This is to continue the conversation from the last post. Not exactly a part II, but more thoughts
following last week’s tragedy in Dallas.
First, some family history. I’ve mentioned before, I’m
mainly descended from fairly recent Swedish immigrants. My father’s father
immigrated to America in 1906. My grandmother was born here, but her family
immigrated from Sweden before she was born. My dad grew up speaking Swedish and
English in the home, and he later served as a missionary in Sweden, before
WWII, and again for a shorter mission a decade later.
I have a little more variety on my mother’s side, but the
direct line immigrated from Sweden in the 1850s. This ancestor met his wife
immigrating, on the same ship, from Norway.
All of these ancestors immigrated directly to what is now
Utah, which never allowed slavery either as a territory or a state.
The earliest Americans I know of on my mother’s mother’s side
were located in Illinois in the 1840s. Their northern location leads me to
believe their ancestors came from other northern portions of the early United
States. And if we could go back far enough, we would find a few ancestors from
England, Wales, Scotland, and France.
None of my known ancestors was a slave owner. I’m unaware of
any living in a place where slavery was legal. If you go back millennia, you
might find some Vikings who enslaved someone. I don’t know that history well
enough to know. But I’m pretty sure the Vikings never enslaved Africans.
Until I moved to Texas, I’d never lived anywhere that
slavery had ever been legal. And when I arrived in Texas, slavery had been
illegal for over 130 years. Civil rights laws had been enacted—by Republicans
pushing for it—more than 30 years earlier.
I only know about slavery from history. I only know about
racial bigotry from history, and historical novels. It’s foreign to me. That
kind of thinking is foreign to me.
So I ask: How did I become guilty of racism? And since the
accusation comes without any negative behavior or even thought on my part, what
am I supposed to do to earn a racial clean bill of health?
I’m not saying racial prejudice is extinct; I have become
aware of some people with those beliefs. But they are anachronisms. Their
beliefs are unacceptable is civilized society.
Except—black-toward-white racial prejudice. That is fairly
common. And it seems to be getting more common, rather than less, under the
current administration, who was supposed to heal all wounds and prove that we
were post racial.
I mention the history above to show that it is irrational to
assume that a lighter skinned person is de
facto racist. And it is irrational to assume that someone who
not only has no history of racist behavior, and no history of racist thought,
ought to be held guilty or pay reparations for something that happened
centuries ago.
Except for those illegally enslaving people in our day, who
should be stopped and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law (what they
are doing is nigh unto murder), no one today is guilty of the nation’s slavery.
And no one today was one of this nation’s slaves. In fact, a bloody war was
fought to free the slaves and make them full citizens. The United States was
among the first nations in the more civilized recent history to do away with
slavery that had existed in most parts of the world for many thousands of years,
including by Africans who enslaved other Africans.
We would have been happy if slavery had never been part of
this country’s history, but at our founding it was already a common belief that
it was wrong. While the writers of the Constitution were unable to immediately
outlaw slavery, as many desired, they designed it with the intention to do away
with it within two decades. If that intention had been followed, there would
never have needed to be a Civil War.
Condemnation of this country is wrong; gratitude and
admiration are more appropriate.
Taking things from people is theft. Reparations, then, would
be taking from people who did no wrong and giving their property to people who
had not been enslaved.
So let’s set that aside and talk about a few other racially
related things.
There’s this famous quote from Benjamin Netanyahu, to the
Knesset in 2006:
The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there
would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would
be no more war.
Let me rephrase that for our racial situation here in the
US. The first part may apply, so far, only to the recent war on police
officers, because blacks have been stirred up to believe there is some racial
war going on against them:
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| I took this photo in September 2014, on the spot where Martin Luther King said it. I wish it were clearer. |
The second half can be more universal:
If the blacks were to stop throwing down the race card, there
would be no more racism.
It might not be a perfect world, but it would be better.
Much closer to what Martin Luther King said,
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live
in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character.
Rather than what Obama said, when he had an opportunity to
offer healing, Tuesday at the memorial service for the slain officers in
Dallas:
We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for
a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book.
