Racism Part 2 - What It Is Not (Racism Falsely So-Called)

     Welcome to the second and concluding part of my study on racism. In the first part, I examined what racism is from a Biblical standpoint (rather than concerning myself with political definitions). In this post however, I want to look at what racism is NOT, because in the world right now, there is a kind of "racism falsely so-called".

     Firstly, racism is not just a sin of white people. (As I noted in Part 1 of this study, racism is sin, and specifically the sin of despising others on the basis of skin colour.) Yes, there are white supremacists in the world, and yes, there is a sad history with things like the Jim Crow and apartheid laws of the past, and yes, people with black, brown or other "non-white" skin tones sometimes (or often in some places) suffer racial harassment and abuse from whites (which is not acceptable in any way, shape or form). I don't dispute any of that in the least. However, it is also a simple reality that we all have the same sin nature inherited from Adam (see 1 Corinthians 15:22), which means that everyone, regardless of their own skin colour, is capable of despising people who have different coloured skin than what they do. A black or brown person who despises whites is no better in God's eyes than a white person who despises non-whites (or people of colour, if you prefer). Remember that God is no respecter of persons, so He judges all racists by the same standard, irrespective of their skin colour. Moreover, whites can also be victims of racially motivated attacks, especially in the United States. But the mainstream media doesn't want to know about it, because they insist on promoting a narrative that only white people are capable of racism. So they push any story that fits their preferred narrative, and ignore any story that doesn't. Hence, if a group of white supremacists beats a black person to death, the mainstream media will be all over that story. They'll cover it for days and weeks. But if a group of black supremacists (yes, they really do exist, and they're not that hard to find online) beats a white person to death, all you'll get from the MSM is the sound of crickets. (Sometimes the latter kind of story will get a bit of traction in the alternative, mainly conservative media.) By giving more weight to stories of racist violence committed by whites and almost no weight to stories of racist violence committed by non-whites, the MSM is actually respecting persons. (But in the past, where the MSM was too favourable to whites and unkind to non-whites, that was also respecting persons. So they have essentially gone too far the other way now, but are still sinning by respecting persons.)

     Secondly, criticising the behaviour of someone who just happens to be black, brown or otherwise "not white" is NOT racist. If you criticise someone like Donald Trump, a white man, for his behaviour, no one accuses you of racism. They may vehemently disagree with your criticism, but whatever rude names they may call you, "racist" won't be one of them. Now try criticising someone like Meghan Markle, a mixed-race woman, for HER behaviour. Suddenly, you're deemed to be racist! This is completely illogical. Now, if someone were to use a racial slur against Ms Markle, you could justifiably accuse them of racism then. What is more, I would agree with you. That would clearly and indisputably be racism. But to simply say, "I don't like this or that aspect of her behaviour" is no more racist than taking Donald Trump to task over HIS behaviour. The same is true when challenging the veracity of someone's claims. It's fine to "fact-check" Donald Trump, but NOT fine, according to some, to do likewise with the Duchess of Sussex! (Piers Morgan knows that only too well.) To hold Meghan Markle and Donald Trump to different standards is to respect persons. Any time you see a double standard like this, the respect of persons is in operation.

    I'm sure many people who consider themselves "anti-racist" would probably revere Martin Luther King, Jr. (I used to admire him myself, and once did a lengthy study about him in my secondary school history class.) His finest hour was probably his "I Have a Dream" speech, and perhaps the best line of that speech was when he said that he had a dream of a world in which his four children would be judged not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character. Yet people who do exactly that with Meghan Markle are falsely branded "racists". Those who make these false accusations are contradicting their own hero by making the issue about skin colour rather than character! Oh, the irony!

     Thirdly, just because somebody SAYS they have been the victim of racism, doesn't mean they actually HAVE been. Nowadays, it seems that all somebody has to do is cry "Racism!", and everybody automatically believes them without bothering to examine their claims more closely. ("The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going." - Proverbs 14:15) And those who DO make the effort to carefully scrutinise a person's claims of racism are ironically branded racists.

    Let's be clear about something: people lie all the time. The Bible has a LOT to say about lying, and it is very clear that lying is a sin God particularly hates. Moreover, God is all about truth, while lies are the domain of the Devil (John 8:44). A particularly pernicious form of lying is false accusation. Many innocent people have had their lives ruined or otherwise seriously disrupted because somebody falsely accused them of something. Some people have even been killed as a result of false accusations. This is one reason why the Bible instructs us NOT to believe everything we hear, but examine it more closely (see for example Acts 17:11 and 1 Thessalonians 5:21). But if an incendiary enough accusation is made, people seem only too willing to believe it. There are examples of this in the Bible, such as when Potiphar's wife falsely accused Joseph of attempted rape after she had sexually harassed him (read about that in Genesis 39:6-20). (If she were alive today, she probably would have been an enthusiastic member of the MeToo movement.) Nobody bothered to check her allegations out more closely, and Joseph was thrown in jail. (While the crime of rape obviously does happen, and is a very wicked thing when it does, there are women today who falsely accuse men of it, and these men often wrongly go to jail or have their reputations ruined as a result.) We also see in 1 Kings 21:1-15 how two men who had been hired by wicked Queen Jezebel falsely accused Naboth of blaspheming God and the king. Nobody bothered to test whether those claims were true. Naboth was stoned to death for his supposed crime. (In those days, and in that particular culture, an accusation of blasphemy was every bit as incendiary as accusations of racism are today.) There are several examples in the book of Acts where the apostles would be falsely accused of things and quickly put in jail. Often, the false accusations resulted in mob violence. All it took to stir up the mob was someone saying the right "trigger words" in a convincing enough fashion.

