Author Archives: G.S. Griffin

The Armed Whites Flying Confederate Flags at the NAACP are the Stupidest Whites in America

Posted on by under Race Relations

In late August 2016, a group of about 20 people held a “White Lives Matter” protest in front of the Houston, Texas, NAACP building — with Confederate flags on display and assault rifles at the ready.

A protestor explained:

We came out here to protest against the NAACP and their failure in speaking out against the atrocities that organizations like Black Lives Matter and other pro-black organizations have caused the attack and killing of white police officers, the burning down of cities and things of that nature. If they’re going to be a civil rights organization and defend their people, they also need to hold their people accountable…

We’re not out here to instigate or start any problems. Obviously we’re exercising our Second Amendment rights but that’s because we have to defend ourselves. Their organizations and their people are shooting people based on the color of their skin. We’re not. We definitely will defend ourselves, but we’re not out here to start any problems.

And of course, he said they brought the Confederate flags to show Southern pride.

There are so many things wrong in this confection of inanity it is difficult to decide where to begin.

First, let’s go with the notion that the NAACP needs to “hold their people accountable.” What the f*ck are you talking about? The NAACP is not responsible for the actions of all black people (and neither is Black Lives Matter). A civil rights organization is in no way responsible for African Americans who riot against or seek murderous revenge over police misconduct, any more than Greenpeace is responsible for your carbon footprint. Only in a mind clouded by juvenile white delusions would it be the duty of the NAACP to corral and “get under control” all the “troublesome,” “criminal” black people.

And of course, saying that “their organizations,” black organizations like the NAACP, are “shooting people based on the color of their skin” is just thoughtless slander. Just because a black person participates in a riot or targets police officers does not mean the NAACP is behind it.

Second, what in the world does protesting killings of police officers (such as the tragic shooting in Dallas that killed 5 police officers, a revenge attack by a black veteran after police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile) have to do with “Southern pride”? Whites who use this term like to pretend (at least publicly) that the Confederate flag represents all Southern culture, tradition, and history besides slavery, insurrection and secession, Jim Crow laws, white terrorism, lynching, etc. — that it has nothing to do with racism or America’s barbaric racial history. If that’s the case, why bring it to a “White Lives Matter” rally? Your explicit aim is to stop black people from killing whites; what does that have to do with Southern pride, unless Southern pride is just a misnomer for “white pride”?

Could it be that the flag is actually a symbol of racial divisions? That it was birthed and popularized by pure, unadulterated race hatred? Can we stop playing make-believe? It originated as a battle flag for traitorous states that sought to preserve black slavery, and was popularized by a white terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan, after the war. According to Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, the Confederacy’s

…foundations are laid…upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth…

The creator of the flag (which originally had the stars and bars in the corner, the rest white) was quoted in the Daily Morning News on April 23, 1863, as saying:

As a people we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.

The Confederate flag has never been about something noble. It was and is used as a symbol of anti-black sentiment; not in all cases, as discussed elsewhere, but at “White Lives Matter” rallies like this, held outside a civil rights organization that had nothing whatsoever to do with the deaths of police officers? There is no question. The protesters operate under a simple premise: black people are out of control. Under this premise, inextricable from white denial, unarmed, nonviolent black people aren’t killed by police way out of proportion to their low population, aren’t drastically more likely than whites to be stopped and searched for no reason, aren’t more likely to be physically abused by police than whites exhibiting the same behaviors, and many other well-documented injustices. Without the understanding that such things lead to race riots and anti-police hatred and violence, the problem is simply that blacks are hateful and violent for no reason — no matter how far below 1% the number of African Americans who actually commit such acts is. To these whites, the problem is black people, their “nature,” their “criminal tendencies.”

Such a view is racism by definition. Whether conservative whites simply don’t know about the mountain of research concerning anti-black discrimination and mistreatment or know of such things and ignore them, the result is the same: racist views about how our black brothers and sisters think and behave.  

Third, perhaps these poor, misinformed souls should pay closer attention to the news — or better yet, actually follow Black Lives Matter or the NAACP on social media. Then perhaps they’d see headlines like “NAACP President Condemns Violence After Michael Brown’s Death” and “NAACP Condemns Senseless Killing of NYPD Police Officers” and “NAACP Condemns Looting and Violence in Baltimore After Freddie Gray Funeral” and “Black Lives Matter Activists, Civil Rights Leaders Condemn Dallas Ambush” and “After Shooting Targeting Police, NAACP Denounces Violence From All Sides” and “Black Lives Matter Leader Condemns Violence at St. Paul Protest.”

Enter “NAACP condemns” or “NAACP denounces” into Google and you could spend days reading the NAACP’s rejection of violence and hate crimes against whites, police, and private or public property. Is this what the protestor meant by “failure in speaking out”? You can find similar condemnations from Black Lives Matter leaders, who believe in peaceful protest as the means for positive change.

