. He then went into a different neighborhood which was mostly Black, and held up an “All lives matter” sign, and proceeded to repeat the phrase as people passed by. From what was included in the video, several people got very angry with him, cursed at him, knocked the sign out of his hands, or just chased him away. I remember watching this and (ignorantly) marveling at the audacity of the people who got so angry at him for merely holding up a sign. I honestly did not understand why, and my initial reaction was to create a negative judgement in my head against the African Americans who became angry about this man’s sign. But I decided to do a little research; I think I partly suspected that there must be a logical reason for this disparity in behavior. It didn’t take me very long to come up with the answer which provided me with a powerful explanation. I will say that prior to even doing any research, my initial thoughts on the phrase aligned with the provocateur’s: why single out a particular race at all? Isn’t it true that all lives are equally important, and therefore equally matter? But in my short time of research, I learned that the purpose of BLM wasn’t to elevate Black lives above others but to call attention to the idea that society was not treating them as equally valuable as others. In other words, in the history of our country, Black lives haven’t mattered as much as other lives, which is fundamentally at odds with the idea of America. This is evidenced in multiple ways, from incarceration rates to deaths at the hands of police. This was a compelling notion to me, and one that I hadn’t before considered at all prior to reading that.
A couple of years afterwards, I had 2 separate conversations at my church with 1 or 2 older white gentlemen. The particular phrase BLM happened to come up, and they both had wondered out loud why it wasn’t said that “All lives matter”, and seemed genuinely confused (and ashamedly miffed by it). I was able to inform them of what I had learned regarding what the phrase actually signified – they seemed interested by what I had said and it seemed to be received as a rather novel thought. I’m embarrassed to say, though, that my level of knowledge stagnated there for several years, until the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020. There’s no reason that it should have taken the death of another human being to get me or any other person to realize that we have a race issue in this country. I have no excuse that it took me until I was nearly 40 years old to recognize my own callous indifference to this issue, to recognize that racism isn’t just an overt commision of slurs or actions, but something which is systemic and part of the fabric of our culture.
During the summer of 2020, I came across an article that pointed out some good resources for people learning about racism, and it helped me to make sense of the idea of ‘privilege’. I came across an article which talked about the history of lynching in our country; the number of people who have been murdered by them, and the lack of any consequences for those who committed the murders. I learned here that these lynchings occurred throughout history and well into the 20th century. I am ashamed that I did not know these things, or if I had ever learned them, that I had forgotten them. The depth of depravity that allowed these things to happen is really rather unbelievable, as is the fact they happened for so long without intervention. It is also disturbing, and I think very significant, that this part of history wasn’t a part of the makeup of my world view or the framework through which I viewed race; I wonder for other white people if this is similar; if so, it could help to explain how they also act with such indifference with regard to these issues. I know that for me personally, even a basic knowledge of this history was very impactful, and really helped to change my mind in how I thought about the topic. I wonder how top of mind these things are for other white people, and if there are those who share an ignorance similar to mine. I found that when I started to think about what could cause a group of people to murder someone for minor/invented offenses, it caused me to really see not only the level of hatred and fear in those people, but to realize that that hatred isn’t something that can just disappear; it was woven deeply into the fabric of that culture, and it wasn’t something that would diappear on its own over time. It was also easier to see that there were and continue to be echoes of that mindset in the subsequent generations, but manifesting differently. I recently read a quote that said “Racism doesn’t go away, it just adapts to the times”. And so once I was able to see the culture from which it originated, I found it much easier to see its descendant forms which are present in today’s society.