     Why would somebody lie about experiencing racism? Well, one motive (which we are certainly seeing in the case of Meghan Markle) is to deflect attention from their behaviour. What more effective way, in the current day and age, to distract people's attention away from criticism of your behaviour than to cry, "I'm a victim of racism here!" (Disclaimer: if you're white, this tactic won't work. You could try it, but you would end up being savagely mocked.) Suddenly, people are worked up into a lather over the supposed racism that has occurred and all thoughts about the bad behaviour that was originally the issue are pushed well into the background. A second closely-related reason might be covering up wrong they have done. (This was exactly why Potiphar's wife falsely accused Joseph of attempted rape - so that her own sin would not be found out.) What better way to evade accountability for something than by claiming that your accuser is being racist? Now suddenly that person is the "bad guy" in everyone's eyes. In our current times, it is all too easy to do something like this. A third reason is political gain. If you're running for office and it seems like you're losing to your opponent, find some way to brand him or her a racist and the voters will come flocking to you. You'll also become a darling of the mainstream media. A fourth reason might be just plain malice. Right now, there is no better way to ruin an individual's life, or cast aspersions on an institution, than making accusations, however unsubstantiated, of racism. There's no need to prove anything when people will just believe you automatically. Going back to politics, a fifth reason might be divide and conquer. Stir up some racial division between people who might otherwise unite to criticise your government, and they'll forget about your shortcomings while they attack each other. I'm sure there are plenty more reasons, but those are some of the most significant ones I can think of.

    It is NOT racist to question the validity of somebody's claims, especially when those claims have no supporting evidence (and there is moreover evidence that contradicts the current claims). Also, questioning a person's claims about racism does NOT mean that you're somehow a "racism denier". It is perfectly possible to acknowledge the existence of racism and express condemnation of it while questioning whether one person's specific claims of racism are true.

    Fourthly, if you were born white, that does NOT make you automatically racist. There is this thing called Critical Race Theory, or CRT, that asserts, among other things, that just being white makes you racist. (Frankly, this is Orwellian - we have entered the domain of "thought crimes", except now thoughts are being assumed! A particularly Orwellian term associated with CRT is "unconscious bias". What that basically means is that no matter how abhorrent you might find racism, or how loudly you might condemn it, you're racist anyway because you're white, so you just naturally have "unconscious bias" to those who are not white.) The "theory" is really based on a logical fallacy that goes something like this. "Some white people are racist. Therefore ALL white people are racist." (Feminists use much the same faulty logic: "Some men are rapists. Therefore ALL men are rapists.") Now if I said, "Some Maoris are criminals. Therefore ALL Maoris are criminals", you would cry, "That's racist!", and you would be right. You'd probably also say it was stupid, and again, you would be quite correct. It would be absurd to assume that all Maoris are criminals just because some are. (Of course, some Pakeha - to use the Maori word for white person - are criminals too, so you could apply the exact same logical fallacy to them.) Likewise, it is absurd to assume that all whites are racists just because some demonstrably are. Moreover, it is actually, dare I say it, just as racist as assuming all Maoris are criminals.

    However, CRT and radical feminism have the same root: Marxism, and more specifically, cultural Marxism. In a Marxist narrative, there has to be an "oppressor class" and an "oppressed class". Everyone in the "oppressor class" gets tarred with the same brush - hence the malicious claim by radical feminists that "all men are rapists" and the new lie being promoted that "all whites are racists". Just as with classic Marxism, which pitted the "upper class" or "bourgeoisie" against the "working class", cultural Marxism seeks to create divisions in society that will ultimately result in the "oppressed class" rising up to overthrow the "oppressor class". (These Marxist narratives are moreover promoted with great gusto by the mainstream media and universities.) And if or when that happens, it will be hello Communism, and goodbye freedom. History has shown, over and over again, that when the so-called "oppressed" overthrow their "oppressors" in the name of Marxism, they end up becoming even worse oppressors.

     Fifthly, being conservative does NOT make someone a racist. Now, there may be some people who identify as conservative and who also hold to some sort of racist beliefs. But I would posit that most conservatives abhor racism every bit as much as their liberal counterparts. (Certainly, everyone who professes Christ should absolutely abhor racism, for reasons explained in the previous part of this study.) Where conservatives differ from liberals is that the latter are more likely to believe somebody's claims of racism unquestioningly (because it suits one of their favoured Marxist narratives), whereas conservatives are more likely to want to test the claims and require evidence to be produced. There may be some conservatives who will dismiss a person's claims of racism out of hand, and frankly this is just as wrong as accepting such claims without question. (See Proverbs 18:13) But merely expressing scepticism about somebody's allegations of racism, especially when there appear to be good grounds for doing so, is not in itself racist. I might add that in America at least, the Democratic Party was FAR more racist than the Republican Party up until about the 1970s or 1980s. The Democrats were all in favour of segregation during the Jim Crow years, while the Republicans opposed it. (Although to be fair, the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed under a Democratic President in Lyndon B. Johnson.) The Republicans were also established during Abraham Lincoln's Presidency, and he of course opposed slavery while the Democrats mostly favoured it. The earliest black Congressmen were Republicans, while the earliest members of the repugnant Ku Klux Klan were Democrats. So for the Democrats to now smear Republicans and their supporters as racist (one of their favourite sports nowadays) is really pretty rich. (Read more about the Democrats' less-than-stellar history with race relations here.)

