Last week, when hosting the screening of the movie, Till, President Joe Biden said that black people were “lynched simply for being black, nothing more. With white crowds, white families gathered to celebrate the spectacle, taking pictures of the bodies and mailing them as postcards. Hard to believe that was done, and some people still want to do that today.”
Which people still want to do that today, Joe? He has no evidence that there are people who still want to lynch black people today, yet he made that charge anyway. He doesn’t name a name, so he impugns the entire white race which divides the country. Making non-specific accusations is a common tactic used by race baiters. When Meghan Markle accused a member of the Royal family of racism, she would not reveal who she was referring to, and therefore, she was able to indict the entire Royal family because without a specified name, anyone in the Royal family could be the racist, so they all are seen as racists. That’s exactly what Joe Biden did. By saying that some white people still want to lynch black people, but not identifying who, then all white people become guilty.
The New York Times, 1619 Project, that is being taught in many of our schools aims to do just that, foist guilt upon the entire white race in America. It reframes American history through the lens of slavery, claiming that our true founding occurred not in 1776, but in 1619, when 20 black slaves were brought by boat from Africa to the Jamestown colony. The 1619 Project teaches that America’s “founding ideals were false when they were written” and that “nearly everything that made America exceptional grew out of slavery”. It argues that because of our past sins, “racism runs in the very DNA of this country.”
Unsubstantiated charges of racism are levied against white people on a regular basis, and it has now become embedded into our educational system. Last week, Arizona School Superintendent, Scott Menzel, said that white people have a “problematic racial identity that we typically avoid”. On Thursday, Ethan Hooper, a 6th grade teacher in Orlando, Florida was suspended for posting a TikTok video of his white students being forced to bow down to black students. The State University of New York (SUNY) college system is mandating that all incoming freshmen take a course focused on “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice” — or they won’t graduate. Harvard University recently hosted a “Black Health Matters” conference which focused on the theme of “decolonizing black health” claiming that health care in 2023 America is shaped by “colonialism, racism, and other forms of oppression.”
It is interesting that the only time that a non-white person is ever called a racist is when they do not toe the “all white people are racist” line. California Governor Gavin Newson called Gubernatorial candidate, Larry Elder the “black face of white supremacy” during last year’s campaign for governor because Elder happens to be a Republican who does not espouse this far-left narrative on race in America.
Last week, on MSNBC, left-wing columnist Wajahat Ali called Republican Presidential candidate, Nikki Haley an “alpha-Karen with brown skin” who “uses her skin as a weapon against poor black folks and poor brown folks” to “launder white supremacist talking points.” He added “not all skinfolk are kinfolk.” Race baiters like this, regularly make the charge of “white supremacy” without ever providing evidence to support it.
During Black History Month, the black people whose stories are recognized the most all have one thing in common – they overcame racial prejudice or discrimination. Television and the media rarely run a story on a black person who was merely successful or simply accomplished something great. They always play up the discrimination angle to such an extent that it appears they are more interested in highlighting the evils of white people than the triumphs of black people. That’s why we rarely see feature stories on highly successful black people like Clarence Thomas or Dr. Ben Carson or Condoleezza Rice because these highly successful black people distance themselves from the racial victim narrative.
We must understand the psychological game that is being played out in our country when it comes to America’s history of racism. In the Christian faith, we are all sinners saved by the grace of God. When we renounce our sinful ways, Jesus forgives us our sins. He offers us grace and tells us that we are worthy of salvation. We are called to live in the present, and not dwell on our past. When we renounce our previous sinful life, we are called to keep our eyes in the now, looking forward, not backward.
But in today’s America, there is no forgiveness, no redemption, no grace. All the sins of our past, even those committed in our youth, are forever attached to us, emblazoned for all to see, like the scarlet letter. That is what we see with cancel culture, and what we are seeing with race relations in America. The devil is a master at pulling our minds back to the sins of our past, constantly reminding us of the broken person we were. He wants us to dwell on our past sins, so we fill ourselves up with so much guilt and shame that we will deem ourselves unworthy of receiving the grace of God, so we remain separate from God.
There is a segment of our population today who are determined on pulling our country back to our past sins of racism. It is the work of the devil. The United States abolished slavey 160 years ago. 600,000 men laid down their lives to end that evil institution. We passed sweeping Civil Rights legislation 60 years ago, outlawing segregation and Jim Crow laws. But there is no room for redemption or grace. Every day of our lives, we are reminded of our past racism. We are told to look backwards and not forward, to dwell on our sins so a certain segment of the population is filled with guilt and deemed unworthy of both God’s grace and the promise of America.
The most nefarious part of all of this is that the people who are shamed and guilted and devalued did not commit any of the sins that they are being shamed and guilted for. They are deemed guilty based solely on their race, convicted of sins they did not commit but because they share the same skin color of those did. They are told they are not worthy of grace or forgiveness or redemption. It is the most evil and destructive lie there is.
If you never owned a slave, if you never supported segregation or Jim Crow, if you never discriminated against anybody based on race, then you should harbor no racial guilt. You should carry no shame. We are only accountable for the sins that we commit. Our skin color is not a sin. We are not responsible for the sins of other people who share our same skin color. It does not work that way. Do not fall for this white guilt trap that the race baiters and nation dividers have set for 190 million people in this country. We all know who we are. We all know what we have done, good and bad, in our lives. Take accountability for our own sins, make amends for the times we harmed someone else, and move forward. Never let another human being try to devalue you.
Jesus values you enough to have laid down his life for your salvation. Jesus forgives our sins because he believes in our redemption. He doesn’t focus on what we were but who we are. Even if we are not worthy of his forgiveness or grace at the time he gives it to us, his act of giving us grace, makes us worthy of it, and at that point, our lives become fulfilled. And the moment, America is offered redemption and grace for our past sins, will be the moment that we become the truly great nation we were destined to be.____________________
Judd Garrett is a graduate from Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.