There is so much more that could be said about this protest. How marching around with guns and the Confederate flag in the black neighborhood where the NAACP building rests is not going to ease American race relations. How the protestor wore a “Donald Trump ’16” hat and a shirt “with white supremacist symbols” (Washington Post). How he whined about how “We’re being told it’s bad to be white” and insisted Black Lives Matter should be labeled a “hate group or domestic terrorist group” — when there is zero evidence the organization itself called for any sort of violence, and its platform, if one bothered to actually read it, talks of ending mistreatment, violence, and discrimination against blacks, not, for Christ’s sake, mistreating, hurting, or discriminating against white people. In short, they want safety and equality.

After this protest, the term “white delusions” simply cannot do present conditions justice — a more appropriate term is surely “white lunacy.”

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Not a Christian Nation: How the Founders and Their Constitution Enraged the Religious

Posted on by under Religion

Many on the religious right insist that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, meaning the federal government and Constitution were intentionally founded on Christian principles by Christian men, who intended the faith to take a central role in governance and law.

The Constitution (and its Bill of Rights) was an important document in world history because it greatly expanded personal freedoms and slightly widened democracy (it kept political power in the hands of the aristocracy). However, and even more radically, the Constitution made no mention of God or Jesus Christ. This was a departure from the Declaration of Independence, the 1776 Articles of Confederation, and many state constitutions, which mentioned God, his glory, and the rights he gave man. It was very unlike most European states.

This caused much controversy. (Sources available in The Godless Constitution, by Kramnick and Moore.)

 

The Constitution enraged many Christians

The U.S. Constitution was signed in September 1787, to a mixed response.

One writer in November 1787 condemned the framers’ “silence” and “indifference about religion.” A Virginia newspaper warned of “pernicious effects” of the Constitution’s “cold indifference toward religion.” Thomas Wilson of Virginia called the document “deistical,” and lamented that the framers didn’t think of God during their work. A 1787 Philadelphia pamphlet declared “there was never a nation in the world whose government was not circumscribed by religion” and that “the new Constitution, disdains…belief of a deity, the immortality of the soul, or the resurrection of the body, a day of judgments, or a future state of rewards and punishments.”

A delegate at the New Hampshire ratification warned that if the Constitution passed, “Congress might deprive the people of the use of the holy scriptures.” A writer in a Boston newspaper warned in January 1788 that God would turn his back on America, like he did with Saul in the Old Testament. Charles Turner of Massachusetts warned it would lead to “ruin.” Later, Timothy Dwight declared at Yale College that the War of 1812 would be lost because we “offended Providence. We formed our Constitution without any acknowledgement of God.” Minister Horace Bushnell even blamed the Civil War on our “infidel” government!

When the Constitution and Bill of Rights did mention religion, it angered Christians further. The First Amendment said the government would not support one particular religion, nor prevent people from following any particular religion. Article 6 of the Constitution declared there would be no religious tests for political office. Amazingly, this law, according to Maryland delegate Luther Martin, was “adopted by a very great majority…and without much debate” at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, despite the fact that 11 of the 13 states had religious qualifications for being a politician. If you were not Protestant, you could not govern. And in Rhode Island, only Protestants could vote! One of the two states that banned religious tests, Virginia, did so because of earlier efforts by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. This led to some hysteria.

Protestant Christians were terrified that no religious qualification meant we’d see “a papist [Catholic], a Mohomatan [Muslim], a deist, yea an atheist at the helm of government.” Minister David Caldwell, a delegate at the North Carolina ratification, warned we’d have “Jews and pagans of every kind” in office. Thomas Lusk of Massachusetts, not seeing the irony, predicted “Popery and the Inquisition may be established in America.” A pamphlet in North Carolina cautioned that the Pope in Rome might be elected president! Many Christians feared the anti-slavery and anti-war Quakers would be elected. A New York newspaper denounced the idea of politicians who were Quakers (“who will make the blacks saucy”), Muslims (“who ridicule the doctrine of the Trinity”), deists (“abominable wretches”), Negroes (“the seed of Cain”), beggars (“who…ride with the Devil”), and Jews (who might “rebuild Jerusalem”).

Fortunately, cooler, more tolerant, and less religious heads prevailed.

Proposals and petitions to have religious tests for federal office were struck down by the Constitutional Convention. So were ideas to add religious language to the document, like delegate William Williams’ suggestion the preamble be changed to: “We the people of the United States in a firm belief of the being and perfection of the one living and true God, the creator and supreme Governor of the World, in His universal providence and the authority of His laws…”

Some people pointed out that men of all faiths or no faith fought in the Revolutionary army. Jews and other groups protested for equal rights. Tenche Coxe of Philadelphia, former member of the Continental Congress, declared, “Ecclesiastical tyranny, that long standing and still remaining curse of the people, can be feared by no man in the United States,” and that we would become an “asylum of religious liberty.” James Iredell, future associate justice of the Supreme Court, called religious tests “discrimination.” Reverend Daniel Shute said they came from “bigotry.” Reverend Isaac Backus called them “the greatest engine of tyranny in the world.” Reverend Samuel Langdon called the lack of religious tests a “great ornament of the Constitution.”