    Sixthly, just because the mainstream media says it's racist, doesn't necessarily make it so. This is somewhat similar to my third point. The mainstream media like to push certain narratives, and frequently favour cultural Marxist narratives. You are expected to believe what they say without question. Anyone who dares challenge mainstream media narratives is viciously smeared. When the MSM warn you against "disinformation" or "misinformation", it's code for "Don't listen to anyone who disagrees with us". (That said, some people who challenge mainstream media narratives CAN be guilty of disinformation - be discerning.) In order to make their narratives seem credible, they selectively report stories, while ignoring stories that would contradict the narratives. Sometimes they also make a (racist) mountain out of a molehill. Case in point: the George Floyd incident last May. I have watched the entire 35-minute video from the body-cam of Thomas Lane, one of the police officers involved in the incident. It paints quite a different picture of that whole situation than what the mainstream media did in their reporting of it. The MSM only showed you a very small part of what went on. We've all seen and heard Floyd famously wailing, "I can't breathe!" as Officer Derek Chauvin placed his knee on his neck (that was not proper police procedure, so Chauvin does have a case to answer). But he said this many times during his confrontation with the police officers. He said it when they weren't even touching him! It was almost like a mantra with him, he was saying it that often. Now, he may well have been having breathing difficulties caused by the drugs in his system (which he lied to the officers about), but it is debatable whether his ability to breathe was any more compromised by Chauvin's actions (although that is certainly possible).

 

    At no stage during the video do the officers make any racist taunts or say anything that could be remotely construed as racist. Yet the MSM basically portrayed this as some sort of racially motivated hate crime. (If Derek Chauvin is so racist, why is he happy to work with an African-American and Asian American? And for that matter, why didn't they intervene in his apparent assault of a black man? And let's not forget that this happened in Minneapolis, a very liberal and left-wing city in America's Midwest [and decidedly far north too]. It did not happen in say, Birmingham, Alabama or Jackson, Mississippi - known havens of racism during the Jim Crow era.) They only showed a very small part of the video so the public would not understand the wider context of the situation (which becomes much clearer if you watch Officer Lane's 35-minute body-cam footage). As a result of the MSM's slanted coverage, widespread rioting broke out across the United States as groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa took full advantage of the outrage stirred up. The MSM then shamelessly continued to push their narrative by claiming the riots (especially the ones after the first few days) were "peaceful protests" and portraying most attempts to quell the riots as "police brutality". Donald Trump was vilified constantly for condemning those involved in the riots and sending National Guard troops to the worst-affected cities. Everything he said or did was deemed by the MSM and Democrats to be "divisive".

 

    Then just more recently, we have seen how, in the Oprah Winfrey interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, which aired on CBS in the US, headlines purporting to prove racism against Meghan were flashed up on the screen. But The Daily Mail quite conclusively proved that many of these headlines were doctored, and a lot of them were not even from the British press, but rather the American or Australian press! So once again, the mainstream media has effectively manufactured evidence to support a narrative it wants to foist on people. But if you dare question either the narrative or the methods used to "prove" the narrative, you get branded a racist, or bigot, or something similar. It is not racist to question the authenticity of something you see on television or read in the newspaper if there are obvious inconsistencies and holes in it! As I have pointed out above, racism exists, but lies about it exist as well!

 

    A seventh point I'd like to make is that opposition to immigration is not NECESSARILY racist. This is a trickier one. People opposed to ALL immigration most likely are motivated by either racism or at least some form of bigotry against foreigners. (To any professing Christians who dislike those who are not of your nationality, please read what the Lord had to say to the Israelites: "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 22:21) "And thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23:9) "Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Deuteronomy 10:19) The word "stranger" in these verses means "foreigner". God wants us to be kind to the foreigners in our midst and treat them well.)

    That said, I do not believe that opposing unrestricted immigration is racist (although there may be some who do oppose it on those grounds). There need to be some reasonable checks and balances to ensure that bad apples don't get in. (And those bad apples could of course be any skin colour, nationality or religion.) In the United States right now, there is a crisis on that country's border with Mexico because of the Biden administration's extremely lax immigration policies, and loosening of laws around illegal immigrants. It has been going on for quite a while now and shows what can happen if your laws in this area are too loose. It is very unjust to accuse a person of racism if all they want is a bit of common sense to be applied to immigration policy.

 

    Finally, preaching against the sin of homosexuality is not akin to racism. One of the biggest lies that has been told to the world's population over the past couple of decades is that homosexuals (or sodomites, as the Bible calls them) are "born that way". Therefore, to preach against homosexuality is "bigoted", because they supposedly can't help being the way they are any more than a person can help the colour of the skin they're born in. Now, the Bible never forbids people to have a certain skin colour, or eye colour, or hair colour etc. And why would it? These are indeed things that people are born with. They are things beyond your control. There is nothing moral or immoral about having skin a certain colour or hair a certain colour. So to despise someone because of their skin colour really is foolish and actually quite irrational.

 

    However, the Bible does prohibit and condemn homosexuality - in both the Old and New Testaments. It forbids homosexual acts for the same reason that it forbids adultery, incest and bestiality - they are all forms of fornication (sex outside of marriage, which God created to be between a man and a woman). Homosexuality is additionally described as being "against nature" (Romans 1:26), which means that it is biologically unnatural. Just as you can choose to commit adultery, incest or bestiality, you can also choose to commit a homosexual act. That is the difference between homosexuality and natural features that you are really born with like skin colour. You have no choice about how light or dark your skin is, or the colour of your eyes etc. God will never judge you for those things. But you DO choose who you sleep with! And God WILL judge you for every act of fornication that you commit!