In the latter part of 2020, after watching “Hidden Figures”, a question came to me – where was the church during the 1960’s? And moving backward through time, what was the church doing and saying about segregation, lynching, racial covenants in real estate? My (admittedly ignorant) mental model for most of my life was that christians were obviously opposed to slavery and racism, and were obviously part of the northern army in the civil war, fighting for equality. But interestingly, some of the facts that I had recently learned didn’t seem to want to fit into that narrative. If there was all this injustice occurring in the United States for basically its entire history, what were the Christians doing? The evangelicals that I had known for my entire life have never seemed the quiet type when there was an issue which upset them, and they seemed pretty effective at coming together to create some real impediments for those with whom they happen to disagree. So, how did the history of lynchings, segregation, et. al. fit in with a rather vocal contingent of Christians in the US? More so, a common trope within the church is a yearning for the good old days, when more people went to church, were Christians, etc. The more I thought about this, the more dissonant the two narratives became. If in the past the nation was supposedly more christian, why was it that there was not more outrage about the injustices done to African Americans? And why did it seem that the nation was more overtly racist in the past if that really was the location of the ‘good old days’?
Initial searches online for “what were christians saying to oppose segregation and racism in america” turned up some disturbing results, with an article indicating that in general, northern christians were very cool to the idea of helping with civil rights and those in the south were quite outspoken against it. I found this shocking; the idea that christians would justify inaction, and often by saying that “the church shouldn’t be involved in politics” — shocking that they could have the audacity to try to say that injustice and maltreatment falls merely under “politics”. Even though the idea that some southerners would be more opposed to civil rights doesn’t come as much of a surprise, I still found it shocking that any christian could find a reason to justify such an attitude.
I recall a conversation I had with my wife over the summer of 2020, after beginning to become more acquainted with the subject of race in America. I had read some articles where authors called out certain behaviors or thoughts as racist, and I remember saying that I felt this was a very strong label. I said that there were certainly things that I now recognized in myself and others which I would feel more comfortable classifying as “racially insensitive” rather than racist. I had recently begun to notice the sting of being labeled a racist through my readings, and felt that saying this to someone who was white who wasn’t explicitly using racial epithets might have the effect of making them angry and causing them to disengage from conversation. I still felt that a racist was only someone who actively did things against another race or used racial epithets. I had a hard time saying, as I heard someone say, that I had to remove from my vocabulary “I’m not a racist”. After reading several books on the subject, my mind had changed – I had been and was a racist, and had participated in racist systems. Not only that, but I had been completely oblivious to the unjust suffering of others, and had held racist opinions about them, because I was too lazy to be bothered to do even the tiniest bit of research. It was far more comfortable and easy to just go with my own assumptions, and vilify anyone who would dare challenge the “way things were” with regard to voting rights, incarceration rates, violence rates, poverty levels, school districts. It’s far more comfortable to blame others for their plights, offer some platitude about personal responsibility, and feel good about myself and my position than it is to question whether the system could possibly be unfair. Slowly, I started to realize that you can be racist without actively saying racial epithets or slurs. You do this by promoting or actively protecting societal structures which reinforce stereotypes or injustice against minorities.
I learned that when white people chafe against things like “take a knee movement”, BLM, removing racist depictions of minorities from products, promoting equity in admissions to colleges or hiring practices, they are being racist. Not knowingly so, but racist in that you are promoting and protecting ideas which antagonize those of minority communities. To say the same thing in a way which I would expect that Christians should understand and care about – Christians who exhibit these behaviors are not acting out of love for their neighbors of minority communities. I think that is what made it so hard for me to realize initially; racism always seemed to me as something which would be intentional, premeditated, and would exist within the self-awareness of the individual performing the aggression. I would never have imagined that you could be racist by being passive. I shouldn’t have been surprised by this; it’s a common idea in Christianity, that doing nothing can be just as bad as actually doing something. My ignorance and refusal to investigate the things which are taboo to speak about in Chrstian circles can’t be justified. But what I learned is that my ignorant participation in those things was not the result of some natural or self evident line of thought; it stemmed from cultural conditioning that had happened to me over the course of my whole life, and of which I was not even remotely aware.