The fact that the Constitution was secular, despite much precedent for religion in government, is overall a testament to the influence and power of non-Christians like Madison and Jefferson at the Constitutional Convention. Most of the famous founding fathers opposed religion in government, and some had some very nasty words for Christianity indeed.

 

The Founders’ Heresy Enraged Many Christians

In 1831, New York minister Bird Wilson lamented, “The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels.”

Not what one usually hears from the religious right today.

The Founding Fathers, sons of the Enlightenment and followers of the more secular John Locke, were greatly influenced by deism. Some did not believe in the Judeo-Christian God. Deism is the belief that a higher power exists and created the universe, but does not intervene in the material world any longer. Nature is the only way to “see” God. Thus, miracles were impossible, prayer irrelevant, the Bible mythological. In this view, Jesus Christ was a fraud.

John Adams was a Christian, but condemned religious violence and religious dogma. George Washington, while writing little on faith matters, regularly made mention of God, and encouraged his men “to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier.” But there is some controversy over how seriously Washington took Christianity (many quotes attributed to him, such as “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible” and “What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ” are total fabrications). It is highly possible Washington was a deist. Jefferson wrote of Washington (Anas, February 1, 1800):

When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However [Dr. Rush] observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the states when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of the benign influence of the Christian religion. I know that Gouvemeur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.

James Madison and Ben Franklin were known to be deists, as were Jefferson and Thomas Paine, though these two flirted dangerously with atheism. Jefferson even rewrote the New Testament, cutting out all supernatural events, including the Resurrection (look up The Jefferson Bible).

Regardless of their differing views, the most famous Founding Fathers disliked the Church in some way. They generally believed in a secular government, well-documented in many places, from national treaties to personal letters. Not all of these men signed the Constitution, but those that did helped make it godless.

 

George Washington: Protect religion from tyranny, but beware its dangers

“No one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”

Letter to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia, May 10, 1789

“Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.”

Letter to Edward Newenham, June 22, 1792

“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by the difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be depreciated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.”

Letter to Edward Newenham, Oct. 20, 1792

 

John Adams: Be a Christian, but you’re not in a Christian nation

“Conclude not from this that I have renounced the Christian religion…. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my Religion.”

Letter to Jefferson, Nov. 4, 1816

“As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?”

Letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816

“The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

Treaty of Tripoli, approved by the Senate and signed by Adams, 1797

“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an æra in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or labouring in merchandize or agriculture: it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses…”

“Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind.”

Defence of the Constitutions, 1786

“Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.”

Letter to his son John Quincy Adams, Nov. 13, 1816

“A general Suspicion prevailed that the Presbyterian Church was ambitious and aimed at an Establishment as a National Church. I was represented as a Presbyterian and at the head of this political and ecclesiastical Project. The Secret Whisper ran through them all the Sects “Let Us have Jefferson Madison, Burr, any body, whether they be Philosophers, Deist or even Atheists, rather than a Presbyterian President.[“] This Principle is at the Bottom of the Unpopularity of national Fasts and Thanksgivings, Nothing is more dreaded than the National Government meddling with Religion.”

“We Shall have the civil Government overawed and become a Tool. We Shall have Armies and their Commanders under the orders of the Monks. We Shall have Hermits commanding Napoleons. I agree with you, there is a Germ of Religion in human Nature So Strong, that whenever an order of Man can persuade the People by flattery or Terror, that they have Salvation at thier disposal, there can be no End to fraud, Violence or Usurpation.”

Letter to Benjamin Rush, June 12, 1812

 

Benjamin Franklin: No need to worship, and don’t let the church use the state

“I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it.”

Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion, 1728

“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”

Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1759

“When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig’d to call for the help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”

Letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780

 

Thomas Jefferson: Jesus was a fairytale, and separate church and state

“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”     

Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

“We find in the [gospels]…a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications.”

Letter to William Short, August 4, 1820

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say There are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket.”

“Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned… What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.”

Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religious, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Letter to Danbury Baptist Association, January 1, 1802

“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the Despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

Letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

 

James Madison: No official religion, period

“What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.”

A Memorial and Remonstrance, 1785

“A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning Government and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have in turn divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other, than to cooperate for their common good.”

Federalist No. 10, 1787

“The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”

Detached Memoranda, c. 1817

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize.”

Letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774

“Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, June 20, 1785

 

Thomas Paine: A demon likely wrote the bible

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.”

“The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.”

“The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar, not many years before; and they generally have their origin in violent deaths, or in the execution of innocent persons.”

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

The Age of Reason, 1794

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Are Gun Rights the Only Way to Show Conservatives Racism is a Problem?