 

    Now if homosexuality somehow WAS in fact an in-born trait, then God would have made an allowance for it. He would have explained why He created some people that way and made special provisions in His Law to enable homosexuals to live normal lives with each other. But the fact is, God never created anyone homosexual. (To do so would go against His original design for marriage in any case.) For a variety of reasons (sin nature, how you're raised, media influence, possibly sexual abuse), people make the choice to become involved in that sin. They choose homosexuality for the same reason that people choose any sexual sin (or any type of sin at all, really): "But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." (James 1:14) And like all sins, it's always a choice, and like all sins, it must be repented of. God would never prohibit something if you genuinely couldn't help it. So to compare Biblical preaching against homosexuality (a SINFUL BEHAVIOUR) with racism (despising someone because of THEIR OUTWARD APPEARANCE) is utterly absurd and illogical. Yet much of the world has fallen for this nonsense, mainly because it scratches their itching ears. It is nothing more than a cunningly devised fable (2 Peter 1:16). And fables are much more attractive than truth to many nowadays (2 Timothy 4:4).

 

     I do acknowledge however that there are some people who despise homosexuals (a notable example is Steven Anderson). While it is right to preach against homosexuality and call it the sin that it is, it is NOT right to despise homosexuals. (As I pointed out in the first part of this study, it is wrong to despise anyone for any reason.) ALL of us are sinners in God's eyes for all sorts of reasons. We have ALL broken His law in a host of different ways. So we have no business looking down our nose at anyone, whatever sins they're into. But, once saved, we do need to preach the Gospel and call people to repentance, and not shy away from declaring something sin if God's Word declares it to be sin, no matter what "popular opinion" says. However, if you are despising homosexuals, you should repent of that. DON'T repent of calling homosexuality sin (which is Biblically correct), but DO repent of your prideful, "holier-than-thou" attitude.

 

    I'm sure that there are probably other forms of "racism falsely so-called", but those are the main ones I can think of. If I think of any others, I'll update this post with them. Meanwhile, I'll conclude with this: it is God's Word, and not mainstream media narratives, that is truth (John 17:17). No matter what the MSM might say, you are not a racist if you question their narratives. You are only a racist if you despise or hate people whose skin colour is different, or show respect to persons (undue favour or partiality) on account of their skin colour. So if you're doing either of those two things, you should repent of that. And if you're believing some heretical nonsense that says only whites can be saved, you should DEFINITELY repent of that! But you are absolutely not racist if you happen not to believe everything the mainstream media or Hollywood celebrities say - a great deal of which is shameless propaganda and should be taken with a very large grain of salt.

 

    This has been a pretty heavy topic to discuss, so I'll end on a lighter note: the only time when it is acceptable to discriminate between whites and non-whites is when you're doing laundry! 😎

 

 

UPDATE (22/3/21): Over the last few days, the media ("mainstream" and conservative alike) have been consumed with a story about a mass shooting at a couple of different massage parlours in Atlanta, Georgia. A 21-year-old white man shot and killed eight people, six of whom were Asians. Naturally, the mainstream media has assumed that he had a racial bias against Asians. So they have given the story a great deal of air time and deplored anti-Asian sentiment in the US. (I don't doubt that such sentiment exists there, and New Zealand does not have a particularly good track record, especially with respect to how Chinese people used to be treated in the past, and during World War II Japanese people also got a pretty hard time here.) However, the murderer himself says that his attack was NOT racially motivated. Normally, when someone murders others based on racial hatred, they have no qualms about acknowledging that as their motive. In fact, they often brag proudly about it. Certainly, the shooter in the Christchurch mosque attacks here in New Zealand was very open about his racial hatred. Moreover, two of the Atlanta shooter's victims were white (or at least, not Asian). His explanation is rather hard to follow, but it seems he had some sort of sex addiction and was "punishing" his victims for "tempting" him or something like that.

 

    Now, what this man has done is unquestionably very wicked. He has shed a good deal of innocent blood and must absolutely be held to account for that. However, it is debatable whether he was specifically seeking to kill Asians, even if Asians ended up being the majority of his victims. He himself denies any kind of racial motivation (although a murderer's word is not the most reliable witness). But the mainstream media have seized upon this ghastly event with gusto, because it fits one of their favourite narratives beautifully. And surprise, surprise, protests are now starting to break out across the United States (they're peaceful so far, but the MSM's stirring has done its work, just as it did with the George Floyd incident last year).

 

    Meanwhile, in Rochester, New York, two black teenagers have been arrested for murdering a disabled young white boy. (I don't know what their exact motive was for this evil act - it may not have been racist.) The conservative media have made some mention of this story, but the mainstream media? Chirp-chirp-chirp! (In other words, crickets.) Had two white teenagers murdered a disabled young black boy, the MSM wouldn't have been able to get to Rochester fast enough to cover the story. But two black teens murdering a white boy doesn't fit their Marxist narrative. It doesn't fit Critical Race Theory, which the MSM uncritically embraces. Therefore, this story is not deemed worthy of their time. This is a prime example of the mainstream media committing the sin of respecting persons by giving far more weight to one type of story than another. 