I finally learned that 1) You can be racist without knowing it, 2) This doesn’t obviate my culpability for being racist. Thankfully, it started becoming apparent that there was an elephant in the room – an elephant that good white people are not supposed to talk about. I also found it rather amazing that white people have an uncanny ability to come up with the same excuses or grievances to justify this racism without being taught them explicitly. I remember when I would try to think through the issue of confederate statues being removed, I assumed that these were just for the purpose of history, and that taking them down had a revisionist feel – like we were trying to rewrite history by getting rid of content that some people found objectionable. I had no idea that most of them had been put up well after the war in conjunction with the Jim Crow era, and were funded by Daughters of the Confederacy among others, which have a history of white supremacy. I also didn’t know that their purpose was one of rebellion to the north and intimidation of emancipated people, and done within the historical context of the southern communities making Black people’s lives a living hell in any way possible. Absent from consideration was, significantly, a lack of knowledge of how egregiously slaves were treated, and how it was sanctioned by the church. What was lacking was my understanding of the proper context, which prevented me from actually understanding how much of an affront those statues are to African Americans. I confess not being very interested in history growing up, which can in part explain my ignorance. But another aspect which comes into play is that an accurate treatment of the subject was missing – both from the school books and from my learning environment. My point being that somehow, my justification for the statues aligned with other white people, and seemingly without agreeing beforehand how we were going to think or talk about it. This is true in all the following examples – we have a knack for collectively “inventing” the same justifications, minimizations, and distractions without having been taught them. I believe that it comes from a posture of defensiveness, in which we internalize blame for all these social ailments, and we react to protect ourselves from culpability for them. Even if we don’t consciously think we’ve done anything wrong, we correctly sense that this strikes at our identity in whiteness. For me, this is a powerful indicator of something systemic, something built into culture that was absorbed into my identity, and then used to help prop up and facilitate injustice against others – as long as I agree to be complicit in it. And to be complicit in it, all I have to do is pretend everything is fine, and not look directly at the elephant in the room, and especially not to talk about it. I also need to continue to toe the line when other people ask about the elephant. When Black Lives Matters comes up, I should direct focus to the anarchy of riots, away from peaceful protests, and especially away from “the why” of the protests. I should object and say that we should be saying “All lives matter” as this is a great way to distract. It also has the benefit of setting us up for recriminations of the form “you think that black lives are more important than other lives”, etc. When police brutality and excessive use of force comes up, focus on the criminality of the individual, and frame the incident as a one off. The best way to cast an incident as a one off is to say that a particular police officer was a bad apple. Then focus on how many good police there are. This is very effective in preventing the questions about what aspects of the institution itself may have problems. Efforts at obscuring the issue at hand can also be helped by casting activists’ solutions to injustice in caricature form, i.e., accusing people of wanting to remove all police officers and that they naively believe that society is inherently good and therefore not in need of the police. Another popular diversion (in the vein of whataboutism) is to ask about black on black violence, and why there aren’t any protests about that. Even though the question is entirely insensitive and irrelevant, it’s a really great way to divert attention away from the elephant.
When football players take a knee during the national anthem, we need to complain that they are disrespecting the flag, no matter that they are protesting that the values of the flag are not being honored. Or we can accuse that they are protesting against veterans, the military, that they hate our country etc. Those will all work, so long as we distract from the elephant – the elephant which is the notion that there are disproportionate numbers of black people who are killed and mistreated by the police, and society continually turns a blind eye to it.
I realize that for many white people, especially white christians, there will be pretty strong feelings of offense, and possibly anger at what I’ve written. I’ve said that white christians, of all people, should really be at the forefront of fighting for racial justice, but in my opinion, are rather on the opposite side, denying systemic racism exists as well as their participation in that system. Before you write off my thoughts on the subject completely, please consider these closing questions:
If I actually was a racist, would I want to know?
Is it possible that some of the supposed injustices against African Americans are actually true?
What harm could come from investing 5 – 10 minutes of objective research on 1 or more of these topics?
How comfortable would you feel bringing up one of the topics discussed in this post during an adult Sunday school class? Why or why not?
Resources
Merely Xtian 
BLM is nothing more than a racist movement. Every Life Matters!