Posted on by under Race Relations

Both explicit anti-black sentiment and subconscious stereotypes of black people (as more dangerous, more aggressive, lazier, less intelligent) are still enormous American problems, which negatively impact African Americans in all arenas of life — housing, education, employment, policing, courts and prisons, the media, and so on (see The Evidence of Widespread American Racism).

And if the infection of racism is so pervasive, one might muse, could it also affect Second Amendment rights, something held dear by many conservatives? It has in the past, as many gun control policies, some supported by Reagan and the NRA, were racist responses to blacks arming themselves. If black and white gun owners are treated differently today, might the knowledge of a sacred right being violated due only to ethnicity awaken those on the Right who dabble in white denial to the disadvantages faced by black people?

To begin this discussion, a meme comes to mind that read: “It’s only called open carry when the man is white. When he’s black it’s called ‘Oh shit, he’s got a gun!'”

If you felt the pull of a smile at your lips, you’re already partially “woke,” as much as you may not realize it. “It’s only called open carry when the man is white… If he’s black it’s called ‘Oh shit, he’s got a gun!'” is only humorous if you believe there’s some truth behind it. It hints at a world where blacks (exhibiting the same behaviors as whites) are seen as more dangerous, more threatening, more deviant.

Rationalizations that a white person might use in defense have, to put it bluntly, no basis in reality — and rely on black stereotypes. “You’re more likely to be drawn on or shot by a black person”? Not if you’re white. 84% of white people are killed by whites (the “white-on-white crime” epidemic?). Likewise, as the races still live very segregated lives, black people kill other black people the vast majority of the time. With so many more whites in the U.S., a white person’s largest threat is other white people. In 2012, whites were charged with 69% of crimes, blacks 28%. Whites led in categories like rape (65%), assault (63%), and burglary (67%), while blacks led in murder charges (49%, a lead of 1%) and robbery (55%). More minor categories were dominated by whites. Looking at all violent crimes lumped together, blacks committed about 20% of them. And of course, if we look at mass shootings in America, some 64% of them were committed by whites since 1982, verses 16% by blacks, a 4:1 ratio (see The “Black War on Whites” is Another White Myth).

For a white person, it would make much more sense to fear a white man with a gun. (Not that it makes much sense, according to conservatives, to fear anyone with a gun unless he or she starts behaving violently. Conservatives point out conceal carry owners tend to be more law-abiding; as the National Review editor put it in an article celebrating more diversity in gun carrying, “Anybody who is worried about concealed carriers needs his ruddy head looked at.” Really, why fear someone with a gun?)

Yet American society is characterized by the unspoken, unreasonable fear of black people. Surveys indicate about 60% of whites can openly admit belief in stereotypes concerning blacks like higher aggression or greater criminal appetites — but nearly 90% of whites hold subconscious (implicit) anti-black biases. One experiment looked at what whites thought when a white man and a black man came to blows. When the white man pushed the black man first, 17% of white respondents said this was a violent act. But when the black man pushed the white man first? 75% of whites characterized it as violent.

The police are more likely to become physically violent or draw their weapons at blacks than whites in similar situations. Many studies show why. “Seeing Black: Race, Crime, and Visual Processing” showed how police officers associate innocent blacks with criminality and aggression. “The Police Officer’s Dilemma: Using Ethnicity to Disambiguate Potentially Threatening Individuals” showed ordinary civilians in simulations are far quicker to shoot armed blacks than armed whites, and decide faster to spare an unarmed white than an unarmed black. “The Correlates of Law Enforcement Officers’ Automatic and Controlled Race-Based Responses to Criminal Suspects” found that during simulations police officers with anti-black biases shoot unarmed black suspects more often. “The Consequences of Race for Police Officers’ Responses to Criminal Suspects” showed police officers are more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed blacks than unarmed whites. Unarmed Americans killed in the first half of 2015 were twice as likely to be black than white. Blacks who were not attacking an officer when killed made up 39% of total deaths in 2012, way out of proportion to a small black population, 13% of Americans (compared to 46% of total deaths being white, who are nearly 70% of the American population).

These things are rooted in the fear of the “dangerous, criminal black man.” This fear exists even in the minds of conservatives (and liberals) who encourage African Americans to arm themselves. It affects liberals, conservatives, moderates, civilians, police officers, whites, and sometimes blacks themselves. So it should be no surprise if blacks who carry are treated differently than whites who carry.

The result of one amateur social experiment, where a black man and a white man each strolled around in public with a semiautomatic weapon in an open-carry state, should come as no shock. Watch the video here, then read on.

Each of these men had the right to bear arms in public view. Why, one might ask, should either of them be stopped by police? (Again, why not assume these are “good guys with guns”?) Yet though they exhibited the same behaviors while exercising those rights, the black man was treated as a much graver threat. This is a fine example of how the law is colorblind but those who put it into practice are not. Americans technically have equal rights, but discriminatory practices persist. Thus Tamir Rice, Jermaine McBean, and John Crawford III were shot and killed while holding toy guns in open-carry states, conceal-carry permit holder Clarence Daniels was attacked by a white vigilante who spotted his firearm, Philando Castile was murdered after reportedly telling an officer he had a gun on him and a license for it, and so on.

