Tag: racism

Silence Is Not an Option

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

SilenceI know I am not the only one that has continued to read and think about the death of George Floyd and the protests that continue to spread around our nation. Just about everyone has had something to say and you cannot spend any time online at all without encountering something related to Floyd’s death and /or the protests. But in the past 24 hours I have been intentionally seeking and reading what African Americans have to say about it all. I have been doing that not because I think they have a monopoly on offense at the actions of Derek Chauvin, because I do not. Nor have I been doing it because I think that African Americans somehow have a more valuable or more relevant perspective or insight on the tragedy of Floyd’s death. I do, however, recognize that many African Americans have a different perspective and different insight into the situation than I do, and considering them has value.

Herman Cain began his May 31 commentary with this statement:

Everyone who saw the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis is right to be incensed by it. It’s one of the worst and most obvious instances of police brutality we have ever witnessed as a nation.

I agree with Mr. Cain completely and I specifically appreciate his use of the word “everyone.” There is no way that anyone, regardless of skin color, could watch what happened to George Floyd and think it is possible for it to be justified or necessary–or that it should not result in the full punishment the law allows.

Also on May 31, Ben Carson’s Facebook post began with this: “The blatant callous murder of Mr. George Floyd is one of the most heartless acts of cruelty ever recorded.” Again, I agree.

Senator Kamala Harris, who is at the other end of the political spectrum from Cain and Carson, released a statement on May 29 that said that the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor are “the result of broader systematic racism that exists in our country.” Her statement concluded,

Police brutality is a matter of life and death for Black people in this country, and we have to be clear about the injustices within our criminal justice system and demand accountability to the communities law enforcement are sworn to protect and serve.

Do you notice a difference in what Cain and Carson said and what Harris said? Cain and Carson addressed the death of Georg Floyd as a terribly evil act without any reference to race. Harris made race and racism the foremost issue in her comments.

Oprah Winfrey posted a statement on Twitter on the same day that Harris released her statement. Winfrey pointed out what was going through her mind as she went through the motions of her day, “I think: he doesn’t get to do this.” She concluded her statement:

#GeorgeFloyd, we speak your name. But this time, we will not let your name be just a hashtag. Your spirit is lifted by the cries of all of us who call for justice in your name.

There was not a single mention of race or racism in her post. There was no mention of a Black community or any institutional racism. Instead, she used the words “all of us.” That is as broad and as inclusive as Herman Cain’s “everyone.”

On June 1, Dawn Staley, the women’s basketball coach at South Carolina, posted on The Players’ Tribune an editorial entitled “Black People Are Tired.” With a title like that, it is hard to interpret her us of the word “us” as meaning anything other than African Americans. And that is unfortunate, because I agree with much of what she has to say. Staley shared a very personal story about her mother having to leave South Carolina as a thirteen-year-old because of her grandmother’s concern that she might be lynched. Staley said that happened about sixty years ago. That is tragic and there is no excuse for it.

That’s why I both appreciate Staley’s post and dislike it. She says that Black people are angry. They should be. But all people should be angry. Being white does not give me a pass on being angry about George Floyd’s death or about the fear of Dawn Staley’s grandmother.

Staley goes on to write:

When you are privileged — when you are the privileged race, you don’t have to think about what we think about daily.

You just see the world through your own eyes. And it’s a lot different than it is through a black person’s eyes. A lot different. Say what you wanna say, but it’s a lot different.

I cannot dispute that. I have only ever been white and I will only ever be white. Accordingly, I can never experience life through a black person’s eyes and can never approach life with the experiences and history of a black person. And while it may be appropriate and helpful for me to understand and acknowledge that, it is not helpful for Dawn Staley or anyone else to suggest that because of that I cannot contribute to the solution. Staley writes,

That’s why I have to constantly ask myself: Am I doing right by our players?

Are they learning? Are they understanding? Are they being equipped to navigate the world as a black woman in our society?

That’s a problematic line of thinking. First of all, as she acknowledged earlier in her piece, Staley does not coach black women only. Thus, to equate doing right by her players with being equipped to navigate the world as a black woman is drawing an unhelpful line on her own team.

She seems to recognize the problem there, because she immediately writes this:

And that’s not to divide our team by race. It’s just a statement of reality that as human beings, we see color. Yes, we see color. We feel color. Without a doubt. And it’s a shame, but that’s how we have to navigate the world.

This is the second problem with her line of thinking. It is not how we have to navigate the world. To suggest that it is is to suggest that we cannot do better. Early in her piece Staley says, “People are mad because NOTHING HAS CHANGED.” Saying that continuing that way is “how we have to navigate the world” is to assert that nothing can change.

I may not be able to agree with him on much, but Mokokoma Mokhonoana was spot on when he said, “Racism is one of the most common results of the combination of stupidity and the ability to see.” We do not want to deny people the ability to see. Not literally, anyway. A world full of blind people would have quite a few problems. What we need to do, then, is try to fix the “stupidity.” It’s been widely said—and I’ve said it myself—that you can’t fix stupid. But that is not really true. Racism is a learned behavior and any learned behavior can be changed.

Herman Cain wrote,

…we make a mistake if we see this entirely in the context of race. Statistically, black-on-black crime is a much bigger problem than white-on-black crime. Statistically, police officers are much more likely to be victims of deadly violence than they are to be the perpetrators of it.

None of that gets better if we view each other with suspicion and hostility.

That’s another way of saying that we cannot see and feel color…and he is right. What we must learn to do is see human. There is nothing inherently wrong with seeing and taking notice of skin color. In and of itself, it is no more wrong than noticing if someone has brown, green, blue or gray eyes or blonde, black, brunette or red hair. The problem is not in the noticing. The problem, rather, is in the notion—the belief—that skin color matters.

It is not wrong for there to be genuine and healthy differences of opinion. It is not wrong for me to think that the comments by Kamala Harris and Dawn Staley are not all that helpful. It is not wrong for me to think that Sarah Parcak was in the wrong when she tweeted instructions designed to help rioters know how to tear down monuments or that celebrities paying bail for “protestors” is not helping address the real problem. It is not wrong for me to think that Billie Eilish’s Instagram rant was a waste of cyberspace or for me to think that Reese Witherspoon’s use of Instagram to urge parents to talk to their children about racism was worthwhile and helpful. It is not wrong for me to find some of Natasha Cloud’s piece “Your Silence Is a Knee On My Neck” to be offensive while also agreeing wholeheartedly with her conclusion that “if you’re silent, you are part of the problem.”

I am not going to stop intentionally seeking to hear, read and understand the black perspective. I do hope, though, that there is also an intentional effort for all of us who are furious about what happened to George Floyd to seek to understand each other and to work together to achieve real change. The collective “we”—all of humanity—will never agree on everything. Nor would we really want a world in which we did all agree on everything. What we must do, though, is agree that all human lives matter and every human being deserves to be treated with respect. That the problem can be resolved peacefully. And that silence is not an option.

Truly Haunted

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment
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Mural portrait of George Floyd by Eme Street Art in Mauerpark (Berlin, Germany)

A week ago I, like thousands of others in the United States, saw, for the first time, reports that an African American man had died in Minneapolis while a white police officer was kneeling on his neck. My initial reaction was probably somewhat numb. The stories of African Americans dying at the hands of, and/or in the custody of, law enforcement have become too common. Too, I am reluctant to jump to conclusion, especially when it seems that maybe I do not know or understand the full story. Furthermore, I am a relative of a police officer and a friend of a number of others, and I recognize that their jobs are often thankless—that they have to make difficult decisions every day, often without the time and the privilege of thinking through every possible option before acting.

When I saw the video footage of the police officer kneeling on George Floyd, though, I was confident that, whatever the further details of the situation may be, the matter was not handled properly and there was no reason for Floyd to have died. I could not imagine any scenario in which the officer would not be charged with murder. When Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, said that Floyd “should not have died” and that the officer involved had “failed in the most basic human sense,” I had to agree. Melvin Carter, the mayor of St. Paul, said that the cell phone footage of “a defenseless, handcuffed man one of the most vile and heartbreaking images” he had seen. I had to agree. When Senator Amy Klobuchar said, “Those involved in this incident must be held accountable,” I had to agree.

Less than thirty minutes ago, as I write this, the results of Floyd’s autopsy were released. The finding was that Floyd died as a result of asphyxiation from sustained pressure.

The New York Times has put together a video that resulted from “combining videos from bystanders and security cameras, reviewing official documents and consulting experts.” It is an interesting video. It makes valid and significant points. For example, the police officers who responded to the scene were expecting, based on the 911 call they received, to be dealing with a man who was “awfully drunk” and out of control. No doubt that influenced their attitude and mindset before they even encountered Floyd. It also states that Floyd told the police officers who tried to put him into their vehicle that he was claustrophobic and unwilling to get in. I am sure that police officers hear excuses on a regular basis, and I cannot fault them for not putting much stock in that statement from Floyd. It goes to explain that nine minutes into the arrest, officers Tou Thao and Derek Chauvin arrive together. Apparently they are partners. Assuming the Times report that Thao has had six complaints and been the subject of a brutality lawsuit, and that Chauvin has had seventeen complaints and been involved in three shootings is correct, one has to question why these two men are partners—if not why they are still on the police force at all. Why Chauvin gets involved in trying to get Floyd into the vehicle, and why he then pulls Floyd all the way through and onto the road, is unclear. What is clear is that he puts his knee on Floyd’s neck and it remains there. According to the Times, it remained there for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Someone is heard telling Floyd to get up and get in the car. Whether or not that is Chauvin, I cannot tell, but obviously Floyd could not get up or get in the car while Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck.