So, he used the deaths of police officers to further his
anti-second-amendment agenda with a lie. The guns he’s talking about (to
teenage gang members, apparently) are already illegal guns. More gun laws
pressing down on the backs of law-abiding citizens lowers their defenses but
does nothing to prevent guns getting into the hands of those who already get
them illegally.
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| This Martin Luther King quote was used a lot this week. I took the photo at the MLK Memorial in DC. |
And really, books are harder to come by? They’re free in
every school library, and in every public library. Library cards are free. And
you can buy used books for as little as a quarter at some used book sales. And
people can share them friend-to-friend—legally. This is true even in inner-city
Chicago, the president’s home turf, where a couple of dozen young black men are
murdered—by other young black men—every weekend.
What was the purpose of this lie at a memorial service for
officers slain in the line of duty?
In scripture stories we often read about people being
stirred up to anger. In the Book of
Mormon, the two groups are Nephites and Lamanites. During the millennium of
history, there are times when “goodness” changes sides, but generally the
Lamanites go to war against the Nephites, trying to subjugate them. Sometimes
dissenters from the Nephites go over to the Lamanites and stir them up, like
this example from Alma 63:
14 And it came to pass also in this year that there were some
dissenters who had gone forth unto the Lamanites; and they were stirred up
again to anger against the Nephites.
Someone is always doing the stirring up. And we’re seeing
that today. And what we know about those who stir up anger is that their
intention is to rule over their enemies.
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| One of my favorite quotes from the MLK Memorial |
We, non-racist people of whatever color, have reason to be
concerned. Our president stirs up anger. An entire party stirs up anger. The
party that insisted on enslaving blacks, and then insisted on holding them down
socially—that party. And this racial group that claims to want to be freed from
ongoing oppression votes for the oppressing party at rates well over 90%.
So, when I meet a black person, I have a 9 out of 10 chance
of being right if I assume they are against the Constitution and the freedom it
protects. I don’t bring it up, because I don’t want the contention. Instead, I
look for places where we can agree. Sometimes that is the value of families and
faith in Christ.
When blacks declare themselves to be conservative, they are
welcomed with open arms—at Tea Party meetings, at Republican conventions, and
anywhere else we gather. And we’re always glad to see that their numbers are
growing among us. They face some discrimination and a lot of false accusations (from
that 9 out of 10 of them) just to stand firm for truth and freedom, and we
applaud them.
I feel pretty safe in my neighborhood, but in more urban
areas, I might not feel safe walking alone no matter what color of person I
meet on the street. Forget the hoodies—this is Houston; if someone is wearing a
hoodie when it’s over 90 degrees at 10:00 at night, there’s something very
suspicious there. But just having someone young, big, and strong coming at you
in that setting can feel threatening.
But if I were to look at statistics, I would be justified to
have greater fear if that young, big, strong person coming at me is a black. While
only 13% of the US population, they commit 50% of murders.[i]
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| One more MLK quote from the Memorial |
The same fear I would feel should be what a black person
walking the street alone would feel. Maybe they would feel more fear, since
more blacks are murdered by blacks than any other race. It’s not irrational
bigotry; it’s rational fear.
It isn’t about skin color; it is about character. How do we develop character? Write
down this big secret:
The way to develop character in a population is to have a
vast majority of children raised by their married mother and father, and taught
to honor God as well as family, life, freedom, property, and truth.
Those of us who have these advantages want them for
everyone. We rejoice when others have these blessings as well. Our heart aches
for children brought up in fatherless poverty, with the social chaos that is so
hard to overcome.
If there is something the more blessed of us can do, it is
to share the message of what brings civilization—and happiness—in a challenging
world. No amount of money handouts can bring people out of economic and social
poverty. Only obeying the laws of civilization will do that.
[i]
The piece by Larry Elder I quoted earlier this week contains
this paragraph: “Here’s what those promoting the ‘police disproportionately
kill black people’ narrative consistently omit. Whites, despite being almost 65
percent of the population, disproportionately commit less of the nation’s
violent crime–10 percent. Blacks, at 13 percent of the population,
disproportionately commit more violent crime. As to murders, black commit
nearly half. Yet whites are 50 percent of cop killings.”
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