The Magic Words 'Racism' and 'Hate'

I got my fill of the annual Martin Luther King guilt trip speeches again this year.  The president’s comments (or any politician’s comments for that matter) are always predictable.  “We have made some gains in our fight against racism, but we still have a long way to go”.  Ironic that these comments have come from a black president for the past 6 years.  “Racism” and “Hate” are magic labels.  If you can slap them on a person, organization or class of people, they become instantly stripped of social and human rights.  You are free to vent your all your pent up hostility – justified or not – at the condemned.  And while most people won’t admit it, they find it refreshingly liberating to throw off, guilt-free, the restraints of civility and return to the visceral, base passions that feverishly fueled public executions in past days. “Haters” are fair game, no holds barred.

And the bar for ‘hate’ is not just low, it’s invisible.  If, like Phil from A&E’s Duck Dynasty, you dare to paraphrase the Bible, you are presumptuously filled with hate and deserve to be publicly lynched in the town square.  No trial is necessary, no analysis, no parsing of the quotes… you are a wretched barbarian that is harmful to society and should be exiled from all public life. 

Shelby Steele wrote another brilliant piece in the Wall Street Journal after the outcry over the Trayvon Martin case in which a black teen was killed by a neighborhood watchman.  Even though Zimmerman was Hispanic (not white), and the jury found him innocent due to self-defense,  race baiters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson didn’t let facts get in the way of a good crusade against the oppressive white society.  Mr. Steele made the provocative observation that Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson desperately want the US to be perpetually stuck in the 60s, when oppression was real and the rallying call of equal rights was justified.  The movement had substance back then.  Black leaders could articulate an agenda:  voting rights, end to segregation, no whites-only restaurants and drinking fountains, equal access to loans and jobs regardless of skin color.  Sharpton and his ilk see themselves as that inspirational figure delivering the “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington DC.   They want to be heroes, to have kids memorize their speeches, to have the whole country celebrate their birthdays as a national holidays.   If the country isn’t infested with white trash racists, they have no oppression to champion.  So they have a vested interest in keeping that image alive, even if they have to create it one pixel at a time.

In an earlier post about MLK, I pointed out that his original vision was that of unity, when we stop caring about skin color and think of each other as people.  Dr. King actually painted a very clear picture of his dream in which blacks and whites joined together in activities and society without stopping to think or ask about skin pigmentation level.  Suppose Dr. King could have captured a snapshot of America in 2014, with a black President, black Supreme Court justices, black entertainment moguls, black lawyers, black millionaires, blacks and whites riding the same public transit, eating in the same restaurants, going to the same schools, shopping in the same stores, living in the same neighborhoods and worshiping in the same churches.  Would he be proud of the way black society has advanced in 50 years?  Would he still think racism is the biggest problem they face?  Or would he make note of the statistics of black on black violent crime, teen pregnancies, school dropouts, single parent households and the disproportionate number of blacks in jails and prisons?  Is the abuse of white power to blame for all of this? Or have we found white guilt a convenient gravy train to load up with all black suffering? 

We have become accustomed to politicians saying anything and everything that makes their voters feel championed. But the guilt trips have spread beyond political figures and have crept into our churches, probably because the pulpit is the universally recognized hydrant from which guilt is dispensed.  Ministers can make you feel bad about anything, even if it has only tenuous religious roots.   If you don’t embrace the gay agenda, you must be a hater and you should feel guilty. If you don’t support your political leaders, you must be a hater and should confess.  How many times over MLK weekend were variations of this phrase proclaimed to congregations:  “We need to repent for the sins of racism and slavery!”? 

Strangely enough, slavery is never portrayed in the bible as a sin.  And it’s not because slavery didn’t exist in the old or new testament.  In fact, slaves were discussed in many passages.  In Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, aka the Torah, several rules are issued for the buying, selling and treatment of slaves including this pearl in Exodus 21: 20-21 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.”  Wow. The New Testament frees Christians of Old Testament law, but it not silent on the topic of slavery.  Colossians 4:1: “Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.”  Paul made a point of delivering a specific message to Christian slave masters, and if he wanted to tell them slavery was a sin this would have certainly been the right opportunity.  The whole book of Philemon is in reference to a slave, Onesimus, who Paul is sending back to his master.  It’s a short letter, but nowhere does Paul call Philemon a sinner for owning Onesimus.  