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I’d encourage you to prayerfully think about what I’ve written in the post, and do some reading from the lives and experiences of those in the African American community. I know that it stings to hear you may have participated in a racist system, and even said racist things unintentionally; as a white male myself, this is really, really hard to sit with. You may not have ever harmed others by committing overtly racist acts, and may think that this means you are innocent; but as I’ve outlined above, you can do harm even by sitting idly by. But Godly sorrow with repentance will be bring comfort to you eventually, I pray.
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You are an unmitigated fool. I could go into detail but you’re so deep into your indoctrinated bullshit, you would need Christ himself to make you see the truth. Even then you’ll doubt him
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Well actually, I made the “mistake” of looking into other perspectives, and while doing so I realized I needed to change my mind. My previous perspective was one which I held for the majority of my life. Once I saw another point of view, I realized how impoverished my former one really was. I hope the same for you one day.
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I respectfully disagree with your argument that if I am white I am somehow inherently racist and that I benefited from “White Priveledge” I grew up in poverty from an abusive place and even lost a parent to suicide. Some privledge right??? Every individual life and background is unique and trying to group a class of people together when you have no knowledge of where a person came from, what they have gone through and what they have had to live with diminishes the oppression that person experienced which is itself an injustice. The problem with critical race theory among other woke beliefs is that they lump groups of people together when in fact a person’s individual actions should be judged as it displays the the content of their character. Jesus gave us two important commandments and its shameful what a large number of so called Christians did in support of slavery in America’s past by ignoring the command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Those individuals were wrong and clearly disobeying what Christ taught us. Genuine followers of Jesus opposed slavery recognizing that it violates the law of love and further dehumanizes another person made in the image of God. Sadly not enough spoke out to change history but it sinful man that is to blame not Christ. The religious leaders of Jesus day were overwhelmingly legalistic and hypocrites but just because a large majority of people are doing the same wrong thing does not mean that its OK to lump everyone into the same group as CRT does. Who justifies?, it is Christ who justifies. The few who were showing love toward their neighbor were the ones following the Lord.
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Thanks for reading and for commenting, it’s appreciated. I’m really sorry to hear about the difficult circumstances that you had to endure, that truly sounds painful. I want to clarify what I mean when I say privilege – I mean it in the cultural sense of expectations and assumptions that I, as white male, am privy to. It isn’t meant to imply that all white people are rich, have a big house with land, nice cars or an amazing salary – as you’ve rightly noted, this would be seen as nonsense if it was meant to apply to all white people, since not all white people have those things. But if go into a store of some sort, I have an expectation or assumption that the workers there will probably not suspect me of trying to shoplift. I can probably expect not to be followed around or to draw very much unwanted attention to myself. This assumption is rather invisible, and easy to miss or take for granted – as a white person in our society. This would be an example of the privilege that I was trying to refer to. It is invisible, and I carry it with me whether or not I know it or want it. This is one example – there are so many others but I’ll leave that to the reader to discover – the key point though, is that not everyone gets this and other privileges. The fact that they don’t get them raises the question of where this privilege is coming from. The answer which, in my opinion, fits best is that it comes from cultural attitudes, assumptions, and behaviors that are ingrained in our society in such a way that those of us who aren’t negatively affected by it aren’t even aware they’re there. It just feels “normal” or “right”. This immediately causes two problems:
1) The privilege feels right/normal to white people
2) When privilege is pointed out, white people will often feel resentful and come up with excuses for why things are currently right (or why they actually are entitled to whatever privilege)
Regarding your statements on the Christians in the past not being Christians – I think they would disagree with you. Unfortunately, this will feel very uncomfortable, but it is absolutely vital not to dismiss these people outright. I think if you can understand how Christians could hold such a hypocritical belief but still sincerely practice their Christianity then you make enormous gains in your understanding of where we are today. We cannot, and must not dismiss that people like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, the people of the SBC, etc were not sincerely practicing and devout Christians who truly thought they had scriptural justification for their beliefs. (In the same way that we can’t just write off every Southerner who was a slaveholder or enabler of that society as ‘not a Christian’. This is called the ‘no true scotsman’ fallacy). They would not have agreed what they were doing was “clearly wrong” or disobeying the greatest and 2nd greatest commandments. I think it is informative to learn about the various ways in which they went about justifying themselves. It is in seeing this that we can learn lessons for today – that the same spirit that allowed Christians to support slavery and lynchings is the same one that today casts suspicion on CRT, the ideas behind affirmative action, and any attempts to change our language and society to make it so that all may experience the privilege that is often only available to white people.
