Racism in America - How should we address it?

[otseng]

George Floyd’s Murder Shows Once More That We Cannot Wait For White America to End Racism

George Floyd was murdered, and it was captured on camera. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin had his knee pinned against Floyd’s neck for close to eight minutes. We heard a haunting repetition of the words “I can’t breathe.” Floyd cried out for his deceased mother and called out for his children as he desperately clung to life. Chauvin sat there, smug, hand in his pocket, with little regard for the man dying underneath the pressure of his knee. All of this over someone allegedly trying to use a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill at a local deli.

For debate:
- How should we address the racism in America?

[otseng]

OK. What I meant was a Christian teaching based site. Is that correct?

It's not even that. It's a debate site that focuses on Christianity. With the new forum layout, that's not too obvious. But, with the old forum (before May 23), newly registered users were notified about it. Here's a thread that describes this website:

The purpose of this site is to engage in civil debates on anything pertaining to Christianity and religious issues between people of different persuasions. Everyone of any belief system is welcome to participate, this includes, but is not limited to, atheists, agnostics, deists, theists, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Wiccans, Taoists, and Hindus.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4

[Quantrill]

OK. What I meant was a Christian teaching based site. Is that correct?

And yes, I appreciate honest exchange of ideas. However, I am troubled by anything that bespeaks of bigotry as that is clearly inconsistent with Biblical teaching.

And nothing I said was inconsistent with Biblical teaching.

Quantrill

[Elijah John]

What do you think is the answer, Otseng? How should we address it? And while we're searching for the answer to racism in America, shouldn't we also seek to address the problem of anarchy in America?

What people need to do first is confession and repentance for all our sins. Sins of violence, racism, theft, murder, lying, complacency, indifference, injustice, etc. It is our hearts prone to evil that is the root of all our problems.

We all need to next learn to respect others. People are all to be treated with respect, no matter what their race or background. We should be allowed to be different and not only extend respect to people like us. We should respect individuals and their property. People looting and burning down buildings is not respecting others.

Jesus commands us to love our enemies. We need to be commanded to do this because we by nature will not do this. We need to forgive others, esp those that have done wrong.

We need to learn to listen to and understand each other. Those who live in the suburbs most likely do not know what it's like to live in the inner city. If we truly understand the struggles they are going through, we can hopefully be less judgmental.

We need to value truth and not continually practice deceit. The police are not completely truthful. Those arrested are not completely truthful. So, nobody believes the other that they might be actually saying the truth.

We need to stop fiscal policies where it is just kicking the can down the road. In the short term, people might be off better, but in the long run, it will destroy.

We need to stop these insane monetary policies where it is getting the rich richer and the poor poorer. George Floyd ultimately died for the crime of using a counterfeit twenty. Meanwhile, the Fed is counterfeiting/printing trillions with most all of it ending up with those close to the Fed and nobody bats an eye.

Yes, racism is a sin. But so is false witness. (not you Otseng, but many of the folks on CNN who are indirectly fomenting this violence by making excuses for he anarchists ( "yes but society is racist, etc...") and by blaming Trump. So is calling people who are NOT racist "racist". (the majority of police are NOT racist, contrary to the accusations made by many liberals.)

Yes, racism is sin, but the mob mentality, mob looting and mob violence is satanic. Last night, the thugs attacked one of the most liberal cities in the country. Boston, my home town. I take this very personally. Liberal pandering, it seems, does not inoculate a city from mob violence by the likes of Black Lives Matter, and Antifa.

Yes, understanding, repentance and dialog are what is needed in the long run. But anarchy needs an immediate decisive response now.

Liberals say that black people commit no more crime than any other race. It's just the racist system which makes it seem that way. But I know what I saw these past few nights. The vast majority of looters in many cities were black. (the arsonists were several different races) Did racism loot those businesses? Did racism set those police cars on fire?

Here's a hypothetical which lately is not so hypothetical. You're a store owner, maybe even a minority owner of a business you have worked so hard to build all your life. A violent BLM or Antifa mob is about to do your store, (and maybe even you) violence. What do you do. Preach at them? Or call the "racist" police when you need them.

I sometimes write against the harshness of the theocracy that was ancient Israel. But this is the opposite extreme, our indulgent society that lets these riots happen and is too weak to respond decisively. The destructive, satanic mob takes over in the name of, and in the guise of and under the pretext of "social justice".

Sorry, anarchy right now is a bigger problem than racism. We don't deserve this. We didn't bring this on. The average cop or white citizen or law-abiding citizen of any race, is not racist. The average person is NOT racist. Civilized people don't deserve to have their cities ruined because of mob evil. These anarchists dishonor the memory of, and the cause of George Floyd.

These rioters and looters are parasites. They offer nothing constructive to society. They do not abide by the Golden Rule or the Ten Commandments. If they did, none of this would be happening.

[koko]

OK. What I meant was a Christian teaching based site. Is that correct?

And yes, I appreciate honest exchange of ideas. However, I am troubled by anything that bespeaks of bigotry as that is clearly inconsistent with Biblical teaching.

And nothing I said was inconsistent with Biblical teaching.

Quantrill

God is not a respecter of person and the Holy Spirit endows all equally. Any belief contrary to this is inconsistent with the Bible's teaching.

[koko]

Officials see extremist groups, disinformation in George Floyd protests



Others have seen evidence of right-wing extremists. J.J. MacNab, a fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, has been monitoring chatter about the protests among anti-government extremists on social media platforms. She has access to dozens of private Facebook groups for followers of the loosely organized “Boogaloo” movement, which uses an ’80s movie sequel as a code word for a second civil war.