Many black gun owners say they are treated differently than white gun owners. “If you have a firearm or you scare the wrong people, you’re going to get shot. You’re going to get killed. The perception of the scary black man still exists,” one leading black firearms activist said. Owners understand that carrying can give them the means to protect themselves against crime in their neighborhoods, but know it can make them a target of the police or white vigilantes who may see a white man as a good guy with a gun but a black man as a “thug.” These feelings come from countless incidents, from the Castile shooting to everyday police harassment of black gun carriers to the story of Mark Hughes, a heavily armed black man marching in Dallas right before the killing of multiple police officers, who was wrongly made a suspect and hunted down.

More voices deserve to be heard:

After Earl Brown, a black man working security with a legal firearm, was killed by police in Lauderhill, Florida, his wife Gloria said, “Honestly, I hear the N.R.A. talking about the right to bear arms. He had the right to bear his that night; they just never told us he wouldn’t have the right to life. It seems like white men and police officers are the only ones who have the right to bear arms in this country.”

After the Castile shooting, a member of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, a group of black gun advocates, said, “It terrifies me. Here I am telling black people: ‘Hey, bear arms legally. You’ll have a better opportunity to protect yourself. Maybe the law will respect you more.’”

Philando Castile himself had discussed the dangers with his sister, who reportedly said, “You know what? I really don’t even want to carry my gun because I’m afraid that they’ll shoot me first and then ask questions later.”

This is not to say misunderstandings, tragedies of police or vigilante shootings, do not happen to white gun owners, because they do. Further, these stories and the experiment above are anecdotal evidence, with sample sizes of one or two, not serious studies. According to The New York Times, “There is no data on whether legally armed white or black people are shot at higher rates in the United States.” So while there are many studies showing how blacks are treated differently by white civilians, judges, lawyers, the police, etc., there are no specific studies yet on how black conceal- or open-carry supporters are treated differently. But no matter where we stand on how grave a problem racial discrimination is today, we should all carefully consider the implications of the possibility.

If it is anything like other complaints of mistreatment, studies may soon exist to assure whites that this issue is not simply a confection of black delusions.

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Police Attacks on Forté Reveal Shocking Ignorance of Race in KC

Posted on by under Race Relations

In early August 2016, Kansas City’s chief of police Darryl Forté was under fire from heads of multiple Kansas City police unions.

The criticism came after Forté told the Kansas City Star:

We have to talk about real issues. Black lives matter. That’s real… As an African American male, with this opportunity in this city, I’m going to talk about it and I’m going to do some things to remedy some of the things we’ve done as an institution. When we talk about institutional racism, it’s real. Some of our policies, some of our practices, it’s real.

I’ll talk about it every time I get the mic because there is an issue with too many African American males being killed by police officers, and part of it, in my opinion, is unreasonable fear. Unreasonable fear is a huge one. And we talk about poor training. We all have to do the right thing every day. And I know we’re going to make mistakes, but that should be our goal, and we shouldn’t accept substandard police service from anybody.

Forté also opened up about his experience as a black man in Kansas City. Glenn Rice wrote in the Star:

Kansas City Police Chief Darryl Forté says he understands the delicate balance between the thin blue line that he swore to uphold and the struggles of being a black man in a society that often views him as a dangerous threat.

More than 30 years ago, shortly before he entered the police academy, Forté was pulled over and made to empty his trunk by white police officers for no discernible reason, he said. As he sought the chief’s job five years ago, a frightening note left in his mailbox so unnerved him that he had his wife and a daughter learn how to shoot a gun. Once he got the job, he was harassed.

“In talking to people, you feel what they feel, and being a black male, I understand what happens in Kansas City… I have experienced racial profiling, I have experienced bullying as a member of this police department. So these things are real and indelible.”

The response was swift. Brad Lemon, the head of Kansas City’s Fraternal Order of Police (Lodge 99), wrote in a statement:

I cannot understand any statement regarding unreasonable fear on our member’s part when dealing with life and death situations. We are humans, not robots. We have families and lives. The fear that officers feel during critical incidents is real. It is not for someone else to tell us what is reasonable or unreasonable.

Lemon praised his fellow officers as “the finest people I have ever known,” who are trained in a “nationally recognized academy.” He continued, “Our training is not sub-standard…in fact, I would challenge anyone to find fault with it.” Then, apparently not realizing his next sentence would be an admission that improvements can always be made, he noted, “Our firearms section was just recognized for identifying several training issues that provides options [sic] to disengage and seek cover while contacting armed and dangerous subjects.”