Seems like there should be a verse somewhere that says “Masters, free your slaves just as Christ has freed you”.  Sure sounds biblical, doesn’t it?  But it’s not there, not anywhere.  How could something as vile and wicked as slavery escape the attention of Jesus?  And how was it not mentioned as one of the deadliest deadly sins?  Could it be that Jesus didn’t think slavery was a sin?   (Did I really just make that sentence?)  One couldn’t claim with a straight face that the bible encourages slavery, or that reinstating it in 21^st century America could be done with a clear conscience.  But we need to be careful about drawing lines where God didn’t see fit to draw them; putting ourselves in his seat of justice is not only arrogant, it’s downright blasphemous.  Maybe we have demonized slavery because the only images forced upon our minds are the inhuman treatment and oppression of blacks, beatings, rapes, unsanitary conditions and the like.  Those were sins, but not because one person was ‘property’ of another.  And maybe we only recall the worst of slavery because we are socially forbidden to imagine it in any other way.   For example, a person would surely be worthy of public beating and indelible ‘racist’ branding if they were to point out that black activists, who are quick to claim their African heritage, are far better off in every way than their distant African cousins who weren’t ever brought to America.  Heresy.  How dare I?

But think about it: Can you list any country in the whole world where blacks have more opportunity for health and prosperity than in the United States?  What about the countries in Africa that have not been ‘spoiled’ by whites – which of those blossomed into the utopian society that blacks enjoy today?   Uganda?  Rwanda?  Somalia?  Anybody wish they lived there instead of the USA?   Many there still don’t have clean water to drink.  As bad as AIDS is in America, it’s far worse in Africa.  Hunger, pestilence, poverty, literacy, infant mortality, health care… does an African country top the US in any category?

It’s one of those dialogs we are forbidden to have in public discourse, like the blatantly racist policy that allows blacks to use the ‘n-word’ freely but can never be uttered if you are white.  Let’s just admit it:  OJ was acquitted of murder largely because his attorneys found that sometime in the history of his life, Mark Fuhrman uttered the ‘n-word’.   That’s all it takes to discredit and condemn a white witness. Whites can’t even discuss the evidence of the OJ trial, because that might require you to say ‘the n-word’. 

But the fact that racism is an institution that Jackson and Sharpton depend on for their living is merely a disappointment, not a surprise.  What bothers me more is that ministers in otherwise fundamental churches are so easily co-opted to cultivate guilt among white people in the name of spiritual righteousness.  Although conviction and repentance is necessary to Christianity, simply ginning up those symptoms for a spiritually counterfeit agenda is reprehensible.  But alas, an intellectually honest dialog on the topic is beyond elusive, it’s forbidden.

Here is an example of an honest but incendiary statement that cannot be made in public discourse:  I feel no guiltier about a slavery 200 years ago than I feel entitled to gratitude for bringing blacks out of Africa for a life of opportunity in the greatest nation on earth. If I’m indebted for one, shouldn’t I get credit for the other?  How about neither?

MLKs dream was that we reach a day when we stop trying to keep score and just see each other as Americans. 

I’m ready.  Are you?

Drowing in the Aftermath of the Washington Navy Yard Shooting

This week Aaron Alexis went on a shooting spree at the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12 people before being killed himself in a gunfight.  The incident was a tragedy by any measure. But I’ve been disappointed at the race by both the left and right to capitalize on the carnage. 

The gun control crowd was predictable; being rational has never been a prerequisite for joining that parade.  Even Dr. Janice Orlowski, chief medical officer at MedStar Hospital where many of the victims were taken, took time out from reporting on the medical conditions to exposit on the politics of the event.

“There is something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try to eradicate. There is something wrong here when we have these multiple mass shootings, these multiple injuries.”

Good thing we had someone with 20+ years of college to point that out for us. 

The media, of course, gladly filled in the blanks by reminding us that 26 were shot at Sandy Hook elementary, 6 at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, 12 in Aurora, 6 in Tucson, 13 at Fort Hood, and 32 at Virginia Tech.  The obvious implication is that since all of these people died from gunshot wounds, this is clearly the most significant problem in our society today.

Eric Bolling of Fox News “The Five” pointed out that

“11,000 guns last year caused murders, 11,000 people died at the hands of gun that wasn't a suicide. Four hundred forty-four thousand cigarettes. Car accidents accounted for about 40,000. Alcohol, 80,000.

But they blame the person in every single example with the exception of guns and now they want to blame the guns."

As effective as it is to surf an emotional tidal wave in the aftermath of a tragedy, clearly gun control advocates aren’t really concerned about the loss of life or they would take on a long list of issues responsible for more deaths in America before they got to mass shootings. 