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Steel Marks: You are absolutely correct! This “mere X” is the typo of “believer” that the BLM operatives are after. They have created a clever name for their organization. They can demand anything (and do) and no one dares to speak against them, or risk being labeled a “racist.” However, I would rather be called a racist (by Marxist sheep in anti-racist clothing) than to be a DUPE for these monsters who even kill black cops and get away with it. (They murder blacks who are not on their plantation, and dare to speak out against BLM and similar Marxist, socialist, or anti-capitalist organizations.) Intelligent and informed blacks (like Larry Elder, and Horace Cooper, and Thomas Sowell, et al, are AGAINST BLM.
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Thanks for reading my post and for your comments! It sounds like you feel very strongly about this topic – it also sounds like you are a fellow believer as well. I think in the interest of dialogue it would be helpful to hear your thoughts, as a Christian, regarding some specific points that I raised in the post. Your above comment doesn’t interact with any of the things I mentioned that Christians should consider nor does it make any specific claims to show where my thinking may be incorrect.
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Why is it that the murders of black men and women are mostly committed by black men ? Hasn’t the black community heard the slogan “Black Lives Matter” ? When a black man kills another black man, whose life mattered ? The answer is they both do. When a black man kills a white man, whose life mattered ? The answer is they both do. When a white man kills a black man, whose life mattered ? They both do. But the national news will never cover all the black-on-black murders every day, but when a white man kills a black man, especially if that white man happens to be in law enforcement, that gets the headline and makes the money for news agencies. A black thug rubbing out another black thug ? Who cares. BLM doesn’t. Black people commit most of the violent crime in the largest American cities, at least those east of the Mississippi. Black teens, juveniles, children get hold of stolen guns and commit crimes like murder, carjacking, and robbery far more than any other race and that is why they are in prisons and jails. No one forced them to pull the trigger. Don’t blame it on the white man. Whites get murdered too by law enforcement and family members. Whites are more likely to behave when being questioned or stopped by police. Blacks are more likely to resist, speed away in a stolen car, or/and be under the influence under these situations which increases the likelihood that they will die. If you look at the statistics in cities like St. Louis, Memphis, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, and Cincinnati you will see they have a high number of black-on-black homicides disproportionate to the share of the population. No other race is to blame. Whites don’t blame any other race for a lack of income, education, or services. The BLM movement is putting the blame on someone else. What they need to do is look in the mirror. If they truly want to be respected and not feared – they should improve themselves by getting help. Drop the gun, drugs, and attitude and have respect for all races. All Lives Matter. Rant over
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Hi, thanks for reading my post, and for your questions! I earnestly encourage you to research answers to those questions you’ve posed – and especially answers from those with whom you may initially disagree. Why? Hearing the thoughts of others who think differently from us forces us to recognize that the positions they hold are far more complicated than we might read in a news article or opinion piece; in short, it helps us realize that the positions we may ridicule at the outset actually have rational thought behind them, and maybe can’t be dismissed as easily. Also, I’ve found that researching these things independently gives one the chance to ponder and reflect more on the questions and take it in a little more slowly. A great book, by a Christian author, is “The Color of Compromise” by Jemar Tisby. Get this book, if for no other reason than to hear an honest perspective on many, if not all, of the points you raised above. I’m of course more than happy to help on any points I can, even if it is merely helping to point you in the right direction – please feel free to DM me on Twitter if I can help.