 

 

UPDATE 2 (29/3/21):  A few days after the Atlanta shootings, there was another mass shooting at a shopping complex in Boulder, Colorado. This time, most of the victims were white. The shooter was of Syrian extraction. The mainstream media couldn't really ignore this story since about ten people were shot. But because they couldn't spin a "hate crime" narrative, they didn't spend nearly as much time on it as what they had done on the Atlanta massage parlour shootings. Of course, they did use the story to push a bit of gun control propaganda out (I am of the view that people have a right to defend themselves in whatever way they see fit, as long as it's within the bounds of God's laws). But otherwise, this was not a story they wanted to devote so much time to. Which, for the umpteenth time, highlights the US mainstream media's double standards.

 

 

UPDATE 3 (14/4/21): Rioting has broken out in Minneapolis over the last three days. There has also been unrest in Portland, Oregon. The trial of Derek Chauvin is currently taking place in Minneapolis, but this is not what has caused the riots. Instead, the trigger has been a tragic shooting of a young black man by a white police officer. I say tragic because it clearly looks to have been an accident. The officer in question was a 48-year-old lady named Kim Potter. She had a confrontation with 20-year-old Daunte Wright at a routine traffic stop. Mr Wright was unarmed, but it transpired there was a warrant out for his arrest. So he was asked to get out of the car and an officer (not Mrs Potter) began to handcuff him. Now, had Mr Wright complied at this point, he would still be alive. But he decided to resist arrest, breaking free of the officer and getting back into his car. Mrs Potter then ran at him yelling "Taser, taser, taser!" It appears she fully intended to use a taser on Mr Wright. Unfortunately, she had drawn her gun instead by mistake and shot him. She immediately uttered a distressed exclamation.

 

    This is a very sad and tragic incident, both for Mr Wright's family, who have lost their loved one, but also for Mrs Potter, who has to live with this for the rest of her life. Of course, the mainstream media are emphasising the fact that this is another shooting of an "unarmed African-American" by a white police officer, implying that it was some sort of racist hate crime. And just as with the George Floyd incident in May 2020, people are taking to the streets to vandalise and loot public property in the name of "fighting racial inequality". In my view, this is a smokescreen, and what they really want is to turn America into a Communist state. "Racial justice" has long been appropriated by Communists and other Marxists to advance their evil agendas. They had more to work with in the past when there were genuinely unjust laws like the Jim Crow ones in the US and apartheid ones in South Africa. Those laws were rightly overturned and democracy hung on. But nowadays, there is more racial equality in the United States (from a legal standpoint, at least) than ever before. That's not to say that bigotry doesn't exist there - it unquestionably does. However, Black Lives Matter and their allies want to use every excuse they can, no matter how flimsy, to cause violence in the streets. Make no mistake: they are no more interested in racial equality than the Ku Klux Klan. What BLM, Antifa et al. are really after is social chaos. They are using the pretence of "fighting racial injustice" to create it. Overthrowing the Constitution and replacing it with a Communist dictatorship is the end game.

 

    That said, Christians in the US need to remember that the battle that all Christians face is not against flesh and blood, but the powers of darkness. "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)" (2 Corinthians 10:3-4) "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:12) Therefore, Christians in the US should not engage in carnal warfare (fighting in the streets, posting abuse on forums and suchlike) against Black Lives Matter and their allies. (Of course, if you're attacked directly, then defend yourself and your family as you are able.) Rather, what born-again Christians in America need to do is pray, fast, study the Word of God and preach the Gospel while there is still an opportunity to do so. At the end of the day, what these BLM people need is not racial equality (not that there's anything at all wrong with that!), but salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. That needs to remain uppermost in the minds of American Christians. Focus on the real battle (the spiritual one) and don't be distracted by carnal ones.

 

    Incidentally, a common denominator in the George Floyd incident and this new one with Daunte Wright is that they both resisted arrest. Had they both been compliant with the police officers, it is likely that both men would still be alive today. Certainly, Mr Wright would. Of course, the mainstream media conveniently overlook that. After all, it wouldn't fit their pet CRT narrative too well. Another common denominator is that there was no racial abuse. In the George Floyd bodycam video that I have seen, the officers do swear a bit at Mr Floyd early on, but not once do they hurl any racist insults. And likewise in the Daunte Wright tragedy, the officers are just following standard procedure until Mr Wright breaks away from them and gets back in his car. Then the tragedy ensues. This could just as easily have happened to a white person who did what he did. In fact, I'm sure there probably are incidents of white people being accidentally shot by police, likely for similar reasons (resisting arrest or trying to flee). However, these seldom if ever make the news, for the usual reason that they don't fit the media's favoured narratives. The only one I can remember is a white Australian woman who was shot dead by police in Minneapolis (where she was living at the time) after she had called them but they mistook her as a threat as she approached them and opened fire. So that story did get some coverage, but even with that, the MSM didn't make nearly such a big deal over it. I think the officers in question were prosecuted though.

 

 

UPDATE 4 (21/4/21): So, big news today is that Derek Chauvin has been found guilty on all three counts that he was charged with: second-degree involuntary murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. The jury in his trial, which took place in Minneapolis, only took about ten hours to reach their verdict. Many people, even in the conservative media, believe justice has been done. And perhaps it has been. But I do have to wonder whether the jury truly believed beyond reasonable doubt, on the basis of the evidence that they saw and heard, that Chauvin was guilty, or whether they feared the rioting that would inevitably take place if they found him not guilty, even on some charges. Things were certainly very tense in Minneapolis (and elsewhere in the US), with National Guard troops and tanks rolling in as the jury began their deliberations. Threats from a mob can lead to incorrect verdicts. Consider how a mob succeeded in getting an innocent man condemned and having a guilty one (and guilty of murder, no less) released:

 

    "But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them. And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews? And they cried out again, Crucify him. Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him. And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified." (Mark 15:11-15)

 

     See how the mob would not see reason, but kept clamouring louder until their demands were met. When asked for specific evidence, they provided none. Notice also how Pilate caved in, giving them what they wanted rather than doing the right thing. Of course, this had to happen so that Jesus would die for our sins, but all the same, it is a real lesson in how "mob justice" works. 

