In the last couple of months, societal issues have jumped off the pages and slapped us smack dab in the face. No warning, but rather a tidal wave of racial, political, economical, spiritual upheaval like never before. People have stopped talking to each other, and replaced conversation with heated arguments. Among peaceful God fearing protests are evil, lawless rioting, killing, and pillaging of our country. Fear and anger have replaced faith and love. A hate for America and God and Trump has lead people to spit in the face of liberty and democracy, and burn our sacred places of worship and our flag, the United States flag, the same flag that draped my dead father's body. With the media feeding the drama, the leader of the Black Lives Movement has inspired the illegal taking down of many of our historic monuments, including those that had nothing to do with racism. Shaun King is now saying all monuments of Jesus need to be removed as well. Could this really be happening in America? When the lockdown first started, a faith stirred deep within my soul, that God was moving and calling us to stop for a while and evaluate our hearts, and after our hearts were cleansed, our lives would be restored to a better place. A place where God was first, and everything else was here to glorify Him. But sadly as I turned on the TV, I saw and heard things that ripped at my heart, because I could see that in the world, at least the world the media was showing us, instead of heart changes, there was this arrogance and self efficiency that was saying, "This isn't God, this is us! We are winning this battle". Blasphemy like I had never heard before, even though I had heard whispers that I thought would eventually lead us to this. Things like, "the Bible isn't really God's inerrant word, it is just letters that gives suggestions on how to live good lives" or "Jesus wasn't God, he was just a good teacher, like Muhammad or Buddha." I felt as if there was an attack of a dark nature trying to steal my faith, but thankfully, I had surrounded myself with some strong, faith filled giants, and a God that would not let me go.
Right now, the focus is on racism, off of Covid 19 for a bit, with the horrid murder of George Floyd setting in motion a righteous anger for some, and an excuse for others to further their degradation of faith and light. My opinion is that this righteous anger of the many was bound to come to a boiling point at some time. It needed to, the devaluing of a life is a wretched sin in the eyes of God, and is not one He takes lightly. But unlike the Black Lives Matter movement, I feel the answer to racism, poverty, and everything else will be found in turning to God, repenting and lamenting over our sins, including the sins of racism, and cleansing our country of darkness and replacing it with light, using God's wisdom to restore the family, the church, government, criminal justice systems, and any other system that needs repair. The hidden agendas in the BLM movement are not only about racism. I think most people would argue that racism needs to be totally eradicated. This is 2020. America is a melting pot of different races and ethnicities that need to be celebrated, exactly like they will be one day when Jesus comes back, when every tribe and nation will worship Him together. That union should start now, as I believe it has. However, the Black Lives Matter Movement promotes some ideology that I truly believe if practiced would tear apart the lives of our black brothers and sisters in Christ. Before you kill the messenger, let me try to explain.
Candace Owens, a Black commentator, said in a YouTube video that in the 1960's black America had 23% fatherlessness, which back then was a high percentage for fatherlessness in the family. This statistic was taken right before Lyndon Johnson passed the Welfare Act. Today, 74% of black Americans grow up without a father. Candace believes this is because the Welfare Act made it more lucrative for a family if the father does not marry the mother or live in the home, forcing families to live without fathers. Therefore, Welfare encouraged fatherlessness. I was a kid that grew up on a check from the government, although my dad was taken away by war, and that check was our compensation for fatherlessness. I understand what Candace means when she says that a government check keeps you just right at the poverty line or at least the lower middle class line. I think we were all made to live out our God given purpose, and that if you take that purpose away, people deteriorate. They become apathetic, depressed, and there is nothing to encourage someone to excel. People, especially children without fathers, fall in to depression, substance abuse, poor school performance, and eventually, the criminal justice system. I'm not suggesting to get rid of Welfare, but rather reform Welfare to be a hand up, not a lifestyle choice. Welfare as a lifestyle choice should be for the severely disabled and mentally ill who are incapable of sustaining any kind of work. The Black Lives Matter does not promote a nuclear family. In fact, I felt that it did not promote black fathers at all, from what I read it didn't support black men at all. Well, unless those black men were men transitioning to be females. Instead of promoting fatherhood, it promoted a village type approach to caring for families. While I do believe that has become necessary with the absence of fathers, I don't think you should abandon the idea of fatherhood altogether! This is not only true in black families, but equally true with white, hispanic, and Asian families.