According to the Times, Floyd tells the officers at least sixteen times in less than five minutes that he cannot breathe. To be fair, the first time I watched the footage of the incident I was skeptical of Floyd at first. After all, if he could continue to say that he could not breathe, he was obviously breathing. My thinking changed, however, when Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck even after Floyd stopped saying anything and appeared to be either unconscious or dead. Bystanders repeatedly asked that Chauvin get off of Floyd or that he at least check Floyd’s pulse. Again, I am sure that police officers hear many things from the public in the midst of an arrest and no doubt tend to ignore them, but it is clear that both Chauvin and Thao can hear them because Chauvin appears to draw mace from his belt and Thao is interacting with the bystanders and trying to position himself to block their view. Chauvin keeps his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly a minute after EMS personnel arrive, and while Floyd is put into the ambulance and the ambulance drives away, he is pronounced dead at the hospital.

More than likely, you know most, of not all, of the above. There is nothing that can be done to change any of that, but there is much that can be learned from the incident. There are many questions to ask and attempt to answer. And then, of course, there is the reaction that is spreading across the country in the form of riots and looting. I would naïve to think or suggest that I have all of the answers or even that I have much to add to the discussion that is unique or new. But I am going to share a few thoughts regardless.

First, as I have already mentioned, law enforcement is a difficult and often thankless job. It is also a necessary job. As long as human beings are the ones serving in law enforcement, there will be mistakes made. There will be “bad apples.” There will be individuals who misuse and abuse their authority and their power. That is not a racial issue, it is a human issue. No race or gender or ethnicity is exempt from flaws. According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, there are more than 800,000 law enforcement officers currently serving in the U.S. I am confident that many of them do their very best every day on the job and that they are just as upset over the death of George Floyd as anyone else. According to the same source, there has been an average of one law enforcement officer dying in the line of duty every 54 hours over the past ten years. That is a startling number, and a great reminder that law enforcement officers literally put their lives at risk to do their jobs.

Second, while it is clear that Chauvin needed to be both fired and charged, not much more than that is entirely clear yet. I read person comment on Facebook, of Chauvin’s charges, “Never seen a charge this fast with peaceful protests, all I’m saying.” Well, there is no way to know if the charges would have come that quickly without protests, though I cannot help but think that they would have. And if the point of the protests was to get Chauvin charged then the protests should stop. Is a third degree murder charge too lenient? My inclination is no…unless there is more to the story that we do not yet know. Multiple news sources, for example, are reporting that Floyd and Chauvin worked at the same night club in Minneapolis, El Nuevo Rodeo, and may have known each other. That needs to be investigated. If there was some personal motive behind Chauvin’s actions then the charges need to be increased and the protests against police discrimination and brutality are off the mark. Specifically, as The Western Journal noted, “that should give pause to those portraying law enforcement and the criminal justice system as being inherently biased against minority Americans.”

Third, cooler heads really do need to prevail. Saying something that captures headlines but has zero basis in reality is nothing short of stupid. Leslie Raymond, the president of Minneapolis NAACP, called Floyd’s death a “cruel display of the state-sanctioned murder.” That’s absurd, and not even remotely helpful. Raymond went on to say, “Their actions represent a dangerous precedent set forth by the racist, xenophobic, and prejudicial sentiment in our society against Black people.” Again, both absurd and unhelpful. Floyd’s death was wrong and that would be true even if the perpetrator were black and the victim were white. It would be true if the perpetrator and victim were both white. Or both black. Or both blue. That is a deeper truth that needs to be grasped. The taking of a life is wrong. Period. That’s not a racial issue.

In today’s issue of The Briefing—which is excellent in its entirety—Albert Mohler writes,

Every single human being is of the same dignity and of the same worth and have the same value, precisely because we are made by the same Creator equally in his image. And thus, every one of us bears the same dignity and that dignity must never be denied. It must never be slighted. It must never be reduced. It must never be hidden.

Mohler is correct, and that is why the death of George Floyd must not go unnoticed or unpunished.

Yesterday Wynton Marsalis wrote a lengthy post on his Facebook page addressing Floyd’s death and the deeper issues surrounding it. About halfway through, Marsalis wrote,

The whole construct of blackness and whiteness as identity is fake anyway. It is a labyrinth of bullshit designed to keep you lost and running around and around in search of a solution that can only be found outside of the game itself.

Excuse his language, but Marsalis is spot on. The problem is not racism and the solution is not eliminating racism. He continued,

Our form of Democracy affords us the opportunity to mine a collective intelligence, a collective creativity, and a collective human heritage. But the game keeps us focused on beating people we should be helping. And the more helpless the target, the more vicious the beating. Like I was trying to explain to my daughter, something just feels good about abusing another person when you feel bad about yourself.

I do not know if Chauvin felt bad himself, or somehow felt bigger, badder and tougher by kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, but the temporary good feeling that comes from abusing another is not a racial issue. It is human issue and a heart issue. It is, in fact, the very issue at the root of the current riots and looting. No one in their right mind thinks for a second that the destruction and violence we are seeing around the country will bring back George Floyd, make law enforcement officers act differently or improve race relations in the U.S. There is nothing constructive or helpful about the riots and looting. It is, quite frankly, part of the labyrinth of bovine feces Marsalis referred to in his post.

Earlier in the post, Marsalis describes a conversation he had with his eleven-year-old daughter about the death of Floyd. She asked him why “that man” would “just kneel on him and kill him like that in front of everybody?” Like a good parent in a teachable moment, Marsalis responded with an illustration and asked his daughter to come up with the answer herself. She gave some good ones, but she never quite got to where Marsalis wanted her to go, prompting him to—at her urging—just tell her. What was the deepest reason he had in mind? “Because he enjoyed it. For him, and for many others, that type of thing is fun.” He elaborated, saying, “this type of fun is much older even than America itself.”

I do not agree with everything that Marsalis said in his post. I do agree, however, that the death of George Floyd is not fundamentally a racist issue. That Chauvin enjoyed it—assuming he did (and there is no evident hesitance or concern on his face in the video)—would likely have been true if almost anyone had been under his knee. I do not know, of course, but I suspect that if we ever find out for sure, we will discover that Floyd said or did something to Chauvin that upset him—either when they worked at the club or just before Chauvin pulled Floyd through the vehicle onto the road—and Chauvin wasn’t going to put up with it.

This is a human flaw illustrated perfectly by Haman in the Old Testament book of Esther. Haman was a Jew and he refused to show Haman the physical homage he felt he deserved. Esther 3:5 reads, “And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury.” So full of fury was Haman, in fact, that he had a 75-foot gallows constructed and devised an elaborate plan to get the king to let him execute Mordecai—all because he got on his nerves. If you are not familiar with it, you can read the book of Esther to see how that worked out for Haman. Unfortunately, Derek Chauvin succeeded in killing George Floyd. Whether that was his intention or not I do not know and I doubt anyone ever will truly know. But, in the words of Max Lucado, here is what we do know: “the heart of the human problem is the heart of the human.” Why would Lucado say that? Because Jeremiah 17:9 says this: “The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable” (HCSB). That is true of Derek Chauvin. It was also true of George Floyd. Whether we like it or not, it is also true of you and me.

Seemingly everyone, everywhere, is saying something about how wrong the killing of George Floyd was, and that’s fine. Within the past couple of hours I have seen messages from two of my alma maters condemning the actions of Derek Chauvin. One was headlined, “University condemns racial injustice and senseless violence.” The other included the statement, “Justice demands that we all do our part to confront and overcome the legacy of bigotry….” I suppose it is good that these schools, and others, are making such statements but they do not really do much.

Fifty-seven years ago Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Sadly, our nation is still not that place. The color of one’s skin still matters far too much. No murder sentence for a police officer will change that. No riots will change that. No university announcements or presidential proclamations will change that. Nothing will change it until we realize, as Wynton Marsalis said, “The whole construct of blackness and whiteness as identity is fake anyway.” Or, as Albert Mohler said, “Every single human being is of the same dignity and of the same worth and have the same value….”

Maybe Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu said it best: “I have this feeling in me that those who continue to see race and color in everything must be as miserable as those who continue to see ghosts in every nook and cranny. They have no peace of mind because they are truly haunted.”

 

Photo credit: Singlespeedfahrer / CC0

Profiles of Tyranny – Lori Lightfoot

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment
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Mayor Lori Lightfoot

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot has perhaps not has as much national media attention as Bill de Blasio in New York City, but she has stepped gleefully into the role of tyrant none the less.

Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order that began on March 21. It was originally to run through April 7, but it was extended to April 30 on March 31. When NBC Chicago reported on Pritzker’s original order it also quoted Lightfoot as saying, “I want to say to be clear, this is not a lockdown, it’s not martial law.” She said that grocery stores would remain open and stocked and no one needed to change their shopping habits or hoard anything. At the same time, though, Lightfoot shut down the city’s parks and libraries.

An Associated Press report on April 11 quoted Lightfoot saying of people who had gone to Chicago parks and trails during a day of 70-degree weather, “Your conduct — yours — is posing a direct threat to our public health.” Lightfoot reported that she has personally ordered groups of people outside in one Chicago neighborhood to “break it up” and said, “I mean what I say. We have to protect ourselves. We have to be smart about what we’re doing in the course of this pandemic. And if it means that I drive around and check whether or not people are in compliance, I am happy to do it.”

Around that same time Lightfoot was announcing to national media that COVID-19 was killing a disproportionate number of African Americans because, in her words, “In many of our African-American households, they don’t have three, four floors where they can separate themselves.” She told PBS News reporter Yamiche Alcindor that she was 100% right in suggesting that social distancing is a privilege for some and that, nationwide, African Americans are more likely to have to take public transportation and less likely to be able to work from home. She told Alcindor that data on the racial breakdown of COVID-19 deaths was “absolutely essential.” I am not sure what racial data has to do with combating COVID-19, but since Mayor Lightfoot thinks it matters I would like to remind her that the rate of abortions among African Americans is nearly three times higher than it is among Caucasian women according to the Guttmacher Institute. It is true, according to the website blackdemographics.com, that the percentage of African American COVID-19 deaths is higher than the African American percentage of the state population in a number of states. But it is also true that it is lower than the population percentage in Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio and Washington and is exactly the same in New Jersey. According to APM Research lab, African Americans do have a disproportionate percentage of COVID-19 deaths overall, but in Texas, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Washington, Idaho and Colorado Caucasians are dying at disproportionate rates, in Alaska, Oregon, California and Vermont Asians are and in New York, New Hampshire and Missouri Latinos are.

Interestingly, just yesterday the Chicago Sun-Times reported, “Four weeks ago, Latinos comprised 14 percent of Chicago’s coronavirus cases and 9 percent of the deaths. Now, it’s 37 percent of the cases and 25 percent of the deaths — in a city where 29 percent of the population is Hispanic.” How did Lightfoot respond? She “expanded the scope of the ‘racial equity rapid response teams’ first created to address the spike in cases among Chicago’s African American residents.” I think the fact that there even is such a thing as “racial equity rapid response teams” speaks for itself. COVID-19 is a big enough mess already without trying to make it a racial issue, but Lightfoot couldn’t pass up the opportunity. “There are consequences of the president’s hateful, xenophobic demonization of this community,” she said, insisting that President Trump’s position in immigrants was responsible for the surge in Latino cases.

On May 3, the AP reported Lightfoot as “warning decisive actions will be taken against city residents who flout Illinois’ stay at home order by holding house parties.” The day before, Amanda Vinicky, of WTTW News, had provided more detail, reporting that Lightfoot had complained of the lack of compliance with Chicago’s restrictions, saying of them, “Your actions are going to make a difference whether we get out sooner than later. Whether we have a summer or not. I’m not going to allow any individuals to upend the progress that we’ve made.”

Indeed, Lightfoot had said on May 2, regarding people having parties,

We will shut you down. We will cite you and if we need to, we will arrest you and we will take you to jail. Period. Don’t make us treat you like a criminal, but if you act like a criminal and you violate the law and you refuse to do what is necessary to save lives in this city during a pandemic we will take you to jail, period.

She added, “We are watching.” Then Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said that the CPD would “be on the lookout for gatherings large and small.” He continued, “Don’t leave your house unless absolutely necessary. Don’t invite people over either. Chicagoans have done too much good thus far to risk a spike in cases of this deadly virus.”

Of course, what good the restrictions have done and what progress has been made is unclear. Last weekend Chicago passed 1,000 COVID-related deaths. The Chicago Tribune reported that Lightfoot said at that time that the city had made only “slight progress” in dealing with the virus. If you look at the reports of numbers in Illinois as a whole and Chicago specifically, there is virtually no evidence that the city’s strict shut down orders have made any difference.

Some folks are starting to notice the use of power and accompanying lack of success. Many people are willing to abide a temporary excessive use of authority when it proves to be beneficial, but Lightfoot is not showing any results. So unhappy with Lightfoot’s use of power during her COVID response that, according to Crain’s Chicago Business, “City Council’s budget chair has convened a working group of rivals to meet weekly and keep an eye on COVID-related spending.”

Oh, and by the way… Lightfoot might not mind patrolling the streets to yell at everyone else to get inside, but she doesn’t seem to think the restrictions she has placed on others apply to her. In April she got a haircut from a stylist despite the fact that Governor Pritzker’s state-wide order shut down salons and barbershops. When Lightfoot faced criticism for her choice she did not back down or acknowledge a lapse in judgment. Instead, she whipped out the “I’m more important than you” card, explaining, “I’m the public face of this city. I’m on national media and I’m out in the public eye.”

Maybe so, Mayor Lightfoot. But don’t be surprised if the voters of Chicago decide they want a different “public face” next time they go to the mayoral polls.

 

 

Photo credit: lightfootforchicago.com/about-lori/

Powerless Protests

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

After all of the attention given to NFL players sitting or kneeling during the National Anthem over the weekend of September 24, I decided to share on Facebook this simple truth:

So, (federal) minimum wage is $7.25 an hour or about $15,000 per year. Each year the minimum salary in the NFL increases by $15,000; this year it is $465,000.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average household income was $73,298 in 2014. The average NFL salary in 2015 was $2.1 million.

If for no other reason than that, then, every player in the NFL should be standing proudly at attention every time the National Anthem is played, giving thanks that they live in a country where the lowest paid person in their profession can make thirty-one times the federal minimum wage…for playing a game.

I stand by that assertion. Whatever it is that NFL players are intending to protest or express their displeasure for by failing to show proper respect to the American flag, they are at the same time disrespecting a flag that represents a country in which they have the opportunity to make a very comfortable living for playing a game.

Not surprisingly, my post generated lots of attention—from both sides of the debate. Quite a few people agreed with my sentiments, “liking” or even “loving” the post. But certainly not all. While I did not receive any Facebook emojis symbolizing anger with the post, there were comments shared, and “likes” for those comments, that made clear the fact that there is definite difference of opinion on this matter as well as a clear lack of understanding over the real issue.

For example, one friend commented, “I know my view point is not a popular one, but here you go. Every NFL player has the constitutional right to take a knee for what they believe. It’s the same right that our president has to say they should all be fired. I do find it heartbreaking that there is so much divide in our beautiful country.”

Well, I agree with the last statement wholeheartedly. There is entirely too much division within our country, especially on matters of race, and there appears to be far more attention given to those who exacerbate that divide than to those who seek to heal it. But my friend’s comment missed the point. I was not saying that football players do not have the right to sit or kneel during the anthem. I agree wholeheartedly that they do. But not everything that some has a right to do is right to do. What are they accomplishing by sitting or kneeling? By failing to show proper respect for the flag of the country that allows them the opportunity to earn millions of dollars playing a game, are they contributing to a healthy discussion about whatever it is they are protesting? No. Are the bringing solutions to the table? No. I think the president’s comments were ill-advised too (but then what’s new?). I am not saying he is right and they are wrong. I am simply stating my opinion that what they are doing is not contributing to a solution and is, if anything, drawing attention to themselves, not the issues they are seeking to draw attention to—whatever they may be.

Then another friend chimed in. A former student of mine, in fact. She said, “They aren’t disrespecting the flag though and they aren’t protesting the flag.” To the second part of that statement, I agree, which is why I also said their protest is ineffective. By sitting or kneeling during the National Anthem they are not really addressing whatever it is they are trying to protest. To the first part of the statement though, all I can say is this: they aren’t? How is failing to stand for the National Anthem not disrespecting the flag? There really is no denying that fact. If someone fails to stand in court when the judge enters and the bailiff announces “all rise,” I guarantee you it will be seen as disrespect for the office the judge holds if not for the entire judicial system. That individual would either find himself sitting all day in court waiting for his case to be called (best case scenario) or find himself in contempt of court. Remember, the right to free speech is not absolute—and it is certainly not absolute within the four walls of a courtroom!

This friend went on to say, “And though our country does allow them the opportunity to make millions, it doesn’t allow everyone that right. In fact there are some pretty glaring injustices within our country and some pretty obvious failures staring us in the face.” Here we have another error. No one has the right to make millions of dollars. There is no government system on the face of the earth that could really grant or enforce such a right. However, everyone in the U.S. does have the opportunity to earn millions of dollars. That is what a free market economy is really all about—equality of opportunity. Any young man in the United States has the opportunity to make millions of dollars playing in the NFL. Very few of them will, because some do not have the athletic ability, others do not have the drive or passion to do so, and even some who have both of those things may suffer an injury that ends their chance to make it to the pros. Every man and woman (legally) in the U.S. has the opportunity to make millions of dollars per year in any number of fields. Sports is one, of course, but so is entertainment or writing or business or…fill in the blank! Last August, Bustle.com reported that Simone Biles, the 2016 U.S. Olympic team gymnastics phenom, has a net worth of $2.5 million. “Not too shabby considering that Biles can barely legally vote,” the report stated. The 2012 all-around gymnastics gold medalist, Gabby Douglas, has a net worth of $3 million according to a January 2017 article in Gazette Review, and she’s just 21.