 

    Now I'm not saying that Derek Chauvin was innocent in this matter. I might add that I was rather disappointed that he chose to say nothing in his own defence. So I don't regard him as any sort of martyr here. What I am saying though is that it seems to me that the jury in this case was as much swayed by fear of the mob as they were by the evidence presented in the trial. That does not bode well for a country that calls itself "The Land of the Free", and indeed has been one of the most free nations in the world for the past 200-odd years.

 

 

UPDATE 5 (22/4/21): Just a quick postscript to my update of yesterday. On The Daily Wire and also FOX News (and probably in other conservative media like Sky News Australia), the very salient point has been made that at no stage of Derek Chauvin's trial did the prosecution ever say anything about race. This is a point I have made as well. I quote from my above observations of the Thomas Lane video: "At no stage during the video do the officers make any racist taunts or say anything that could be remotely construed as racist. Yet the MSM basically portrayed this as some sort of racially motivated hate crime." Well, it's not just the mainstream media, but left-wing politicians are running with this same narrative. In their reaction to the verdict, both President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris referred to the United States as being a land of "systemic racism". Supposedly, the guilty verdict in the Chauvin trial proved that. But in reality, it proved nothing of the kind. All it DID prove is that Chauvin was a bad cop who used excessive force to subdue a suspect - although no force would have been necessary if George Floyd had only been more cooperative. There is not one shred of evidence that Chauvin was motivated by racial hatred. Not only that, but it was never once suggested in the trial.

 

    But as also sagely observed by Ben Shapiro and others, Chauvin's trial has become a sort of trial of the United States as a whole. The way the mainstream media and Democrats in the US have painted it, Chauvin being found guilty of second and third-degree murder and manslaughter equates to the United States being found guilty of systemic racism. But while the mob has been momentarily appeased, they are not going to rest. Especially when they are dog-whistled by comments such as this from Kamala Harris: "A measure of justice isn't the same as equal justice. This verdict brings us a step closer. And, the fact is, we still have work to do. We still must reform the system." Or this from Joe Biden: "The murder of George Floyd launched a summer of protest we hadn’t seen since the Civil Rights era in the ‘60s — protests that unified people of every race and generation in peace and with purpose to say, “Enough.  Enough.  Enough of the senseless killings.”" And also: "But it is not enough. We can't stop here." Seriously? The rioting and looting was just protesting "that unified people ... in peace and purpose"? But these phrases about the verdict not being enough and there being work still to be done is code for "keep up the protests", and a number of activists have stated openly that they do intend to keep fighting. So we will see more riots. Because just as Neville Chamberlain's desperate attempts to appease Hitler ended in World War II, attempts to appease the mobs who have spent the last year turning the US into something resembling a banana republic will lead to more and more violence in America's cities, and perhaps even civil war. The United States survived one civil war, but I'm not sure whether it would survive a second. And if the United States falls, that is going to be a very dark day for the world.

 

UPDATE 6 (29/4/21): News in the past day or so is that the Idaho Senate has voted to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in the state. This video by Sky News Australia explains that when Donald Trump was President, he signed an executive order banning CRT teaching from the United States in general. The Sky News Australia report includes a quote by the former President about CRT that I fully agree with. It also includes an excerpt from a speech by a black Conservative MP in Britain's Parliament who rejects the way CRT turns her blackness into victimhood (the word "blackness" is hers). Again, I completely agree with what she says. Of course, since Joe Biden became President, he has overturned a number of President Trump's executive orders, including the one on banning CRT. However, individual states can still make their own laws about it, and that is why Idaho has now passed this legislation.

 

    Now, I'm a big believer in freedom of speech, and I'm all for people learning a range of different ideas and points of view, but one of the many problems with CRT is that it is not taught as just a theory that can then be critically analysed for pros and cons, or dissected to see what is logical about it and what isn't. Much like the Theory of Evolution, Critical Race Theory is being presented in schools as fact. Not only that, but anyone who disagrees with it is accused of being "offensive" or "harmful to others". In a CRT classroom, there is little to no room for any kind of reasoned discussion or debate. So instead of learning critical thinking and objective analysis, students exposed to this are, quite frankly, being indoctrinated. And it's really that indoctrination which is being banned by the Idaho lawmakers. I'm sure other states, especially "red" (Republican) ones will follow suit.

 

     Leaving aside the political angle, one of the biggest dangers I see with CRT is that it sows discord and creates division where none previously existed or needs to exist. Every Marxist theory does the same thing in the way it creates artificial classes of oppressors and victims. (To be fair, there are certainly non-Marxist doctrines that do this sort of thing too. Whether such teachings come from the left or right, they are all evil.) The "oppressed" are taught to bitterly resent their "oppressors" and blame all their problems on them. Then they start getting violent, justifying their actions on their "victimhood". Eventually, the "oppressors" get fed up with the violence and with being falsely demonised, and start to push back. The mainstream media then cite this as "evidence" CRT is true, when in fact CRT itself created the situation. And so after the discord has been sown, you then get a society that is divided against itself. This is the great danger the United States is facing at present. It is still powerful enough to fight off a foreign invader, but is in real danger of tearing itself apart from within. 

