Wit or Wisdom

I’ll admit, I’m white. So some people will say this is a racist post. Some people will say that the posts I’ve had on why Black History Month is misguided are racist. But I don’t think they are. They’re honest. I am not a racist. I have never viewed black people as inferior, and I think very highly of some black people. But just like white people, they must be held to standards. That’s why this post.

Today I was talking to a coworker of mine whose brother just got out of jail. (In case you didn’t guess, they are black.) He was in jail because of gang-related activity. He’s apparently the head of a gang in the St. Louis area. He has no intention of changing his behavior. How sad is that? He runs around with guns and shoots people in his spare time. And there are people that want to shoot him. In fact, my coworker told me that he has held a gun to her head before. (unloaded, but still a gun) He was mad.

Scary, right? What’s more scary is the fact that she doesn’t think it’s scary to be living in an environment like that. What!!!??? Why does this seem to be so prevalent among black people. Rappers bang their way through the music charts, promoting this kind of behavior. Young people who should be getting an education and doing something with their lives are instead involved with gang violence. Middle-aged people who should have successful careers are addicted to drugs and guns. And old ladies who just don’t like that kind of stuff in their front yard are shot. While I realize that not all of the people engaged in this activity are black and not all blacks are involved in this, it really is a much larger problem in the black community than among white people.  What is the issue? Why is it so much the black people with this problem?

Well, part of it owes to many people’s attitudes toward law enforcement and the government. You see the same thing played out over and over again on the news. Some black person, usually engaged in drug or gun dealing, gets shot by police. Then the stations show footage of a teary-eyed relative, usually a woman, because woman are more convincing at it than men, saying that he was a good person and the cops shouldn’t have killed him. After all, he was only shooting in their general direction. I’m sorry, but the consequences of sin always catch up with you, and when you shoot at cops, or when you deal drugs, you are going to get in trouble. The police don’t and can’t know if you are a good person, because if you are shooting at them or at someone else, their job is to keep everyone else safe and eliminate the danger. Black people must stop viewing law enforcement as racist every time something bad happens because of what a black person did. Rarely are police actions race motivated any longer.

The larger problem, though, is a lack of Christ in the black community. (I’m not calling them African-American because I hate the term; it sets them apart and sends the message that they are different from the rest of us and don’t deserve to just be called Americans.) Even in black churches today, where Christ should be preached, He often is not. Or else what is preached is a feel-good, name-it-and-claim-it religion that substitutes real faith for a promise of the easy life. Christianity is not the easy life. And churches, black and white, that preach that are lying to their congregations. Because so many black churches preach that, I believe black people see that hypocrisy and reject it. If there would be more black Christians preaching the truth of Christ, that mankind must turn away from his sin and trust God to provide even in the hard parts of life, and that merely because you don’t have a million dollars in the bank, that doesn’t mean God’s rejected you, a lot more black people would turn to Him.

The bottom line is that we all need Jesus. But in the black community today, there is a distinct lack of Him. And until they get more of the real Jesus, they’re still out in the cold.

Maybe not the longest day, but any day at a dead end job is long. Why do people take dead end jobs? Well, usually, and in my case, because they haven’t any other choice. Ah well, someone’s got to do it, so it might as well be me, right? :-/