Scott Kirkpatrick, president of the Fraternal Order of Police (Lodge 4) in Kansas City, Kansas, posted an enraged statement on Facebook, calling Forté’s comments “misguided and dangerous” — and Forté himself a “detriment to our profession.” He spoke of the recent loss of two fellow officers, and how the Kansas City, Kansas, chief has had to work “tirelessly to keep our morale high.” But

your misguided statements in your recent interview have again torn those healing wounds wide open. In your interview, you say that the recent killing of suspects is a result of as you say “UNREASONABLE FEAR.” When I heard those words, I had to listen to them again because I could not believe that the head of a well-respected law enforcement agency, and person who wears the uniform, would make such ridiculous uninformed comments.

First, how would you pretend to know what was in the hearts of any of those officers. You have not spoken to them, nor you do know them. You have not been directly or indirectly involved in the investigation so you could not and do not know all the facts. Nevertheless, your uninformed speculation is just fuel to the fire of those who have already demonstrated a desire and willingness to harm police officers. When the enemies of justice see comments like this from you as a Chief, it gives them all the license they need to engage in unimaginably callous acts against those you are supposed to represent.

Second and most importantly, to suggest that an officer’s fear at any time is per se unreasonable without knowing the facts represents a monumental misunderstanding of the job we are doing out of the streets in the current climate. Officers are rightfully on edge. They have seen their brothers and sisters gunned down in cold blood simply for wearing the uniform. You say that their fear is unreasonable. Well tell that to Det. Lancaster’s wife and daughters. Tell that to Captain Melton’s children and loved ones. Tell that to the families of officers in New York, Dallas and Baton Rouge and as close as Baldwin, Missouri. The fear is real. People are out to harm us. And now your comments will only make things worse.

The fact that white police officers “cannot understand” why Forté would speak of “unreasonable fear” and “poor training” is hardly surprising. Too many whites have turned a blind eye toward the overwhelming evidence that police treatment of blacks is a bit different that police treatment of whites — even in Kansas City.

It’s time for Kansas Citians to wake up.

 

Wake up to the research regarding explicit and implicit biases.

When Forté says “unreasonable fear,” he means whites (including the police) often consciously or subconsciously view blacks as more suspicious or dangerous than whites.

Surveys indicate about 60% of whites can openly admit belief in stereotypes concerning blacks: greater laziness, higher aggression, or lower intelligence — and 25% of whites say an ideal neighborhood would be totally free of them. But nearly 90% of whites hold subconscious (implicit) anti-black biases.

Implicit biases mean whites hold certain dangerous ideas about blacks without even realizing it or being able to control it, ideas pumped into our consciousness since birth, ideas so strong and so pervasive even some 48% of blacks subconsciously believe them. These are subconscious associations: associating blacks with danger, violence, laziness, and so on, versus more positive associations for whites.

One experiment looked at what whites thought when a white man and a black man came to blows. When the white man pushed the black man, 17% of white respondents said this was a violent act. But when the black man pushed the white man? 75% of whites characterized it as violent.

Those interested in studying implicit biases more should look into Harvard University’s Project Implicit or read Tim Wise’s Colorblind.

 

Wake up to how biases affect police conduct. 

Mr. Kirkpatrick, Mr. Lemon, clearly Chief Forté is not saying “fear that officers feel during critical incidents” isn’t real. He’s not saying police officers are bad people. He’s not encouraging civilians who hate police and want to kill police to do so. For Christ’s sake, Forté is a police officer. Believe it or not, as the chief stressed in his response to his critics, you can be proud and respectful of officers but also work to address real problems relating to race. He is simply drawing attention to blatant injustices in American policing.

Studies show blacks are are far more likely to be pulled over and searched while driving lawfully than whites driving lawfully. During this War on Drugs, two-thirds of the people thrown in prison for drugs are people of color, even though blacks and whites use illicit drugs at about equal rates (whites are sometimes a bit more likely to do so). When members of your racial group are pulled over, questioned, and searched at drastically higher rates, they will disproportionately fill the jail cells. Blacks are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.

And as for police shootings? How many studies do we need before you acknowledge a problem might exist?

The police are more likely to become physically violent or draw their weapons at blacks than whites in similar situations. “Seeing Black: Race, Crime, and Visual Processing” (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) showed how police officers associate innocent blacks with criminality and aggression. “The Police Officer’s Dilemma: Using Ethnicity to Disambiguate Potentially Threatening Individuals” from the same journal showed ordinary civilians in simulations are far quicker to shoot armed blacks than armed whites, and decide faster to spare an unarmed white than an unarmed black.

“The Correlates of Law Enforcement Officers’ Automatic and Controlled Race-Based Responses to Criminal Suspects” (Basic and Applied Psychology) found that during simulations police officers with anti-black biases shoot unarmed black suspects more often. “The Consequences of Race for Police Officers’ Responses to Criminal Suspects” (Psychological Science) showed police officers are more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed blacks than unarmed whites. Fortunately, the bias diminished with extensive time in the simulation. In fact, “Across the Thin Blue Line: Police Officers and Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot” (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) credited time in simulations when police officers (who had implicit biases) did not use lethal force in a biased way during tests. This kind of training, among others, is important.