 

    The Lord Jesus Christ warned, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand". (Matthew 12:25) The United States is on the brink of being brought to desolation by civil war. It is in this position because of the division created by the discord being sown. Satan is doing all he can to divide the American people, and Critical Race Theory is one of the key weapons he is utilising for that. (I also think he is using things like QAnon to stir up unsaved people on the right.) This same destructive weapon is being used to foster similar divisions in other Western countries like the UK, Australia and New Zealand. However, none of these countries are in danger of civil war the way the US is. The United States is a key target for the Devil right now, because for all its many flaws, it continues to stand for freedom and to be a roadblock to unbridled globalism and Marxism. At this point in time, the power of the United States keeps countries like Russia and China in check. Another reason why Satan wants to destroy the United States is because it is a crucial ally of Israel. It has vetoed many unjust United Nations resolutions against Israel. So if the United States falls due to tearing itself apart internally, it would unleash all manner of chaos and darkness in the world. Critical Race Theory is pushing the US (and other countries) towards self-destruction. For that reason and the fact that it is nothing more than poisonous indoctrination, I am all in favour of Idaho banning it and hope more states and even countries will wake up to just how pernicious it really is.

 

 

UPDATE 7 (16/5/21): An article in today's New Zealand Herald shows that Critical Race Theory is sadly alive and well in the schools of Aotearoa. However, it appears as if it is being introduced by stealth, through Ministry of Education programmes such as Te Hurahanganui (which I have to admit I had never heard of until I read this article). Part of the Blueprint for this programme makes its Marxist goals pretty clear. I quote the article's quote: "Building critical consciousness means reflecting critically on the imbalance of power and resources in society, and taking anti-oppressive action to do something about it for the better. It means recognising white privilege, understanding racism, inequity faced by Māori and disrupting that status quo to strengthen equity." Now this is the kind of word salad that is cunningly designed to hide the true aims of the author(s) in vague language that nobody understands. (What does "anti-oppressive action" mean, for instance? It could mean just about anything you want it to, because it's so vague.) However, one phrase sticks out: "white privilege". David Seymour, the leader of the ACT Party (which I would never vote for after it introduced the law that legalised euthanasia in this country), makes the following excellent point about so-called white privilege: "What are teachers supposed to say to a 'white' child who may have no money or food at home, be abused, face a learning challenge, or any other challenge? How is it that their colour makes them privileged regardless of their individual circumstances?" Indeed! CRT doesn't care about that though. According to CRT logic, if you're white, you're "privileged" and an "oppressor", regardless of your circumstances.

 

     Mr Seymour quotes another phrase (from a reading list for teachers called "Ka Hikitia") that also demonstrates a clear CRT mentality: "many whites believe their financial and professional successes are the result of their own efforts, while ignoring the fact of white privilege". At this point, it's worth looking at what the Word of God says about how to achieve material success, and conversely, what really causes poverty: "He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame." (Proverbs 10:4-5) "The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute." (Proverbs 12:24) "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat." (Proverbs 13:4) "Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger." (Proverbs 19:15) "The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing." (Proverbs 20:4) "The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour. He coveteth greedily all the day long: but the righteous giveth and spareth not." (Proverbs 21:25-26) "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." (Proverbs 22:29) "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man." (Proverbs 24:30-34) "By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through." (Ecclesiastes 10:18) "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." (2 Thessalonians 3:10)

 

     There are other verses and passages besides that I could quote, but this is a plentiful enough sample. What does the Bible say leads to success? Is it privilege, racial or otherwise? No, it's HARD WORK. Does the Word say that only whites can achieve success through being diligent in their labour? No, these verses apply to EVERYONE. Conversely, what tends to lead to poverty? Systemic racism? Class oppression? No, the root cause is LAZINESS. Also called slothfulness in the King James Bible. Anyone, of any skin colour, can be successful if they work hard. That is true even in these COVID times. I have seen stories of people who lost their jobs because of COVID-19, but instead of sitting around feeling sorry for themselves, they took stock of their skills and applied them to a new type of work. And thanks to their diligent labour, they have enjoyed success. But conversely, no matter your skin colour, if you're lazy, you won't do too well in life.

    Now, there are some people who can struggle due to no particular fault of their own, and the Bible has much to say about helping the poor and needy. Those who have much should give to those who have little or nothing, but they should not be forced to give to those who just don't want to work. (Neoliberalism is frankly just as ungodly as socialism, since it goes to the opposite extreme.) Nevertheless, far too much blame for failure in life is attributed to things like "class oppression", "racism" or "privilege" when the real cause is, more often than not, the sin of slothfulness. And again, I am not pointing the finger at any one group of people, because this applies universally.