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jiminstl Excellent observation! The notion that cops are the “enemy” of the black man is completely false. How they get away with spinning those figures is shameful. Only the uninformed (and those unable to do even basic research are fooled!
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Any informing you can provide would be appreciated – what you’ve stated in your comment conveys your strong emotions, but not really any substance that can be tested against other ideas.
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When people say “All lives matter,” and “Blue lives matter,” they are attempting to call attention to the high crime rate of young male blacks, and request that they do something about that before they complain about the police. People are tired of being victimized by black males, of their relatives being victimized by black males, and of the tremendous burden, destruction, and costs to our country.
They go around saying “Black lives matter,” complaining that they get killed by police more often than whites, but they have more encounters with police, mainly because of their behavior. I believe they get pulled over in their cars more frequently. But if you take that away, they still give the police cause to question them. Accordingly, more bad behavior means more stops, and translates into more police killings. The statistical driver is not the police overall.
If they get angry when you say to them that “All lives matter,” it’s because they refuse, at any cost, to admit that they do anything wrong and could be a large part of the reason that they get different outcomes when dealing with the police, and society as a whole. Further, they refuse to admit that they endanger the police with their violent, defiant, criminal behavior and that “Blue lives matter,” too – just as much as their lives do.
They seem to treat law and order like a game. They like to see who can run the fastest, drive the fastest, or shoot the best – them or the police when they try to apprehend them. It’s a big game to them. They just have no respect for decent society.
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Actually, people who say “all lives matter” or “blue lives matter” are attempting to silence the message of Black Americans in a passively aggressive way. What you mention as the motivation for those statements sounds like it stems from a racist worldview. Sadly, the rest of your arguments stem from that same racist perspective. I hope that you can spend some time identifying the contours of what you believe about Black people, and work towards correcting it. It’s a process that you’ll need to commit to, but it’s important and necessary to do. It’s the least that we can do if we desire to be even partially decent human beings.
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I read your article and it helped me understand your point of view. So thank you very much for that. This is my response as a Christian. Jesus died for all of us because we are all horribly unjust. Equality comes from God who loves us ALL and created us with inalienable rights as well as responsibilities. Freedom comes from living in God’s presence and light, and recognizing His blood was shed to make us ALL heirs of the grace of HIS GIFT of eternal life. This life is boot camp… Character training… We are just passing through… So much of what is happening is just stone throwing. We have NO right to throw stones at all, as we ALL fall short of the “glory” (sinlessness) of God. Definitely we can ALL improve as well and there should be OPEN conversations NOT CENSORING, VIOLENCE and RETALIATORY SANCTIONS of any race at all!!! More wrongs don’t correct old wrongs!!! We are ALL SLAVES to SIN. Sin has NO favorites. Neither does God!!! Sin is an equal opportunity problem. It is anything that hurts God, others or ourselves. WE ALL have blind spots and biases. We have ALL hurt others and been hurt. History shows that every race has been enslaved at one time or another, in one way or another… Slavery can be a relative term… Everyone can see themselves as a slave/victim somehow.. Whether peasants, employees, poor, sick … even wealth can be a form of bondage. People in poorer countries feel sorry for wealthy Americans who don’t realize how sick and poor they are in what really matters! Sometimes to be poor can be a blessing. As I said before, more wrongs don’t undo past mistakes. We need open communication. Not dismissal of anyone’s speach, ideas, story or rights & privileges. We cannot level the ground by favoring one side or another. Jesus came to set us free, really free… if we listen and really learn… Jesus is the answer! The Word of God is God’s answer for ALL of us. It always works, IF we bother to really listen. GOD created all of us and the entire universe. He is infinitely wise and loves us more than we can imagine. He knows what we need more than we do. THE BIG IF is will we trust HIS WILL or our OWN.