Unarmed Americans killed in the first half of 2015 were twice as likely to be black than white, the expected result of police officers associating blacks — innocent blacks included — with aggression, danger, criminality. Blacks who were not attacking an officer when killed made up 39% of total deaths in 2012, way out of proportion to a small black population, 13% of Americans (compared to 46% of total deaths being white, who are nearly 70% of the American population).

 

Wake up to racial injustices in Kansas City. 

Researchers from the University of Kansas write in Pulled Over (2014) that blacks in Kansas City are three times more likely to experience investigatory stops (these are not stops for actual traffic violations), especially in the white suburbs. They are twice as likely to not be told why, and five times more likely to be searched, but less likely to be found with anything illegal — and act no more disrespectfully than similarly treated whites.

One black Kansas Citian spoke of being followed by police for fifteen minutes. “They followed me all the way to the house…. I get out of the car…and they said, ‘Is this your car?’ And I said, ‘Yes’…. They ran the tags [and] I walked on in the house…. They did it for about a couple weeks.” Another described being handcuffed in a white neighborhood while his I.D. was checked to see if he was involved in a recent robbery. “He asked us where we lived and why we were over here. And he made us get out of the car…. I kept my composure…. I didn’t wanna, you know, give him a reason to do anything else…. They put us in handcuffs. And we sat outside for about an hour, and then they just let us go.”

Those are times when no one got hurt. In other incidents, abuse ends in trauma or unnecessary deaths.

  • In 2005, a black family in Kansas City, Kansas, sued after five white police officers entered their home without a warrant during a birthday party. In the ensuing confrontation, they beat adults and children with fists and flashlights, spouted racial slurs, and fired pepper spray.
  • In 2007, Sofia Salva was pulled over (for fake tags) on her way to the hospital. She was pregnant and bleeding, as video shows she calmly told two Kansas City officers. “How is that my problem?” one of them replied. The police jailed her for outstanding warrants. She miscarried the next day.
  • In July 2013, Ryan L. Stokes allegedly refused to stop running from police and was shot and killed by a black officer; the police said Stokes was armed, but that he hid his gun moments before he was shot.
  • In August 2014, graphic designer Jasmine Taylor filed a complaint against the Kansas City Police Department after an officer purportedly struck her in the face and knee during a traffic stop, sending her to the emergency room.
  • In July 2015, Javon Hawkins allegedly refused to put down a sword, and an officer shot him multiple times.

People don’t forget things like this. Every incident, large or small, whether harassment or a standoff that could have been de-escalated or ended with nonlethal weapons, creates a serious strain on police-community relations. As Forté said, they “have created outrage, and to ignore these sentiments and give no thought to what police can do to improve the situation would be irresponsible.”

No, Forté speaking the truth is not going to make things more dangerous for police officers. But willful ignorance of the root causes behind distrust and hatred toward the police — and some barbaric attacks on police officers — certainly will.

Wake up, Kansas City. Wake up.

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‘Atheist Delusion’ Review

Posted on by under Religion

The tagline of Ray Comfort’s new documentary, The Atheist Delusion, promised atheism would be “destroyed with one scientific question.”

Kirk Cameron said it featured “high-resolution logic,” Ken Ham called it “compelling.” The trailer featured atheistic young people calling Comfort’s questions “eye-opening,” saying “I’ll definitely consider this” and even “I’m lying to myself.” The movie was supposed to explain “Why Millions Deny the Obvious” (a second tagline).

As a former Christian and current atheist, such things caught my attention. What were these claims that were supposedly opening the minds of atheists to the “Truth”? Could they possibly take more than mere minutes to dismantle? Upon viewing the film, there is truthfully just one word in the English tongue to properly describe it: embarrassing.

The atheists whose gears are clearly turning at half-speed, who fail to see each of Comfort’s points from a mile away, who are left utterly struggling for words are embarrassing (though, in their defense, even pastors have off days sometimes).

Comfort’s arguments, which rely on hopelessly weak analogies, silly metaphors, gaps in humanity’s scientific knowledge, and meaningless semantics are all embarrassing. The only thing this film “destroys” is a segment of poorly prepared college students from the University of California — Irvine who apparently need to read this article as badly as Christians.

First, Comfort recycles the famous “watchmaker” analogy, here using a book. Could a book make itself? When the inevitable answer is No, that is somehow evidence that existence must also have a creator.

This is, to any critical thinker, rather unsatisfying, as the creator’s existence would by extension of this hopeless analogy also require a creator. But to the religious, existence needs an explanation, but God does not. Something has to be the “uncaused,” as Comfort calls God. Strange that it would be something we have no proof of (a deity) that a thoughtful person would deem the “uncaused,” but not something we do have proof of (existence itself). It is further strange that Christians deem life and planets and existence so complex they all must require a deity, while that deity, being able to create existence, would be even more complex and marvelous than existence! So how is it that we then give deities a free pass? To the atheist, it is just as sensible (if not more so) to suppose existence has always existed, that it was “uncaused,” and that “nothing” was never a thing.