 

     Back to the Herald article: although the writer of the article, one Michael Neilson (a political reporter) gives David Seymour a reasonably fair hearing, I get the impression that he accepts "white privilege" as a fact of life rather than a product of Marxist teaching. Observe this wording for example: "Te Hurihanganui comes off the back of numerous reports and studies that have highlighted systemic racism in New Zealand's education system, and how it holds back the learning of our children." Now, he could have instead said that the studies CLAIM or PURPORT to highlight systemic racism. That would offer a more neutral slant. But instead, his wording strongly implies that he accepts it as fact. He then highlights an example that purports to prove systemic racism: "Stark examples include how in 2019 NCEA level 2 attainment was 64.1 per cent for Māori, compared to 82 per cent for Pākehā. Meanwhile in Māori medium education, 78.7 per cent of Māori school leavers achieved at least NCEA level 2 equivalent." This doesn't prove anything except that Māori children may perform better in schools more specifically tailored to them. It certainly doesn't prove systemic racism. The only way this statistic could "prove" systemic racism is if you read that into it. There could be any number of reasons why Māori children perform worse than Pākehā ones. Laziness could be one of those reasons. Not in every case, I'm sure, but maybe some. However, those Māori who DO achieve good marks work hard for them, without doubt - whatever type of school they're in. In other words, their achievements are based on their own merits, just as for Pākehā children.

 

     The article goes on to quote Kelvin Davis, Associate Education Minister. Naturally, he disagrees with David Seymour. However, he does acknowledge that Te Hurihanganui "is about addressing systemic racism and building relationships". Again, there is that very CRT phrase, systemic racism. After waffling on a bit, he concludes by saying, "David Seymour is making it sound like some subversive thing to indoctrinate children, when it is all about addressing systemic issues." Well if it is teaching CRT, then as I said in my last update, that IS indoctrinating children! It is indoctrinating them with Marxist propaganda that will sow division and hatred if it is allowed to take root in our schools.

 

    Three other people are quoted to finish off the article. Mr Neilson appears to accept their views without question. To be fair, he quoted David Seymour without much comment, but then he has quoted a number of people taking a different view to Mr Seymour, while nobody else is quoted who agrees with him. So Mr Seymour is "outnumbered" in the article. You can usually tell where a journalist's own views lie, or what narrative they want to promote, by how much weight they give to specific viewpoints. In this case, four people are quoted who believe in white privilege and systemic racism, while one person (Mr Seymour) is quoted taking issue with it being taught in schools. Furthermore, statistics supposedly proving systemic racism (despite doing nothing of the kind) are cited and accepted without question.

 

     One of the two remaining people quoted is Dr Ann Milne, an education consultant. She calls white privilege a "reality", and this is not challenged at all. The journalist accepts it, so by implication, we are meant to accept it as well. She claims that it's not to do with race (which quite frankly, is not borne out by what happens in classrooms where this stuff is taught) but "cultural norms". She then says, rather bizarrely, "It is not about white people per se but whiteness as a system." As Manuel in Fawlty Towers liked to say, ¿Qué? Then she launches into some serious word salad: "One way to look at it is you are walking down the street and have a $10 note just put in your pocket, for no reason. It is something you get just by the nature that everything works for your normal reality, not to do with wealth or anything." Again, ¿Qué? Or as Oprah Winfrey said a couple of months ago, "What? WHAT???" What she appears to be saying is that our current system gives white people an unfair head start in life or something. Which would seem to have something to do with white PEOPLE, and not merely "whiteness as a system". Anyway, we are then told that "[Dr Milne] had never encountered any pushback from students nor their teachers teaching about white privilege". If the above quotes are at all representative of her teaching style, I'm not surprised. They probably have no idea what she's on about. Another possible reason for the lack of pushback however may be to do with fear. She insists that "Not teaching it does Pākehā a disservice, and Māori children will continue growing up thinking their position at the bottom of the heap is their fault, rather than the systems that keep them there," and furthermore that "It is not separatist, it is not racist, it is just acknowledging the system does not work for everybody". What this really means is that Māori children will be taught to develop a victim mentality, just as occurs when CRT is taught overseas. It's all the racist system's fault. Nothing to do with them at all. Eventually, they will want to fight the system that "oppresses" them, at which point, we could start to see scenes like in the United States. And how are Pākehā being done a disservice by not being made to feel ashamed just for being born white? As for acknowledging that the system does not work for everybody, well that could easily done without all this CRT nonsense. There are plenty of constructive ways that the education system could be improved for Māori rather than indoctrinating them into believing that the "white system" is holding them back. Only problem with those better ways however is that they don't involve shoving Marxist doctrines down schoolchildren's throats.

    Meanwhile, Whetu Cormack, who used to be president of the NZ Principals Federation, claims that the education system is "already racialised". We read, "His Māori mother was beaten in schools for speaking her reo". Now that actually used to happen a number of years ago (especially in the early and middle 20th Century), and it is a genuinely shameful aspect of New Zealand's history. It is important to acknowledge how wrong something like that was. I might add that I think moves towards teaching Te Reo in our schools is a good thing. But that doesn't mean it is OK to force Critical Race Theory on our children, whatever guise it may be presented in. One other person called Jo Brand is quoted at the very end, claiming that "great things will come from this". Yeah, big NAH. Unless of course you think the race riots in the United States over the past year is a "great thing".

    In my view, a far more effective approach to racism would be to teach, very simply, that no one should despise another person because of their skin colour, and that no one should get any special or different treatment because of their skin colour. And a little "Love thy neighbour as thyself" wouldn't go amiss either. As I said in my first post about racism, the Bible does not make any exceptions when it comes to loving your neighbour. Keeping it simple and eliminating all the Marxist propaganda and incomprehensible word salads would do all children in this country the world of good, whether they're Māori, Pākehā, Asian or whatever other ethnicity that we have (and we do have quite a "melting pot" here). Unfortunately however, the further New Zealand society goes from God and His truth, the more it will embrace the lies of the Devil, including Marxism, CRT and other spiritually and morally destructive philosophies.