More on these young ladies later. Back to my friend, though, her comment continued,

They aren’t contributing a solution as I imagine it’s difficult to present such a manifesto on the playing field but many nfl players are active in charities showing at least some concern for their fellow man off the field. Does it draw attention? Yeah that’s kind of the point to protest. And it does draw attention to them though in Kaepernick’s case it wasn’t exactly good attention. But everyone knows why he protested. A quick Google search tells you that. Plus it’s started all this conversation. So I’d say it got the point across pretty well because we’re still talking about it.

Well, let’s examine this line of thinking. Is it difficult to present a manifesto on a playing field? Perhaps so. Perhaps rightly so. After all, the playing field is for playing, after all. But if it is true that the players protesting are unable to adequately communicate the motives of their protest through their actions, the protest is, by definition, unsuccessful. Are many NFL players active in charities off the field, showing “at least some concern for their fellow man”? I am sure they are. What in the world does that have to do with anything, though? Does someone’s participation in a charity make it excusable for him to disrespect the flag of the United States? No. Do his attempts to show some concern for his fellow man allow him to behave in way that blatantly shows disrespect for both his country in general and others of his fellow men (and women) who fought, and died, for what that flag represents? No. And, for the record, there are plenty of people who are active in charities and show concern for their fellow man that are adamantly opposed to the flag/anthem protest. So, this is really a non sequitur.

Is the point of a protest to draw attention? Actually, no. Drawing attention may be a necessary element of achieving a protest’s real point, but the point of a protest is to address wrongs and bring about their correction. Protesting the American flag and the National Anthem brings attention to the individuals refusing to stand, not to whatever those individuals think they are protesting. My friend says everyone knows why Colin Kaepernick protested and then says, “a quick Google search will tell you that.” Well, those statements are contradictory. If everyone knows, a Google search would not be necessary. And if a Google search is necessary, then the protest was ineffective. If it is necessary for someone to look up the reason for a protest action, said action is a poorly-selected means of protest. When the Sons of Liberty tossed tons (literally) of tea overboard into Boston Harbor, no one had to wonder or ask around to find out what they were protesting. The parades, pageants and picketing that went on in the pursuit of women’s suffrage left no doubt what the protest was seeking to accomplish. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person, no one wondered what she was protesting. When the Montgomery bus boycott resulted, no one wondered what they were protesting. When sit ins occurred, individuals were respectfully, but immovably, sitting at the very lunch counters that would not serve them. They were protesting the wrong directly and in a manner that left no one wondering what they wanted.

Finally, in this quote anyway, my friend suggested that the protest started this whole conversation and therefore was pretty successful because we are still talking about it. But therein lies the rub. We are talking about it—the protest—not whatever it is that is being protested. That’s due in no small part to the fact that very few people seem to know what exactly is being protested!

My friend suggested a Google search to find out what motivated Kaepernick, so I took her advice. In doing so I found the explanation provided by Kaepernick himself, who said in an interview, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” Eric Reid, who protested with Kaepernick, wrote in the New York Times, that they were protesting “systemic oppression against people of color, police brutality and the criminal justice system.”

Okay, so since Kaepernick started it, we might assume that is what is driving it. Last Sunday, however, the majority of those participating the protest were not doing so because of systemic oppression or police brutality but in response to the ill-advised words of President Trump.

The NFL, by the way, is not helping this situation. On that note, President Trump was right. The league is creating a double standard by allowing this “speech” that violates its rules yet fining players over other “speech” such as Brandon Marshall wearing green shoes to promote Mental Health Awareness Week, William Gay wearing purple cleats to direct attention to domestic violence, DeAngelo Williams being denied the right to wear pink cleats and accessories to bring attention to breast cancer, and being fined for wearing eye black stating “Find the Cure.” After the deadly police shooting in Dallas, the Dallas Cowboys requested that the league allow them to wear an “Arm in Arm” decal on their helmets to honor the slain officers; the league said no. The league threatened fines for players wearing custom cleats to commemorate 9/11, and only yielded after a strong public backlash. NFL players are not permitted to yell t officials, taunt other players or even dance in the end zone after scoring a touchdown. Apparently violating league rules about the National Anthem will bring no consequence, though. According to USA Today, an NFL spokesman said on September 25, “that players would not be punished for breaking a league rule that says they must appear on sidelines during the national anthem. Players on the Seattle Seahawks, Tennessee Titans and Pittsburgh Steelers all skipped Sunday’s anthem.” Hmmm. Is it really free speech when the NFL is deciding whether or not it is permissible? No, it is not. It is sanctioned speech.

But back to the motivation for these protests. My friend who suggested a Google search for identifying Kaepernick’s motive focused on income disparity in her Facebook comments. When I replied to her comment above by saying that no one has the right to be a millionaire but everyone has the opportunity, she shot back with this:

No[t] everyone does not have the opportunity. I, as a white woman, make $0.85 to every $1 a white male makes. Black women earn $0.65. Hispanic women earn $0.58. Plus minimum wage isn’t even livable in most states which makes it rather hard to get the ‘opportunity’ to make millions. There are lots of reasons for this wage disparity, including discrimination. But my point is that the reality is not everyone had that opportunity. It’s why there is a top one percent and then the rest of us. It’s unrealistic to assume “well I’ll work hard and one day before a millionaire”. But for some it’s equally unrealistic to imagine a life outside poverty or a life reasonably comfortable.

Well, this is interesting. I don’t think it has anything at all to do with the anthem protests, but let me address it anyway. Is there some income disparity in the U.S.? Yes, there is. Is it as horrific as the liberal Kool-aide vendors would have us believe. In April 2017 the Pew Research Center reported that the gender gap in pay has narrowed since 1980 and that among young adults (ages 24-35) the gap is down to 10 cents per dollar earned difference between men and women. IN 1980 it was only 67 cents per dollar. That is a significant improvement. The disparity is not purely a result of some conspiracy to discriminate against women, however. The Pew Research report indicated that women were considerably more likely than men to take breaks from their careers to care for family members: 28% of fathers had reduced their work hours at one time or another to care for family while 42% of mothers had done so; 24% of fathers had taken a significant amount of time off, while 39% of mothers had done so; 10% of fathers had quite their job completely, but 27% of mothers had done so. It is not unreasonable to think that women who reduce work hours or temporarily leave employment completely will see their wages increase at a slower rate than men who do not, all other things being equal. After all, rarely can someone leave the work force for a time and re-enter at the same salary he or she left. The report indicated that women were almost twice as likely as men to say that they had been discriminated against at work because of their gender, but that was still only 18% to 10%. No gender-based discrimination is appropriate, but “only” is appropriate in that sentence because it indicates that gender-based discrimination alone cannot account for the disparity in pay.

And minimum wage? It is not supposed to be livable for a family, and not even for very long for an individual. By its very name the wage is the minimum someone can earn. That necessarily implies someone with minimum skills doing the work. There are innumerable studies to indicate that education and experience contribute mightily to improved earning power. And in a free market economy, the market is supposed to drive wages anyway. The very existence of a minimum wage goes against true free market economic principles and creates an artificial floor.

I do not want to get too side-tracked on this income disparity issue but I want to go back to Simone Biles and Gabby Douglas for a minute. I selected them as examples on purpose. They are both female and both African-American. What’s more, they both come from families that do not typify the likelihood of high earnings. According to what I have read and heard, Douglas was raised by a single mother. Biles’ mother was unable to care for Simone and her siblings due to her drug and alcohol addiction, and the children were in and out of foster homes before being adopted by their grandparents. Both of these young ladies persisted and worked hard to pursue their dreams, overcoming what could be seen as domestic obstacles, historic obstacles and even the obstacle of pursuing a sport that has had very few African American competitors at the highest levels. After all, Dominique Dawes, in 1996, became the first male or female black athlete to win an Olympic medal in gymnastics. So to my friend, I would suggest that both Douglas and Biles are proof that the opportunity to become highly successful—and highly compensated—is indeed available to all.

Sticking with the theme of the Olympics, by the way, ask Jordyn Wieber in 2012 or Douglas herself in 2016 what they think of artificially leveling the playing field. Both gymnasts were the victims of the ridiculous Olympic gymnastics rule that restricts all-around finalist competitors to not more than two per country despite the fact that their performances rightly earned them a place in the finals if only the highest qualifiers were allowed to advance. Given that both of them have experienced in an athletic context what it is like to have their hard work and legitimately-earned opportunity negated by a silly rule that seeks to level the playing field, I wonder if they would be in favor of silly rules leveling the economic playing field?

