Our Country Is Growing Sicker With Hefty Doses Of Racial Tension

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If you are going to read this, you must promise to read it with an open mind and heart.  If you are looking for a conservative agenda or a liberal one, shut off the blog and walk away.  If you desire to fight and lash out, move on.  If you want to offer solutions or present good, logical, well-thought out ideas, by all means, please join in the discussion.

Nothing is getting accomplished.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed that.  For a year or more now, this country has been split in two–each tribe taking its side and standing across from each other, divided by a great chasm that is threatening to grow bigger and bigger.  Each side is shouting their tribal chants and it falls on the deaf ears of the other side.  There is no listening now.  We’ve lost our capability.

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.” 
–Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird

What do we all expect?  Do we really believe that at some miraculous moment the opposing side is going to just wake up and swoop over to ours?  Both sides scream and shout, but to what end?  What is the end goal here?  As things go right now, the end goal seems to be total destruction and division of our country.  We can’t just offer smart-alec memes and sarcastic jerky responses and except anyone to take us seriously.  These are not solutions.  I’m pretty sure that memes are not what turns this country around.  I feel pretty confident in that.

I haven’t always done this well, but I do know that the truth must always be given in a charitable way.  If you want people to think on your thoughts and consider them, you can’t completely tick them off and hold them at such a far distance that they can never even consider your words.  I know from experience that this doesn’t work.  I think it’s important to remember that in the grand scheme of the world, our nation’s political parties are relatively new ideas.  Political parties, while necessary, I guess, are not the end all, be all.  Neither side has all the answers, neither side is complete truth.  And neither side is offering solutions to our current state of affairs.

What am I talking about?  I’m talking about all the racial tension in our country right now.  I have four points I want to make–two to each side.

To the conservatives in this country:

  1.  When you hear the latest story of a black person being killed by the cops, what is your first reaction?  I’m sure it’s something along the lines of “here we go again” with a eye roll.  However, what if for a second we just looked at these men and women as human beings–not black people, but just people?  I understand, it’s difficult to view them in any way different than a criminal that got caught doing something wrong by the cops, but what if we just stepped back for a moment?  These men and the one woman, that I know of, were all doing bad things, granted, but are they not also lost and hurting people?  They are using drugs, stealing, disobeying, brandishing weapons and all of these things are against the law and should be justly dealt with, but what if we have to look at the bigger picture here and see the actually root of the problem.  You cannot fix something or help to fix something if you don’t look at the root.  The reasons these people are acting out is a symptom of a bigger problem.  If I learned anything in my time working as a criminologist it’s that every criminal is a hurting person.  Conservatives talk all the time about trying to get rid of welfare, because the government should not create a “nanny state.”  Ideally that help would come from the community, from churches.  Conservatives are right in saying that the government be the sole care-taker of people.  But are our communities striving to be places where we reach out and help our brothers and sisters in need?  Do black people have confidence in the “other side” to worry about their well-being?  I think that our churches are, in general, trying to help, but are we saying as a collective whole, “We want to help.  Let’s work together”?  I know that sounds all kumbaya and “pie in the sky,” but yelling and screaming at them doesn’t seem to be an effective tactic.  If you see a problem, you have to want to work to change it for the better.  You can’t just have a flippant “I told you so” attitude.
  2. Conservatives must change how they confront all of this.  Yes, the black people being killed by cops were committing crimes.  Yes, it is true that some of these black men were killed by black cops, so the race card is ineffective.  Yes, there are white people killed by cops, too, it’s just that the media chooses to focus on the black men that are killed.  These things are all true.  One thing my husband tells our children frequently is that “you have to find a way to get people on your team.”  If one of my kids is having a particularly tough time with a teammate, family member, or coach, he teaches them to find ways to get that person a part of their team.  This means, find a way to get them to want to work with you and listen to you.  The conservative group, as a whole, is not using methods that makes anyone in the BLM movement or on the left work as a team with them. It’s important to present the truth, but to do it with an act of love and charity.  They have to see that you are willing their good and right now it just seems like we are all content to sit on our opposing sides and scream at each other.  It seems more that there is a greater interest to one up the other side with a “gotcha” meme.  I’ve seen numerous things from those on the right that are extremely hateful and racist.  You can see why the left says conservatives are racist.  It’s because there is a lot being said on the internet that is, in fact, racist.  If you are going to say conservatives aren’t racist (or that it’s only a few quacks) than when one looks around, you would expect to see the truth of this.  I’m not seeing it.  In fact, I see a lot that makes me cringe and it just doesn’t help.  If you want to draw people to the truth than you have to present it with clarity and civility–and a dose of patience.