She also has been poring over images from the weekend protests and spotted some “boogaloo bois” in the crowds, carrying high-powered rifles and wearing tactical gear.

“They want to co-opt them in order to start their war. They see themselves as being on the side of protesters and that the protesters themselves are useful in causing anarchy,” MacNab said.

She also sees signs that the Three Percenters militia movement appears to be taking an interest.

Megan Squire, an Elon University computer science professor who tracks online extremism, saw images of at least four members of the far-right Proud Boys group on the periphery of a protest Saturday night in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Trump was expected in the coming days to draw distinctions between the legitimate anger of peaceful protesters and the unacceptable actions of violent agitators, said a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the plans ahead of time and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration has largely remained silent on local reports that far-right protesters were also involved.



https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-w ... story.html



Here in the Twin Cities most people are convinced it is white supremacist types who are principal agents of destruction.



Does anarchist Antifa own brick building companies? No it does not. But well financed right wing groups are far likelier to own these bricks which were left out in the open with no construction going on nearby*:







For several days local media here in the Twin Cities (and this includes the local Fox network) have reported that caches of bricks, Molotov Cocktails, and other small but dangerous weaponry have been abandoned in city parks, parking lots, abandoned cars, etc. This because as police appear they sweep people away and the organized right wing trouble makers are forced to abandon their weapons.




* my sincere apologies if anyone finds the language offensive - the content is intended to inform you, not to inflame anyone

[otseng]

Sorry, anarchy right now is a bigger problem than racism. We don't deserve this. We didn't bring this on.

Yes, I agree the looting is a much bigger problem and that it is not just a racism issue. But, I don't agree we didn't bring this on.

The black community has suffered for years, decades with not just racial inequality, but I think more importantly, economic inequality.

The death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police has touched off six days and nights of chaos and unrest across the country. But the rage fueling protests is longstanding, stemming not only from frustrations over racial disparities in criminal justice but economic outcomes, as well.

Minority communities already have absorbed disproportionately heavy blows from the twin crises of the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed 103,000 American lives while costing more than 40 million their jobs. Those shocks underlined a decades-long trend: Black households’ share of the national wealth and their median income have stagnated. So have other measures of African American well-being, with rates of unemployment and lack of health coverage, for example, persistently above the national average.

As Christopher Ingraham writes, the city Floyd called home has one of the country’s more dramatic splits between haves and have-nots along racial lines. “The typical black family in Minneapolis earns less than half as much as the typical white family in any given year,” Chris wrote over the weekend. Indeed, the median black family in the city earned $36,000 in 2018, $47,000 less than the median white family, one of the largest such differences in the country.

And the income gap spills over a into wealth gap, Ingraham writes, as “homeownership among black people is one-third the rate of white families.

Job losses similarly have fallen hardest on minority populations: 18.9 percent of Hispanic workers and 16.7 percent of blacks found themselves out of a job in April, compared to 14.2 percent of whites.

Meanwhile, black people have made up a disproportionate share of fatalities from the disease itself. More than half of the nation’s recorded deaths have come from predominantly black counties, though those represent less than a quarter of all counties.

Where do I put the blame? As I mentioned before, I put a lot of the blame on fiscal and monetary policies that are short-sighted which enrich the privileged and loot the masses.

[Quantrill]

God is not a respecter of person and the Holy Spirit endows all equally. Any belief contrary to this is inconsistent with the Bible's teaching.

Yet God chose the Jews. (Deut. 7:6).

Yet God refused Paul to go to Asia and instead sent him to Europe. (Acts 16:6-10) This is why Europe is 'Christian' today.

Quantrill

[koko]

God is not a respecter of person and the Holy Spirit endows all equally. Any belief contrary to this is inconsistent with the Bible's teaching.

Yet God chose the Jews. (Deut. 7:6).

Yet God refused Paul to go to Asia and instead sent him to Europe. (Acts 16:6-10) This is why Europe is 'Christian' today.

Quantrill

Deut 7:6 ~ God chose Israel. Judea was only a part of the entire collection of tribes. In the New Testament all Christians now become heirs to the Promise. See Galatians 3:29 ~ If ye be Christ's then ye are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the Promise. This proves that contrary to conventional Christian teaching, Christians are not Gentile.

[koko]

...
Yes, I agree the looting is a much bigger problem and that it is not just a racism issue. But, I don't agree we didn't bring this on.

The black community has suffered for years, decades with not just racial inequality, but I think more importantly, economic inequality.
...

Where do I put the blame? As I mentioned before, I put a lot of the blame on fiscal and monetary policies that are short-sighted which enrich the privileged and loot the masses.

Yes, racist society has brought on these economic and social disparities. As a Hispanic I know the problem first hand having been a victim of all this. The Bible tells us that a nation that abuses poor people will be punished severely for such mistreatments. See the Book of Amos whose " dominant theme is clearly stated in 5:24, which calls for social justice as the indispensable expression of true piety" :

https://www.biblestudytools.com/amos/

[Quantrill]

Deut 7:6 ~ God chose Israel. Judea was only a part of the entire collection of tribes. In the New Testament all Christians now become heirs to the Promise. See Galatians 3:29 ~ If ye be Christ's then ye are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the Promise. This proves that contrary to conventional Christian teaching, Christians are not Gentile.

That is not the point. The point is that God chose the Jews as the chosen race to be His earthly people. He chose them instead of the Gentiles. See what a 'racist' God is. (Deut. 7:6)

And God chose to Christianize Europe and not Asia even when Paul wanted to go to Asia. See what a white racist God must be? (Acts 16:6-10)

That Christians are not Gentiles is not what we are talking about. You said God is equal in his dealings with everyone. Yet these Scriptures prove differently.

Quantrill