President Obama said that children who live in homes without their fathers are 9 times more likely to end up in prison! Fatherlessness in the family is not the only thing that determines incarceration though. Children who can't read, can't gain lucrative employment, and have no direction from their fathers have a way higher chance of ending up in the criminal justice system. Candace Owens also said in her Youtube video that 75% of black boys in California cannot pass a basic reading test!! In Baltimore schools, a study looked across 5 inner city schools and NO black child passed the reading or math exam. Now, the quick response would be to blame the teachers, but I can tell you that teachers are working harder now than they ever have. There are more programs to address reading and math than you can imagine, and money is thrown at these situations like you can't believe. Just like in the Criminal Justice System, it is not the majority of the police that is the problem. It is the system in which they work that is the problem. MONEY DOES NOT SOLVE ISSUES, NOR DOES PROGRAMS. If they worked there would not be 75% of black boys in California that can't read and there would not be the statistic of a person being 9x more likely to be incarcerated if that solved the problem. I think reformation starts at home first. The sexual revolution has saturated kids with the notion. that it is ok to have sex before marriage, with anybody or anything. Children are being sexualized like never before, further traumatizing kids that have no father to mentor or protect them. Fatherless children are far more likely to be sexually abused, both girls and boys. Children should not have to think about sex!!! The media and entertainment industry needs to be cleaned up, standards need to be set for those who can't set them for themselves. Parentless children or children in poverty are often raised by television. Imagine what they have seen by the time they enter school. Parents should be punished for traumatizing them by letting them pick their gender, or encouraging them to look and act older than they are. We as a society need to protect our children from the darkness of the world. Next, we need to find ways to encourage dads to stay at home. Dads can stay at home if they can gain employment and if they are not incarcerated, so can moms. We, as a society, need to figure out what is keeping this many children from learning. I don't believe it is intelligence. I have had EXTREMELY intelligent kids that could not read. We need to study that from conception, the health of the mother, the neonatal care, and the list goes on and on. I think one huge deterrent to learning is misbehavior in the classroom. Nobody can learn in chaos. Children that live in poverty and who do not have their basic needs met are not thinking about how to sound out words, they are thinking, "How can I get something to eat?" or they are acting out their anxiety by misbehaving, no attention is being given to learning, which eventually leads down the path to the criminal justice system.
The other night my family watched the story of Brian Banks. Brian was a young black male when he was first incarcerated unjustly at the age of 16. He was falsely accused of rape, with all the evidence pointing to his innocence, and his lawyer talked him into pleading No Contest to save him from prison time. This however backfired on him, and he was unfairly incarcerated for 6 or 7 years. This was a wonderful, kind, innocent young man that had his dreams snatched away from him and his mother at a young age. Throughout the movie, you could see tons of places where criminal justice reform needs to take place. There are so many instances of people being incarcerated who are innocent. There are broken systems, I am not denying that fact. Change needs to take place, but it doesn't come through hate and destruction. It comes through the people advocating for rational change with rational plans and voting for rational people that can make those changes happen. It takes leaders listening to the people that work in those systems. They can tell you where change should happen. In federal and state government decisions are guided by what gets those institutions the most money. Money allocated shouldn't be based on numbers, it makes the systems cheat and nothing good can come from that. I've seen it in education, so I'm sure it exists in the criminal justice system. Everything is about money instead of truth, justice, and the people that those systems exist to serve. The people of this great country have ideas on how to make change, somebody needs to shut up and listen. Then that change can happen.
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