There are so many factors involved in economic disparity that it cannot be diluted down to a simple “white guys make more money than everyone else” conclusion. Location makes a difference, experience does, education does, skill does, industry does… So, by the way, does personal choice. I currently serve as the superintendent of a small Christian school in South Dakota. I also have three graduate degrees and nineteen years of experience. Yet, an African American female with no teaching experience and only a bachelor’s degree will make more money as a first-year teacher in New York City this year than I will in my position. Seeks like a disparity doesn’t it? Sure… But the cost of living in New York City is exponentially higher than it is in the middle of South Dakota. When I was the executive director of a non-profit ministry providing residential childcare for at-risk youth I was making more than twice as much money each year as I do now, with even more lucrative benefits than I have now. But it is not the fault of any person or any system that I am not in a position with lower compensation.

But, back to the flag protests. The same friend who brought up the wage disparity issue later in the Facebook exchange said that the problem was unfair sentencing practices.

African Americans and whites use drugs at about the same rates but the imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug related charges is almost six times higher than whites. The imprisonment of female African Americans is twice the rate of female whites. Total, African Americans are incarcerated more than five times the rate of whites. If African Americans were imprisoned at the same rate as whites, prison populations would decline by almost forty percent. African Americans make up thirteen percent of the population but forty two percent of death row inmates and thirty five percent of those executed. Forty eight percent of whites were able to receive a sentence less than death through plea bargaining but only twenty five percent of black and twenty eight percent of Hispanics were able to receive plea bargains in exchange for life sentences.

Okay, so this a completely different path now, but it needs to be addressed as well. Interesting, isn’t it, how someone who said that the reasons for the protests were obvious is now on her third different explanation for the reasons? My friend is quoting almost verbatim from the NAACP’s Criminal Justice Fact Sheet. Fair enough. It is true that African Americans and whites tend to use drugs at approximately the same rate. And it is also true that African Americans tend to be incarcerated more often than whites. Michael Tonry, an American criminologist, is the McKnight Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and Policy at the University of Minnesota Law School, and he explained to Politifact.com in February 2016, “Whites are more likely to sell to people they know, and they much more often sell behind closed doors. Blacks sell to people they don’t know and in public, which makes them vastly easier to arrest.” In July 2016, Politifact.com reported, “Blacks arrested for drugs are more likely to be sent to jail because they’re more likely to have had a previous run-in with the law. Police tend to patrol high-crime areas more aggressively, which tend to be the poor areas, which have a higher proportion of minorities. Thus, they’re more likely to be stopped for something and have a rap sheet once a drug charge comes along.”

Back in 1995, Dr. Patrick Langan, Senior Statistician for the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice did some research on this disparity, and his report was titled, “The Racial Disparity in U.S. Drug Arrests.” What did he find? Well, for starters, he said this: “Drug users are not all equally at risk of being arrested for drug possession. Certain factors (for example, frequent use) place some drug users at greater risk than others.” Those factors, Langan reported, included type of drug used, frequency of use and location of use. He then concluded, “Although blacks are 13% of drug users, they should comprise over 13% of drug possession arrests since the type of drugs they use, the frequency with which they use them, and the places where they use them, put blacks at greater risk of arrest.” He went on to state, “How much in excess of 13% cannot be precisely determined…but the data do allow estimates to be made.”

Before I give you his estimates, let me tell you this: the NAACP Criminal Justice Fact sheet states that “African Americans represent 12% of monthly drug users, but comprise 32% of persons arrested for drug possession.” Interestingly, those numbers have changed little from 1995 when Langan made his report; he wrote, “Blacks are 36% of drug possession arrests but 13% of drug users, a disparity of 23 points.” If the NAACP figures are accurate then there is now a disparity of 20 points. But what else did Langan find? He reported that “although blacks were 13% of drug users, given how they differed from whites with respect to increased risk, they should amount to 23% of arrests, or ten percentage points beyond the 13% figure.” And that disparity of 23% that he reported? “The analysis revealed that 10 of the 23 points were attributable to race-neutral factors,” he concluded. If that analysis holds true today, than the percentage points of disparity attributable to factors that are not race-neutral (i.e., racism and discrimination) have decreased from 13 points to 10 points since 1995. There is still much room for improvement, of course, but it would appear that progress is being made in the right direction.

It is true that African American make up 42% of death row inmates and only 13.3% of the population according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Those classified as “white alone, not Hispanic or Latino” make up 61.3% of the population and 42% of the death row population. Those who are Hispanic or Latino make up 17.8% of the population and 13% of death row inmates. But there are other factors to consider in this argument as well. For example, African Americans do make up 35% of those executed on death row, but whites, on the other hand, make up 56% of death row executions. So blacks and whites represent virtually equal percentages of those on death row, but the percentage of executions is 21% higher for whites than blacks. That part of the conversation seems to have been overlooked by my friend…. (All of those statistics, by the way, come from the Death Penalty Information Center).

Well, I need to quit. This has turned much too long already. Here’s my point, though. The American flag/National Anthem protests are not working. They are drawing attention to players, not to issues—as demonstrated by the fact that no one seems to even know for sure what the issue is! Furthermore, the en masse NFL protests last week were directed far more at President Trump than at racism or police brutality or wage disparity or incarceration disparity or whatever else the alleged issue being protested may be. What’s more the “take a knee” protest is spreading to colleges and even high school sports and, with all due respect, I doubt seriously that many of those high school students have any idea what they are really—supposedly—protesting. Is there room for improvement in race relations in the U.S.? Yes, there is. Is that going to be achieved by anyone, regardless of race, gender, profession, income, or numerical participation, taking a knee, taking a seat or refusing to take the field during the singing of the National Anthem? No. Every player for every team could take a knee every time for the rest of the season but it will, in and of itself, do no good. Therefore, I urge those who really do have a legitimate concern they would like to see address, to find a meaningful, productive and effective means of protesting or, more beneficially, engaging so that solutions can be found.

Intentional Idiocy

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

Fortunately I am not the leader of the free world and therefore no one has been criticizing me for not responding more quickly to the white supremacist nonsense in Charlottesville, VA five days ago. My delayed addressing of it in this space has nothing to do with me not condemning it as strongly as I possibly can and everything to do with being a wee bit busy with the start of a new school year. However, I feel I have reached a point of preparedness for the week ahead that I can pause for a while this morning and type out some of that which I have been thinking.

The first thing I would like to say is simply this: the idea that anyone could still hold to the idea of any race being superior to any other goes beyond upbringing and prejudice and serves as the strongest possible example of intentional idiocy. It is absurd and nonsensical for anyone in the twenty-first century to believe with any level sincerity that one race is superior to any other. The evidence against such a notion is so overwhelming that anyone who thinks it is truly characterized by mental dullness (part of the dictionary.com definition of “stupid”). In case that is not clear, let me be more specific: anyone who actually believes that one race is superior to another suffers from a mental defect. That does not, however, excuse anyone from their ludicrous notions because this is a mental defect that is entirely self-inflicted. Or, at a minimum, self-perpetuated.

Having lived in the south for a number of years I am well aware that there are still areas where people commonly refer to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression. There are people who still hold to the notion that the South will rise again. There are people who still believe that anyone that is not white is inferior, lesser and somehow other than fully, equally human with those who are white. I also recognize that many of those people were born into families and communities that perpetuate that nonsense and have simply been parroting the foolishness they received from their parents, who received it from their parents, and so on back up the family tree. But that does not excuse their stupidity. There have been examples throughout U.S. history of individuals who were born and raised in areas and families of strong white supremacist convictions who overcame that apparent disadvantage by recognizing and accepting the truth about human equality and choosing truth over prejudice. There are even individuals who were born into slave holding families and attended churches that taught that blacks were created by God to be in a condition of servitude to the whites who overcame that by embracing the truth of human equality. Sarah and Angelina Grimké would be two great examples but there are many others.

Sadly, the church does bear some responsibility for the racist notions of many white supremacists. Many Christian schools, especially in the American south, were birthed as part of the “white flight” movement after racial integration became the law. Many white churches in the south would not allow blacks to attend their services much less become members. Interracial marriage was forbidden in many churches–and in some it still is. Bob Jones University, in South Carolina, lost its non-profit status for a while over its refusal to give up its ban on interracial dating, claiming the Bible supported their position. I was present in a Southern Baptist church some twelve years ago when the church leadership announced one Sunday from the pulpit that after prayerful consideration their decision was that the church’s pastor had not done anything biblically wrong by officiating an interracial wedding. It blew my mind that that was still an issue in twenty-first century America. I was relieved that they reached the correct decision, but it should never even have been a question. There is simply no way to accurately interpret the Bible and come to any position other than full human equality regardless of race.