But I was even more disappointed in the way the right pounced on the issue of mental illness as the obvious problem.  It pretty much goes without saying that anyone who takes a gun into a school, mall, public event or workplace and starts randomly killing people is not mentally stable.  This act is the very definition of being a danger to society.  Again, we don’t need someone with 4 degrees and 20+ years of medical practice to make this diagnosis in hindsight.  In the case of Aaron Alexis, they point to some strange comments he made about people talking to him through the walls and ceiling of his hotel room and sending microwaves into his body to deprive him of sleep.   

Well, obviously he should have wrapped in a straight jacket, been locked in a padded room and fed oatmeal through a slot in the door for the rest of his life.  With some reservation I have to admit, sometimes people talk to me through the walls at my house. It’s because they are too lazy to get up and walk to the doorway where they can see me.  And lord knows, if you ever have problems sleeping it means you are just one hair's breadth away from going on a shooting rampage at the nearest public building. 

Really, what are we proposing should have been done?  Are we going to start declaring people sane or mentally ill based on whether they say or do anything we find strange?  How many family members could you have committed before the weekend?  And who is to say what ‘strange’ means? 

Violent video games was also mentioned as a contributing factor.  I actually missed the video game era, but my kids play them.  Does that make them the next Aaron Alexis?  

An ounce of reasoned analysis reveals that we wouldn’t want to live in a society in which we could be denied constitutional rights simply because a neighbor thought we were strange.  So why the mad rush to declare a cause after these kinds of incidents?

As described above, we see some who are simply opportunists who can’t let a good tragedy go to waste.  But this doesn’t explain all the behavior.  The reality is that nobody wants to think this could happen where they live, work, worship or play.  They want to believe that the kind of person who could do this is easy to spot, and someone was grossly negligent in their duty to lock them away from the rest of us.  The suggestion that someone can ‘just snap without warning’ makes us panic like a swimmer too far from the dock, so we gladly cling to anything disguised as a life preserver even if it turns out to be a brick. 

Perhaps we can take a page from the gun control activists and agree to a 30-day waiting period before advocating any serious policy initiatives in the wake of a tragedy.   That would give us some time to separate logic from fear, anger, heartache and panic. 

How Much I Don't Care about Miley Cyrus

I became reminded this week of the limitations of the English language.  I searched for a word or term to express the extent to which I don’t care about Miley Cyrus or what she might have done at the Video Music Awards.  I didn’t watch the show, and I didn’t even watch any of the billion or so clips that have been posted by anyone who knows how.  But I’ve been bombarded with commentary, headlines, photos and quotes at every turn.  I searched my lexicon for appropriate adjectives to describe my feelings, but the only ones that seemed to be in the neighborhood were ‘apathy’, ‘indifference’ and maybe ‘ambivalence’.   None of them seemed to fit.  That’s when I realized there are different levels of “don’t care”. 

The words listed above invoke the image of a puffball dandelion in my lawn. It lacks sufficient structure or definition to stand against external forces; it could lean to the left or the right, depending on which way the breeze blows.  And if it rains or you step on it, it might lose its definition altogether.

This is completely appropriate to describe many situations we face in life, although men and women see them quite differently.  For example, it perfectly describes the feeling men have when asked “should I wear the black hoops or the silver stud earrings with these shoes”?   Just tell us which way you want us to lean, and we’ll support your decision.  We just don’t care.

Women, on the other hand, experience this same feeling when asked which teams they want to see play in the Super Bowl, World Series, or Stanley Cup.  Maybe some have one favorite home team, but most aren’t willing to give up a day at the spa, go a year with no car, or lose a few teeth in a brawl over it.  They are apathetic, indifferent, or ambivalent. 

But this is not my Miley Cyrus level of “don’t care”.  My “don’t care” is not a puffball dandelion swayed by the breeze.  My “don’t care” is more like a granite boulder the size of New Jersey.  Maybe we could introduce ‘grantipathy’ as a new word to capture the essence.  You can blast wind at it, drown it in torrential rain, fire bomb it, even detonate multiple nuclear devices on it and you won’t substantially change the shape, form or substance of my “don’t care”.  It’s not fragile and subject to the whims of the elements or my environment.  You can’t intimidate my “don’t care” through appeals, whining, or intellectual sophistry about the declining morality of our culture.  We all know by now that people will use shock as a substitute for talent or intellectual stimulus to get attention.  Yes, I have morals and standards. But I resent the expectation that I should muster organized outrage in response to each lame attempt to assault my conscience, much like I resent the suggestion that I should stand outside a bar on Saturday night and agree to be provoked to fight every drunk who wants to test his manhood by assaulting mine. I just don't owe anybody that.

  

I’m not angry at Miley Cyrus.  I’m not shocked, outraged, amused, intrigued or disgusted.  I just don’t care.