Why the USA Has Continual Racial Tension
I was going to write something happy this month, but the nation is gripped. I grieve at the rioting, but in this longer-than-usual post, I hope, as a white guy who’s learned a few things, to share some reasons why the USA continues to have so much racial tension—and my greatest hope. I’ve hyperlinked terms in case you’re not familiar with them. My friend Jerry is still in Louisiana, but we still have long talks on the phone. Last year he despaired that injustices against African-Americans like him never seemed to change. And he was most concerned for his grandkids….
The Legacy Museum and Memorial
In Montgomery, Alabama, I visit the Legacy Museum, where for the first time in my life I start to learn the full truth of the African-American experience, not just in slavery but from the Civil War to 1965: mob violence, Black Codes, Convict Leasing, lynching, institutionalized suppression through Jim Crow laws, and abuse through manipulation of the criminal justice system. I was speechless. The subjugation of blacks across the entire South, aided by inaction in the rest of the country, enabled an ever-evolving white supremacist caste system to perpetrate itself for one hundred years. I’m stunned that I never had…
Sanity for Ferguson, Missouri
Through all the fire and smoke and anger and fear and frustration–and through all the shouting–if we saw as God sees, what might we see? Everyone sees a police force that shows evidence of misconduct or poor conduct, particularly where African-Americans are concerned. We might also see a community that has had racial divide, enforced in the early part of the twentieth century by a fence that separated blacks from whites with a gate that was locked every evening until the 1940s. And ever since has been home to racial tensions. We might also see a dysfunctional family, in which a…
Evil Is Not a Mental Illness
Contrary to popular feel-goodism / we’re-all-somehow-good-people liberal mindsets, evil is not a mental illness. Because so many people willfully blind themselves to this, they wonder how rampages like the recent one at UC Santa Barbara could happen. A young man was mentally ill. He rebuffed people’s friendliness then blamed them for rejecting him. Despite his kind parents’ every attempt to help him, he grew isolated and bitter, a victim consciousness driving him to rage. It’s not uncommon. As a pastor, I’ve encountered this kind of person many times. I understand such people; I have pity on them and want to help….
When Happy and Horrified Are Neighbors
Tornado season is already kicking in furiously in the Southern states. The crazy temperature spikes in California remind me of the crazy polar vortex much of the country endured last winter. Temperature is nothing compared to having your home obliterated. Until we get the dreaded “Big One,” folks in Southern California will continue to bask, or sweat, while other citizens get walloped. Southern Cal’s turn will come though. How oddly life goes on while others suffer. It happens on a personal level as well. I’ll never forget how one night years ago Kim and I were enjoying our supper until…