I have disagreed with some of what she has written since, but Dr. Christena Cleveland’s 2013 book Disunity in Christ provides excellent insight into why so many Christians continue to struggle with fully embracing equality in action even when they want to do so and can articulate those convictions verbally. She expresses what needs to happen succinctly on page 61 of her book when she writes this:

We must relentlessly attack inaccurate perceptions in our everyday interactions, weekly sermons, denominational meetings and dinner table conversations. Now that we are aware that categorizing is polluting our perceptions of other groups in the body of Christ, we must do the work of purifying our perceptions. What we need to do is really quite simple: rather than continuing on as cognitive misers who lazily rely on inaccurate categories to perceive others, we need to engage in what my friend Reverend Jim Caldwell calls cognitive generosity. We need to turn off autopilot and take time to honestly examine our polluted perceptions.

Parents, extended family members and communities bear responsibility for perpetuating the notion of racial supremacy or inferiority as well. We know this is true because racism and hatred are not naturally present–even in a world marred by the total depravity of man due to original sin. Jimmy Fallon started The Tonight Show on January 14 by speaking out against hatred and the nonsense in Charlottesville. In his comments he mentioned his 2 and 4 year-old daughters and said, “They don’t know what hate is. They go to the playground and they have friends of all races and backgrounds. They just play and they laugh and they have fun.” I have seen that childlike innocence of race demonstrated in my own daughter. My brother and his wife have four adopted children. All but one of them are of different racial backgrounds than my brother and his wife and that difference is immediately noticeable due to their varying skin tones. When my daughter was still a toddler they adopted their fourth child and she is only one who looks at all like she could actually be their child. My daughter was old enough to understand that the necessary steps and time had not occurred for this new cousin to have joined the family through natural means. As we explained that she was adopted just like the other three children in their family my daughter expressed shock that the three others were not the natural children of my brother and his wife. The varying skin tones meant nothing at all to her!

This is why I call racism and notions of racial supremacy intentional idiocy. It takes intentionality to accept that one race is superior to another. It takes intentionality to teach that to children. It takes intentionality to continue accepting it even in the face of reality and mature understanding that all humans truly are created equal. It takes a conscious commitment to and genuine intentionality to look at yourself in the mirror every morning and think that you are better than someone else simply because your skin color is different than theirs, to think that you deserve more or better than someone else simply because of your race. Doing that for a while, based on your upbringing and your surroundings, may be excusable. Continuing to do it when you’re old enough to know better makes you an intentional idiot.

The same day that Jimmy Fallon began his show by addressing the Charlottesville mess, an editorial by Cal Thomas appeared in The Washington Times. Thomas makes a number of excellent observations in the piece, but one of the most significant is his reminder that there is no such thing as a supreme race precisely because there is no such thing as racial purity. Thomas writes, “Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor, discovered in ‘Finding Your Roots,’ his PBS series on race in America, that there are no purebred humans. Mr. Gates himself discovered through a DNA test that he is descended from an Irish immigrant and a slave.”

The idea that there is no such thing as racial purity assumes, of course, that there is such a thing as race. A truly biblical worldview however goes even further and negates the notion of race completely. Are there various skin tones? Of course. But there is only one race and that is this: human. Answers in Genesis, the apologetics ministry that is most well known for its Creation Museum and Ark Encounter, has long taught that there is no such thing as race. Search “racism” on the AIG web site and you will find a page under their worldview section that beings like this:

The term race is often used to classify people based almost solely on physical characteristics. According to evolutionary ideas, these so-called races descended from different ancestors separated by location and time. However, based on biblical history, the term race must be incorrect. We are all one race (“one blood” in Acts 17:26), the human race.

It’s not just “black” and “white.” A person’s skin shade (what is on the outside) should in no way invoke any sort of prejudice or racist comments. What a difference we would see in our world if people reacted in accord with biblical principles, understanding all humans are equal before God, and all are sinners in need of salvation.

Anyone claiming to believe the Bible has to acknowledge that the Bible teaches several truths that fundamentally destroy any notion of race, let alone racial superiority. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 5:1 says, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.” God made man–and woman–in His own image. That word man is all-inclusive. Every human being is created in the image of God. Every human being is descended from Adam and Eve, the first man and first woman. Every woman being is also descended from Noah, since only Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives survived the destruction of the earth by flood as described in Genesis 6-9. The Bible makes it clear that God does not show partiality and that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to pay the penalty for human sin because He “so loved the world” (John 3:16), a statement which omits any reference to race. Jesus repeatedly commanded that those who follow Him are to love one another, that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. James condemning the showing of any partiality. There is simply no biblical justification for racism or attitudes of supremacy.

But what about Charlottesville specifically? CBS News posted a photographic story on line that included some fifty-five images and paragraph-length commentary or reporting on each one. The title of the story is “White supremacist rallies in Va. lead to violence.” The first picture and caption stated that the rally was planned by white supremacists and “advertised as ‘Unite the Right.'” Whether “the Right” was intended to refer to the political right or to the notion of right as opposed to wrong, it was an inaccurate label on both counts. As demonstrated here already racism and ideas of supremacy are never right. And there is no evidence that most individuals who identify with the right wing of the political spectrum are racists. That some claim that does not make it so for all. Cal Thomas said that David Duke claiming that he voted for Donald Trump does not make Trump a racist or the KKK representative of Trump’s positions or goals for America. “Mr. Duke claimed in Charlottesville that whites elected Mr. Trump,” Thomas wrote. “Sufficient numbers of white voters also elected Barack Obama — twice — so what’s his point?”

The CBS story reported, on the next slide, that in July “members of the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated in Charlottesville against the planned removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee, and called for the protection of Southern Confederate monuments,” a demonstration that came “[a]mid heightened community outcries for the removal of monuments honoring Confederate heroes.” Removing those monuments is another example of stupidity but advocating their removal–or even removing them legally–is no justification for claims of white supremacy.

The Civil War is an important part of American history and there is absolutely nothing to gain by trying to erase all images or references or even monuments to it from our land. According to a Washington Times article published just today, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker “plans to introduce legislation that calls for the removal of Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol building.” The Capitol includes statues of both Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. There are, according to the Architect of the Capitol, “three times as many statues of Confederate soldiers and politicians as there are statues of black people in the entire Capitol complex.” Is that sad? Of course. But there are ways to fix that problem without eliminating the Confederate statutes. And the statues in Statuary Hall were placed there by the action of each state legislature (each state gets two), so it would make far more sense for state legislatures to reconsider whom they want representing their state in the Capitol than it would for Senator Booker to propose the removal by congressional action. Most Americans do not know who the Confederates in Statuary Hall are and would not recognize their names or historical significance even if they did. (Think I’m wrong? Without using Google or any other resource, tell me who Edward Douglass White, James Zachariah George, Uriah Milton Rose or Zebulon Baird Vance were, for example). The collection of one hundred statutes was not completed until 2005 when New Mexico finally sent its second statue. Seven states have replaced one of their first two since Congress authorized replacements in 2000, so if a state–or the people of a state–want to put a different individual in the collection to represent them let them do so. For Cory Booker or anyone else, however, to say that they have to do so is dictatorial and a clear violation of free speech and other constitutional rights. Alabama replaced Jabez Curry, who was a Confederate politician, in 2009. Florida approved replacing Edmund Kirby Smith, a Confederate, in 2016. So let the process run its course! (The collection, by the way, only includes nine women and a handful of Native Americans, so there are a number of other underrepresented groups as well).

According to CBS, the white supremacist protesters marching into the University of Virginia campus were shouting “Blood and soil”, a phrase used by Nazis. Demonstrators were giving “Nazi salutes and chant[ing] ‘You will not replace us’ (and alternately, ‘Jews will not replace us’).” One man said he was participating in the march because, “‘Our country has been usurped by a foreign tribe, called the Jews. We’re tired of it.'” Business Insider reported that on Monday, August 14,

“Vice News Tonight” published a chilling 22-minute documentary featuring interviews with several of the white nationalists who helped lead the “Unite the Right” rally that devolved into violence and chaos in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.

Most prominently featured throughout the episode is Christopher Cantwell, a white supremacist who provided an in-depth description of his beliefs and his movement’s goals at the rally to Vice correspondent Elle Reeves.

Cantwell offered racist critiques of black and Jewish people, confirmed that his movement was violent, and defended the killing of Heather Heyer — the 32-year-old woman fatally struck on Saturday by a driver identified as a white supremacist — as “justified.”

Later in the article Cantwell was quoted as saying that he wanted a president far more racist than Donald Trump, whose daughter Ivanka is married to a Jew, and that “a lot more people are going to die before we’re done here.” He went on to say,

This is part of the reason that we want an ethno-state. The blacks are killing each other in staggering numbers from coast to coast — we don’t really want a part of that anymore, and so the fact that they resist us when we say we want a homeland is not shocking to me. These people want violence, and the right is just meeting a market demand.

Cantwell’s statements are disgusting. They may even be construed as illegal and treasonous. The right to free speech and opinion must be protected. We cannot make being an idiot a crime. But actions can become crimes. Illegal marches and protests, inciting others to violence and destruction of public property are all crimes, not to mention actual violence, and they should be treated as such. Anyone who broke the law at the Charlottesville rally should be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Anyone who broke the law by yanking down a Confederate statue Durham, North Carolina should also be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. One good thing about modern technology like ubiquitous cell phone cameras and social media networks is that someone is almost always filming this nonsense–usually the idiots themselves–and posting it for all the world to see. Arrests and convictions should be rather simple.

