“Excusing the inexcusable.”
Last night on Fox news’ “Life, Liberty & Levin,” host Mark Levin interviewed two outstanding Black Americans, Dr. Carol Swain, former Vanderbilt University professor and Black Voices for Trump Advisory Board member, and Dr. Wilfred Reilly, associate professor of political science at Kentucky State University. They’re both conservative Americans who love their country, and who are both dismissive (to say the least) of the Black Lives Matter group. Dr. Swain called them a Marxist organization, while Dr. Reilly spoke primarily on the false narrative of systemic racism. It was interesting and refreshing in light of the events and rhetoric we are seeing and hearing today.
There is no denying our country’s racist history. It was inexcusable as I see it for our framers to claim they believed that all men are created equal while denying basic rights to a whole group of people based on skin color. Just refresh your memories with these words from their Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,…” In this one statement, our forefathers 1) denied truths that they professed to be self-evident, 2) denied what they said about all men being created equal, 3) denied their own words on unalienable (cannot be taken away or denied) rights, 4) denied what they professed to be the role of government, and 5) certainly denied the fact that slaves had not given their consent to be enslaved. I have to ask, how could smart people be so stupid? (If you don’t believe it, don’t write it and sign your name to it!)
There is also no denying that the police have not always been the protectors of African Americans. I am old enough to remember the three civil rights workers who “disappeared” in Mississippi in 1964. They were real people, James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi, Andrew Goodman from New York city, and Michael Schwerner, also from New York City, all in their early twenties, and they were executed through a conspiracy involving virtually every level of governmental authority. Deputy Sheriff Cecil Ray Price arrested the three, released them, followed them and re-arrested them, and then turned them over to Klansman who executed them. Goodman and Schwerner were shot to death, while Chaney, a black man, had been severely beaten, castrated and shot three times. His autopsy showed fragments of red clay in his lungs and grasped in his fists, suggesting he was probably buried alive alongside the already dead Goodman and Schwerner. Also involved and in 2005 convicted of manslaughter was Baptist Preacher Edgar Ray Killen. Then there was a segregationist judge, William Harold Cox, who had referred to blacks as "baboons" from the bench. When certain were convicted of first and second degree murder, Cox issued three to ten year sentences for the convictions, saying “They killed one nigger, one Jew, and a white man. I gave them all what I thought they deserved." The whole thing is amazingly disgusting, countless similar atrocities have been committed, and it’s no wonder that knowledgeable African Americans have historically been distrustful of “white justice.”
It’s a terrible and undeniable history, but it’s not today’s reality. We have Black mayors, Black police chiefs, and have had a Black President of the United States of America. To call for police departments to be abolished comes close to the height of insanity, and when lawless hordes start pulling down historic statues thinking it will somehow make their lives better, we have to wonder if they’re dumb or dumber. Our law enforcement officers are no longer Klan members, they do not go out in the morning with the objective of teaching African Americans to “stay in their place” and figure they’ll kill to make their point, and when you are lawfully arrested, you’re not supposed to try and beat the brains out of the arresting officers. And if you do, don’t try to blame it on the sins of their fathers. Accountability? Minneapolis police officer Chauvin sits in jail today, charged with second degree murder, which says something about accountability. No, it will not bring George Floyd back, but then, neither will burning and looting bring him back. And the condemnation of the Confederacy had much to do with seceding from the Union, which is exactly what some people are applauding CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) for.
America is a great nation, not perfect, but working on it. You want Communism, head for North Korea or China, but don’t bring that mess around here, and don’t try to bring the sins of our fathers in play to justify your stupidity of the present. If you would like some fair and balanced talk and views on the whole American situation, get on line and see what two brilliant Americans, Dr. Carol Swain and Dr. Wilfred Reilly had and have to say.
Let’s thank God for where we are and who we are right now, rather than trying to rewrite the past. Rewriting the past can’t be done, and it wouldn’t help if we could. Let’s love and respect one another; that’s all on us and nobody else. If we don’t, we’re the Dumber, and there’s no excuse for that!
Love and Prayers to all,
Pastor