We are told that our country is a racist country that
oppresses and holds down people of color.
Yet there is not another country in the world today that any
person of color who is already here now would rather live in. And millions of people of color have come to
live here by their own choice, and millions more are waiting to do so. Should we tell them not to come?
If it had not been for slavery, all the descendants of slavery
here now would still be in Africa and not in the country of their choosing. I submit that their life here now is better
than it would have been if they had never been brought here so long ago from
Africa. People of color, frankly, should
be thanking God every day that they live here in spite of everything they say
is wrong with this country.
There is a story in the Bible of a man whom God greatly
favored whom God, you could say, caused to be sold into slavery and later
unjustly imprisoned who thanked God afterwards when he realized how God was
using the events of his life for a greater good. (Genesis 37-50) And this man forgave the ones who sold him
into slavery in the first place because of that.
But we are told that people must protest and even riot about
the mistreatment of black people by the police.
The mistreatment of black people by the police was indeed
the stated reason for the protests when they started, but the purpose for the
protests by those who actually organized them and got them going goes far beyond
problems with the police. The mistreatment
of blacks by police gave their cause acceptability in the eyes of the public.
We know that the protests are not really about the plight of
black people, because 1) they say and do nothing about the much greater problem
of rampant violence in black communities.
More people are shot and killed in black neighborhoods by black men in a
few weeks than die at the hands of police officers in the entire year.
We know that the protests are not really about the plight of
black people, because 2) they are offering nothing that is intended to improve
the lives of anyone. There is a proposal
to shift funding for policing to social services. Most people I think see that as unrealistic
and even dangerous. We are already
seeing what a diminished police presence looks like in some places, and I don’t
expect that to last. The goal I believe
is to reduce possible future police resistance as these protests and riots continue
and expand.
We are told that we should not bring up the issue of
violence in the black communities, because that is a different, separate, and
unrelated issue than the issue at hand, that of racism, both personal and systemic.
But people aren’t buying that.
We are told that everybody needs to invest in black
communities, but we have seen what has happened to people who have. Not everybody is able and willing to rebuild
their businesses after they have been looted and burned to the ground.
We are told that all our schools and neighborhoods need to
be fully integrated. But people who live
in those neighborhoods that are said to need more integration are afraid that
that violence that we read about every day in the newspapers will follow that
integration.
There is a lot more going on than simply protesting over the
death of one man at the hands of police.
Their intention is to present a constant complaint of as
much as possible about American society and life, so that they can condition the
American people to see their country as broken and so that they accept these complaints
as valid.
The protests now include the issues of slavery, systemic
racism, and indigenous peoples with the goal of discrediting the entire
foundation of the United States and Western Civilization, so that these people
will be able to demand wholesale changes to the system and that the defenders
of the historical United States and Western Civilization will feel completely
unable to defend it, its history, its institutions, and its practices.
They want the American people to see the whole basis and
organization of our country as irredeemably flawed, such that it cannot be repaired
and must be replaced. They don’t want to
fix the United States; they want to replace it.
They want to intimidate and shame the American people into
silence and acquiescence such that they will not resist as these people try to reinvent
America.
I wish I could say that changes will come out of these
protests and riots that will actually improve the lives of anybody. But the protests and riots are no longer
about George Floyd and the police but about bringing down the United States as
we know it.