There are very few things that will truly unite Americans anymore. Politics will never do it. Sports won’t. Religion will not. But the uncompromising and determined opposition of racial hatred and violence should unite us all. There is simply no place for it in this country. We should be just as united against the idiocy of Charlottesville as we were at the attacks of 9/11. The 9/11 attacks were attacks against the United States of America, against what we are, what we stand for and what we believe. The Charlottesville rally was no less such an attack.

 

 

Words of Judgment

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

The same issue of Christianity Today that contains the column I referenced in the last post includes a column by Christena Cleveland. Cleveland, an African American, is an associate professor of the practice of reconciliation at Duke University’s Divinity School and also the director of the school’s Center for Reconciliation. She has, in the past, received recognition from CT as one of the most influential young evangelicals, and in addition to her recent appointment at Duke (she had been a professor at St. Catherine University in Minnesota) she has also become CT’s “newest print columnist” because, in the words of the magazine’s managing editor, Katelyn Beaty, “she speaks words of judgment and of hope on racial reconciliation.”

When I read this, I was excited, because I have been aware of Cleveland for a while and I have both read and recommended her book Disunity in Christ. So impressed was I by the way Cleveland raised thought-provoking questions about the church and the issue of racial reconciliation within the book that not only I recommended the book to several people, I invited her to come speak at the school where I serve. While initially that seemed to work out, and we had a date scheduled, she later had to cancel and no rescheduling was ever completed. Having read her first effort for CT I am no longer sure I am disappointed about that. To borrow Beaty’s words, she definitely speaks words of judgement.

Cleveland’s column is titled “A Necessary Refuge,” and sub-titled, “I learned at age five that most US churches are unsafe for black people.” That’s thought-provoking and attention-getting to be sure, and while it rubbed me the wrong way I gave her the benefit of the doubt, thinking it was intentionally chosen to provoke interaction and to prompt reading. After setting the stage with her childhood experience, she would likely use the full-page essay to explain how that experience prompted her to pursue the career path she is on and how she has since learned that that assumption is not always the case, nor should it be. Sadly, that is not what her column does at all.

The first three paragraphs of the essay explain Cleveland’s first experience with being called the n-word. It happened when she was only five years old, and it happened at a Vacation Bible School she and her siblings were attending at a predominantly white church outside of San Francisco. It was one of the VBS teachers who shouted the word at the children when they did not respond immediately to a call to return to the classroom after some outdoor recreation. Cleveland writes that while she had never heard the word before, she “instinctively knew that it referred to out blackness. I lowered my head and ran back to the classroom, feeling unwanted and unsafe.”

I have no doubt that was traumatic for Cleveland and her siblings and that it happened is inexcusable. However, from there Cleveland makes a big jump. She writes, “This was the first of many times that the white church has dishonored the image of God in me as a black person, resulting in feeling unwanted and unsafe within the white church walls.” I certainly cannot speak for Cleveland’s feelings, nor would I presume to know what it feels like to be addressed the way that she and her siblings were at that VBS all those years ago. What I do know is that Cleveland is painting with a very wide brush. As tragic as it was for the woman to call her the n-word, it is just as tragic for Cleveland to blame it on the “white church.”

This goes to the same issues I have addressed in the last two posts. Zach Hoag wants to blame God for Josh Duggar’s behavior and Cleveland wants to blame the entire white church for one woman’s stupidity. Ligon Duncan wants an entire denominational body to apologize for the acts of some churches. Cleveland wants an entire race of Christians to be held responsible, and to apologize for, the acts of one individual. For reasons already addressed, neither option makes any sense of holds any water.

Cleveland writes, “Because of this early experience, I have long believed that white churches are not safe spaces for black people.” Notice she does not say she believed that for a long time and has now realized the error of her ways. No, she says have long believed—present tense, meaning she still believes this. And this is a woman who is a professor of the practice of reconciliation? This is a woman who directs a Center for Reconciliation? How, I am longing to know, can she teach or practice reconciliation when she holds millions of people responsible for the actions of a few? If Cleveland believes that white Christians are all responsible for the attitudes, beliefs and actions of a few white individuals who may profess Christianity does she also believe that all African Americans are responsible for the ridiculous violence that some African Americans engaged in over the past year in Ferguson, Baltimore and elsewhere? Somehow I doubt it.

The impetus for Cleveland’s article is the attack, by a white male, on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. She says that the attack was particularly disturbing because “it communicated that black people are not safe even in our own churches. The trauma is exacerbated by the fact that the black church was created to be a haven for black people.” This is absurd reasoning. It makes as much sense as suggesting that because James Holmes shot up a crowded theater in Aurora, Colorado no one is safe in a theater. It makes as much sense as suggesting that because several hundred people lost their lives on the airliners that were crashed into the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania that no one is safe on airlines now, certainly not airlines carrying passengers of Middle Eastern ethnicity. When the United States rounded up and imprisoned anyone of Japanese ancestry after the Pearl Harbor attacks it was inexcusable. It is one of the saddest events of American history, in my mind. Christena Cleveland is essentially doing the same thing with her words.

Unsatisfied with suggesting that the actions of one white man in one black church mean that the white church is unsafe for blacks, Cleveland goes on to write that “anti-black racism” is “part of the DNA of the white American church. … The white-led church was a headquarters for black subjugation, birthing a legacy of racial inequality that has long shaped white Christianity.” Wow… With a few pecks on her keyboard Cleveland wipes out every white church that opposed slavery, that persevered in the face of opposition to bring about an end to slavery, to discrimination, to Jim Crow and racism. It is a very narrow and incredibly inaccurate view of history to suggest that all white churches were in favor of black subjugation. Cleveland gives no credit to those individuals and churches. Instead, she writes, “While many black churches were leading abolitionist and anti-lynching efforts in the 19th century, and the civil rights movement in the 20th century, white churches overwhelmingly maintained the status quo of racial inequality and actively resisted change.” Overwhelmingly? That’s a strong word, and one without sufficient evidence to support its use.

Cleveland cites, as well, a Public Religious Research Institute poll which indicates that white evangelical Protestants are “the only major religious group in which a majority doesn’t see the need for such a movement” as Black Lives Matter. I have not seen the poll numbers so I will not comment on them. But I am a white evangelical Protestant and I do not see the need for such a movement. I see no point in qualifies of any kind. Lives matter, period. Plain and simple. All lives matter—in the womb and after birth; young, middle aged and elderly. Red, yellow, black and white—all are precious in His sight. Those are the words of a children’s song, but they contain adult truth. The emphasis of movements like Black Lives Matter draws lines that need to be erased, reinforce attitudes that need to be obliterated and contribute more to the perpetuation of racism and discrimination than to the elimination of the same. Cleveland’s rhetoric, though perhaps less outrageous and more eloquent, is about as helpful as the rhetoric of Al Sharpton.

She continues, “How can churches filled with people who refuse to acknowledge that racism is still a problem possibly honor the image of God in the black people who darken their sanctuary doors?” I have a few thoughts in response to this question. First, I am more than happy to acknowledge that racism still exists. However, I am not willing to admit that it exists everywhere and certainly not in all white churches. Second, and I suspect Cleveland may not like this position, but racism is not a one-way street. There are plenty of African Americans who are just as racist as the most vehement white racist. There are plenty of people—Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and others—who cannot move fast enough, or open their mouths quickly enough to make every problem or crisis a racial matter. Unfortunately, as alluded to above, Cleveland’s tone in this column do much the same thing. Another point related to this question is that in my own experience very few blacks do darken the sanctuary door of a predominantly white church. I grew up in an area that was quite racially diverse. I taught at a school that was predominantly African American students. Indeed, I once taught a class that was probably 85% non-white. Still, there were very few churches in the area with multi-ethnic congregations. Yes, there were some, and as far as I knew there were no racial issues from the church as a whole. Am I naïve enough to think that no one within those churches was racist? Of course not. But multi-ethnic churches are possible and they do exist, successfully. I am well aware that this cuts both ways; after all, I have never darkened the door of a black church. But Cleveland has to acknowledge the dual directionally of this problem.

Cleveland concludes her essay saying that until the white church is willing to acknowledge its racist history and honor African Americans, the black church will persist as a “necessary place of refuge and resistance—a place where black Christians like me can encounter a God and community that labor for equality and seek to restore the racial identities that have been cursed both inside and outside the broader church.” I take real issue with this statement as well. I have lived in the south—the part of the south where anyone from north of the Mason-Dixon line is considered a Yankee, where men still wear belt buckles that proclaim “The South Will Rise Again”, where African Americans are still referred to by some in very ugly, very inappropriate terms. Sadly, I went to church with some of those people. So yes, there are some white evangelical Protestants who do still fit Cleveland’s bill. Not all of the people in the churches I attended, however, thought that way. Indeed in one church there was an uprising when the pastor performed a marriage ceremony for a white female marrying a black male. A number of people wanted him gone from the church. But enough other people in the church took a stand and did not let that happen. They researched the matter, said there is no biblical support for limiting marriage to people of the same race, and insisted that the pastor had done nothing wrong. Other people in that church went out of their way to welcome and include individuals who were not white. So Cleveland needs to put away her paint brush and take out her fine point pen.