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Thank you for reading, and for your comments. In the past, I’ve had many, if not all, of the same thoughts you expressed. For me personally, it came from a position of what I thought was good faith arguing and the belief that if something isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Bible, then I don’t have to consider it or pull it into my worldview. Unfortunately, it is ultimately a deflection maneuver which attempts to use the fact that since everyone is bad sometimes, no one has the right to call anyone out, which is not true. This is especially disappointing when Christians use it, as Christians should be leading by example in modeling what repentance looks like rather than trying to self-justify their continued inaction. Rather than modeling the Ninevite or Davidic reaction after being confronted with their sin, Christians are doubling down _after_ being told about it (which is the Pharisee model). For examples of this, note the various news stories about parent’s overreactions about CRT in schools (which isn’t really a thing), and, respectfully, your own comment which variously mentions “all falling short” and “all having biases and blind spots”, and the assertion that anyone who wants to rectify these grave injustices will do so by “using wrongs to correct old wrongs”. I realize this is hard, for as a white person, I do benefit from the various wrongs and injustices that have either been codified at certain times in law or even in our culture. As God’s image bearers, we have a responsibility to act as God’s representatives (images!) in this world. Turning a blind eye to injustice is wrong, and I would argue, pretending that it’s not happening is even worse. Most of the time, I believe Christians do this because of their entanglement with a particular political party in the United states which derives its political capital and continued prominence by cultivating scorn against those who are most oppressed in this world.
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Anytime you mention WWJD, cite scripture. If gives evidence and credibility. Just a little constructive criticism. When you have scripture to back up claims it is harder to argue against. I’m not supporting or opposing your view, just giving feedback.
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Keep stirring up that pot of separation. I know my worth, you do not. Just as I do not know your worth and I honestly don’t give a damn. Leave me the hell alone and I will do the same FOR you.
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Hey Roger, thanks for reading. For Christians, I think it’s required that if we see injustice, we call attention to it – ignoring it isn’t an option, and that’s true for just being a decent human being, which I think we can agree we both aspire to. I’m saddened that you feel calling attention to an issue is the same as stirring the pot, but speaking from personal experience with White privilege, I do understand the sentiment, but have learned that it is a misguided one.
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Biggest crock of nonsense I ever heard. The blacks today… they were never lynched. Never slaves. They actually enjoy more freedom than their white counterparts. Free Healthcare. Free housing. Free food. And thanks to the civil rights act, blacks get selected over equally talented whites for college sports because the government reimburses any institution that offers a colored person a scholarship. I was orphaned and thrown on the streets at age 16. I had several life choices to make. I decided to work my butt off and stay out of trouble. Fast-forward 20 years and I’m one of the wealthiest people in my home county. Bottom line is race isn’t an excuse to purposely fail.
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So thanks for commenting – I approved displaying your comment because I think it’s instructive for others to see how many of the comments on my site, despite being from different people, often sound almost the same. It’s the epitome of White privilege, baked into American culture, that always reaches for the same tools to defend itself from any perceived attack. While I welcome the interaction, I noticed that nothing you wrote actually addresses anything that I wrote. I believe and expect that you can do better. I think it would be beneficial for everyone who comes here if you addressed the things that are actually found in my post. Because what you wrote doesn’t sound like anything other than a repeat of what someone else has said. In fact, most of what you’ve said merely sounds like the propaganda that right wingers get fed from their various outlets. I think if you read what I wrote, or investigated to see if what your news sources are telling you actually lines up with the _actual_ things that liberals are saying you might think differently about some of these things. I invite you comment back, but please interact with the content of the post 😉
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Thank you for this. From the very bottom of my heart, thank you. I have and will continue to share this eloquent breakdown of the white/black/brown issue, with all of the defense mechanism arguments examined, explained, and exposed. From the alarming reactions I see on this site to my own upsetting interactions with angry, defensive, scared white people; it feels like not much progress has been made over these last 200 years. Clearly not enough. Even one voice, like yours, can make a difference. Thank you.
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Thank you for your kind words and for your help in hopefully making a difference.
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Great article. Highlights the hypocrisy and indifference. It’s time for a wakeup call. What is Christianity? What would Jesus do now.
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