To the liberals in this country:

  1.  I think it is important for you to be honest about how we got to this place.  If you want a solution, you must look for the root.  Black men are being killed by cops, but that’s just a symptom.  There is one thing and one thing in particular that we can look at to explain this–the destruction of the family.  Through the sexual revolution, we have witnessed the family fall apart.  You can pretend it isn’t happening or that this not the problem, but that is just ignoring truth.  The sexual revolution told us that it’s okay to treat sex as a recreational sport.  Abortion and contraceptions removed the consequences of sex.  This has set up an environment where sex outside of marriage is rampant, which creates babies that are either aborted or left without a father.  Time and time again, we are shown through statistical studies that what is best for a child is to be in the home of a mother and father who are united in marriage.  This is the ideal and, unfortunately, the family institution has been tossed aside, mocked, and taught that it’s not even necessary.  But it is.  It is necessary.  We can’t ignore that.  The overwhelming majority of men that are in prison come from fatherless homes.  This means something.  To deny that it means something is just dishonest and completely unhelpful.  You can point fingers all day at the cops, but the fact is, is that they are just reacting to actions by these men.  There has not been one case of cops going into a black person’s home who just sleeping in their bed and the cops murdered them in cold blood.  The cops all were having an altercation of some kind with these people.  But, the bigger question is why are there so many altercations with black men?  Why are they committing so much crime?  Could it possibly be that they are coming from broken homes or fatherless families?  To swipe that possibility off the table is completely absurd and detrimental.
  2. The first thing that must always been done when looking to fix a problem is to look to oneself.  We must ask ourselves what we can do to fix the problem.  We can only control ourselves and so it is imperative that we do everything within our power to make sure that we are doing things right.  When you point fingers at other people it shines the light on someone else and never shines the light on your failings and faults.  Then we stand around for eons waiting on that other person to fix things for us.  I promise, this never works.  The fact is, is we become the choices we make.  The left has preached that fathers are not important, the central family unit is not important, and that it’s all the “other sides” fault that things are the way they are.  You can’t institute new, radical ways (i.e. the sexual revolution) of doing things, watch as they destruct lives around you and then blame another group for it.   We have to own our mistakes and be humble enough to know when we’ve made wrong decisions.  Promoting fatherless families and free sex for everyone isn’t working.  In fact, it’s leaving a path of destruction in its wake.  To add to this, if someone from the other side is offering to help, are you open to taking it?  Is the black community open to help from white people?  Maybe we don’t know what it’s like to be black, but I think all of us, as humans, can understand suffering and hardship.  The pigment in our skin doesn’t make us more or less equipped to help a fellow neighbor out.  In fact, the pigment in our skin really determines nothing–our character is what defines us.  I don’t have to fully understand your plight to reach out a helping hand or to suggest another way of doing things.  Sometimes it is those outside the inner circle that can see things the clearest.

These are just some things to think about.  Before you get defensive about them just pause, take a breath, and mediate on them.  Look to see if anything I have presented here is truthful.  Sometimes the truth does hurt, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true.  We must be humble enough to recognize when we ourselves have done things badly or wrong.  If we are unwilling to look at the truth, well, that just means we have a narrative that we want to push and truth matters none.  If we really seek change, I mean really seek it, then we must explore the root of the problem, be honest about it, and talk about solutions that just might work.

I honestly don’t know if we, as a nation, really want to fix this–both sides are obstinate.  I would hope that we are better than this and that we truly do desire for all homes-black, white, hispanic, asian–to be healthy and whole.  I would hope that we don’t take some morbid delight seeing things play out the way it is.  I would hope that we view what the media stuffs in front of our face with a critical eye.  I would hope that we work to not just react to these shootings without first waiting for all the details to come in.  I would hope that we wouldn’t look to spread lies about the nature of these shootings just in an effort to push a narrative.  Our number one goal-NUMBER ONE–should be healing for our country.  If we want cops to be safe, if we want our communities to be safe, if we want a country were thriving is the norm for all colors than we must order our responses and attitudes to that goal.

The most important thing we need to remember in all of this is that truth is for our good.  Truth always brings out the best in us, because it strips us of bias and pride.  Always follow truth and strive to deliver it with a humble and charitable heart.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” –Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird

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2 responses to “Our Country Is Growing Sicker With Hefty Doses Of Racial Tension”

  1. I think it’s really interesting that these problems are getting worse. You’d think we’d be getting more tolerant as a country and instead, these racial issues are getting louder and louder. I agree, both sides need to set down their egos and come together to solve this. Where is the love?

    • I feel the same way. I remember back to growing up in the 80s and 90s and it seemed like we were making some headway. Now, I feel like we are going back in time.

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