I truly believe that if we would stop focusing so much on the racism that does exist and instead celebrate and focus on the inclusion that also exists we would be surprised at home many stories and examples of reconciliation we can find. Perhaps that should be the first assignment for the new director of Duke University’s Center for Reconciliation. I dare say it would be far more productive and constructive than the current attempt to incite and divide.

The content of their character

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

On Monday Sarah Palin took to Facebook to ask President Barack Obama to stop playing the race card. She posted, “Mr. President, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. and all who commit to ending any racial divide, no more playing the race card.” USA Today opined that while Palin did not specify how Obama “plays the race card,” her comments came on the heels of The New Yorker‘s profile of Obama by David Remnnick in which Obama makes reference to the issue of his race. Obama stated that there are surely some people who dislike him precisely because he is black and others who no doubt like him solely for the same reason. Sad though that may be, it is true, and I am not sure I would consider that “playing the race card.” However, that is not at all to imply that the race card does not get played, because it does.

As I reflected on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday I could not help but think that his dream that his children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” has not been fully fulfilled. What I find most troubling about that–as, I suspect, would King–is that African Americans are just as responsible for that as whites. In some cases perhaps even more so. There are many instances in which African Americans–leaders and non-leaders–make race an issue.

Examples are, unfortunately, not hard to find, but an excellent one can be found just last week. Tamera Mowry is an actress most known for starring, with her twin sister Tia, in the 1990s television show Sister Sister. Mowry is bi-racial; in her interview with Oprah Winfrey she said, “My mom is a beautiful black woman and my dad is an amazing white man, and I grew up seeing a family. I didn’t grow up saying, ‘Oh, that’s a white man.'” Mowry is now married to a white man herself, FOX News correspondent Adam Housely. The two have been married for three years and, Mowry says, ever since the wedding she has been subjected to name calling and all kinds hatred due to her marriage. The UK’s Daily Mail said she has been “remorselessly attacked.” Mowry told Winfrey, “I have never experienced so much hate ever in my life, ever.” Providing specific examples, Mowry said, “I get called ‘white man’s whore.’ The new one was ‘back in the day you cost $300, but now you’re giving it to him for free.'”

This is not the kind of attitude or dialogue that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have encouraged. He would certainly disapprove. The vitriol Mowry describes comes predominantly, if not exclusively, from other African Americans according to her report. What makes the issue ever worse is that the racial hatred spewed at her seems to be intensified because of the fact that her husband is a correspondent for FOX News, widely seen to be the conservative television news channel. During the 2012 vice presidential debate Mowry re-tweeted a Twitter post from Greta VanSusteren referencing her frustration with Joe Biden’s interruptions of Paul Ryan. The Twitter-sphere erupted with comments about Mowry being Republican, being married to a white man, and being “a light skinned hoes boy.” Alfre Woodard is married to a white man, too; as far as I know she has never faced the kind of hatred Mowry describes. Compounding the problem is the fact that it seems widely accepted and even celebrated within the African American community for a black man to marry a white woman. Why the double standard?

There are of course plenty of other examples; sadly, prominent African American political leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton seem to bring race into almost any discussion, even when it does not conveniently fit. I know that Rev. Jackson was a colleague and friend of Dr. King; I cannot, though, help but think that Dr. King would frown at the rhetoric Dr. Jackson so often uses.

Bottom line, I agree with Dr. King’s dream; the content of an individual’s character matters much more than the color of their skin. And as I think about it it is indeed the “content of their character” that shines through when ignorant people attack Tamera Mowry for being happily married to a white man. It is the “content of their character” that shines through when Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton tries to manipulate a legitimate political discussion into a racial issue. Sadly, those individuals often insist on connecting “the content of their character” with “the color of their skin” and the two are really not connected. At the end of the day, there are people of all skin tones that are stupid, arrogant, bigoted or contentious. Likewise, there are people of all skin tones that are intelligent, compassionate, humble and gracious. The best way to fulfill Dr. King’s dream, I think, is simply to live skin color out of it altogether.

President Luter

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

Last week the Southern Baptist Convention elected a new president, and they elected Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, and the first African-American to be elected to the position.

This is newsworthy for the fact that Luter is the first African-American SBA president, but even moreso because when the SBA was founded–167 years ago–it was formed, at least in part, out of an effort to defend segregation and even slavery. In 1995 the SBC apologized for its history. I am not a huge fan of apologies made by individuals years, decades, or in this instance, centuries, after the offense occurred because I fail to see the significance in most instances. I am not sure how I could apologize to someone for something that I did not do and that they did not suffer from and have it carry any real meaning. I am getting off track now, though…. In this instance, anyway, I believe it was appropriate for SBA leadership and the denomination as a whole to express regret over the offensive elements of its history, and certainly to clearly articulate that those principles are no longer a part of the organization now. And it certainly is noteworthy that an organization–any organization–that has such a past would now elect as its president an individual who, at the time of its founding, would have never even been considered for membership.

I do not know Fred Luter, nor do I know anything about him other than what I have read in news stories, but it certainly sounds from those stories like the Lord has worked through him to greatly impact the New Orleans area. His dedication to his church after Hurricane Katrina, and the rebuilding of that church, is incredible.

In actuality, though, what has prompted me to write about this issue today is not the election of Fred Luter per se, but some of the realities that still exist in some SBC churches. Full disclosure: I am a former member and deacon of an SBC church. I do not consider myself a southern Baptist, nor did I even at the time of my membership in an SBA church, but it was the church in our community that was most faithfully teaching and preaching the Word of God and carrying out the Great Commission.

On usatoday.com there was a comment made by a reader regarding a report that stated that Luter “came out of the racist south.” The commenter was expressing chagrin over such “unbiased reporting”–a term he was using sarcastically. Unfortunately, however, it is true. Whether or not it is relevant to the story of Luter’s election may be debatable, I suppose, but it is a fact that Luter was raised in a part of the south that was in many instances still very racist during his formative years. This same commenter said, in a later post, that in all of his traveling in the U.S. the south is one of the least racist parts of the country. Perhaps he has been very selective in the parts of the south that he has visited, or perhaps he–either by choice or by lack of perception–failed to see the racism that does still exist.

Apparently his commenter is not the only individual so deceived, either. Another individual commented on the story of Luter’s election, and the comment referenced above, with this statement: “This actually has nothing to do with racism. Since racism hasn’t existed in most SBC churches in 35 years only an idiot would think there is a connection. The only reason the major media thinks there is a difference is that it has been that long since any of them went to church.” The word idiot is a strong one, but this individual apparently feels quite strongly that there is no racism in SBC churches, and has not been, in quite some time.

It saddens me to say, however, that I have seen racism first hand in SBC churches. And I use the plural on purpose, because in the position in which I served I had the opportunity to be in many different churches throughout part of the south, and I experienced or witnessed first had the racism that does still exist. I have been in churches that would not allow African-Americans into their church. I have been in a church that almost fired its pastor because he married a biracial couple. I have been in more than one church where the spoken and implied position of more-than-a-few of the members was that African-Americans should stay in their own churches and had no place “infiltrating” theirs.

Now, I need to interject a few things here. One, I think that same individuals–Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton come immediately to mind–cry racism over every and any little thing and attempt to make racism the source of most any wrong that occurs. Individuals of that ilk tend to stoke the racist flames and are just as racist in most instances as those they claim to be challenging. The dialogue they tend to engage in is not constructive, but destructive. At the same time, however, I also recognize that the existence of all-white or all-black churches does not in and of itself mean that the congregations are racist. There are cultural differences, differences in worship style and tradition, and a variety of other reasons why churches may remain predominantly or even exclusively made up of one race, none of which are racist.

I am pleased to say that the SBC church that I was a part of made tremendous strides towards breaking down long-standing walls of division that stemmed from a long tradition of racism in an area of the country that had once been covered with tobacco fields worked by slaves. I do not think that that church is a racist church. But that does not mean that there are never racist individuals or racist thoughts within the church, either.

Here’s what it comes down to: (1) racism does exist, and it does exist even within the church; (2) racism does not exist, in most areas, to the level or the extreme that it once did or that some instigators would still have us believe, but (3) that is not justification to get lax or to turn a blind eye to racism when we do see it. Oh, and (4) the fact the he grew up in the “racist south” and is now the president of an organization founded in part with racist principles is relevant to the newsworthiness of the election of Fred Luter as SBC president.

Bottom line, though–there is simply is no excuse for racism. The Bible makes it absolutely clear that God created all humans, that He creates them in His image, and that we are all–regardless of the color of our skin–descended from common ancestors (both Adam and Noah). The old children’s song is right on: “Jesus loves the little children/all the children of the world/red and yellow, black and white/they are precious in His sight/Jesus loves the little children of the world.” He loves the adults, too. And there is one other thing that the Bible is just as clear on–we are to love each other just as God loves us, without qualification or clarification.