“But the Big Bang — ” the creationist objects. Comfort doesn’t really discuss the Big Bang specifically, but does insist something can’t come from nothing. All that needs to be said here is that we do not know for certain that existence did not “exist” before the Big Bang. We do not know if there was nothing, nor if true nothingness is even possible. Can Comfort prove for certain that there was true nothingness? That would be impressive, as astro-physicists cannot. It is, and perhaps always will be, beyond the scope of human science. We may never be able to confirm if theories concerning existence before (or independent of) the Big Bang, multiverse theories — parallel universes, daughter universes, bubble universes, infinite universes, and so on — are valid. At the moment, Comfort is simply filling a gap in scientific knowledge with God (a strategy used by humans since we cowered at thunder) and relying on an unproven premise at the same time.

It would indeed be wonderful if a loving deity that required no explanation for his existence created our existence. But the idea has no real explanatory value concerning our existence. And there certainly isn’t hard evidence for it.

Regarding evidence, Comfort addresses another topic. He asks the atheists, “Are you open to evidence?” As sensible people, they say Yes. One woman said, “It would just have to be extraordinarily compelling.”

Comfort then presents his cringe-worthy “evidence.” He explains that DNA, as scientists say, is “the instruction book for life,” that there are 3.2 billion letters in the 46 chromosomes making up the human genome. “DNA is the genetic information encoded in the cells of every living thing,” he explains, “that instructs our cells in how to grow and how to function.”

“The fact that there is intelligent information tells us there must be an intelligent designer.” Such “intelligent information” works “to selectively arrange the building blocks of life. That knowhow and forethought does not exist in any of the materials from which life is made.” DNA has an “external nature.” He concludes, “Where did that specified information come from? It’s origin is certainly supernatural.”

The atheists struggle to even form words to counter this, to my astonishment. Allow me to assist again.

First, “intelligent information” is hollow semantics. Comfort puts the word “intelligent” in front of “information” to make his argument sound more reasonable, in the same way he emphasizes how DNA is like a “book” with “letters” to prop up his analogy. Yes, DNA contains “information,” but putting an adjective in front of it doesn’t make it supernatural. Neither does suggesting genetic coding has “knowhow” and “forethought” independent of its material nature.

Second, explaining that DNA determines how our cells grow, change, and function is as far as Comfort will go in his explanation of what DNA is, relying on vague terms like “letters” — and perhaps “information” is even too vague. Why doesn’t he explain the “information” is entirely made up of chemicals? Why not explain that the “letters” in the “book” are adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine, chemicals held together by sugar phosphate? Why not describe purines and pyrimidines, the organic bits that make up the chemicals? Why not talk about the nitrogen atoms of the purines and pyrimidines? Why not describe how the arrangement of A, G, C, and T determines what a cell is and does? How the arrangement is used by enzymes to make mRNA and then proteins, from which a cell is mostly built?

Because doing that would point out the obvious: the “information” isn’t external, it’s biological. It isn’t independent of matter, it cannot exist without it. The code doesn’t have “forethought”; it’s an interaction of chemicals. He doesn’t do this because “instructions” coming from the simple arrangement of mindless chemicals doesn’t help his case as well as pretending they aren’t rooted in matter, aren’t related to and could never have come from nature, and that therefore “God did it.” This is nothing more than a religious person believing natural biological processes to be too complex to exist without a designer, like the “gap” argument regarding the Big Bang (only in this case it’s more embarrassing, as much more is known about DNA and how it functions, even if we don’t know for certain yet how it arose).

I sincerely hope the people Comfort interviewed aren’t biology students, because otherwise it’s time to weep for the future of the American scientific community.

Third, I can’t help but mention that Comfort’s point that all life has DNA actually helped scientists prove once and for all that Darwin was right. By mapping the genetic code of Earth’s lifeforms, scientists determined — and continue to determine daily — that all life on earth actually shares the same DNA. DNA is passed on through reproduction. You share more DNA with your parents and siblings than you do with your more distant relatives. In the same way, humans share more DNA with some living things than with others. We share 98% with chimps, 85% with zebra fish, 36% with fruit flies, and 15% with mustard grass. It is not surprising that creatures similar to us (warm-blooded, covered in hair, give birth to live young) are closer relatives than less similar ones. But all life shares DNA, no matter how different. When mapped out by genetic similarity, we see exactly what Darwin envisioned: a family tree with many different branches, all leading back to a common ancestor.

Those are the two major arguments in The Atheist Delusion. Using a lack of scientific knowledge, then ignoring scientific knowledge, to build a case for a deity.

Yes, there is more to the film. Comfort insisting the Bible had some insights into science that man at the time could never have discovered; asking why, if evolution is true, do we not see creatures with “half-evolved teeth” or “half-evolved legs”; asking how a chicken saw without eyes or felt without a brain if it supposedly evolved; asking why trees just happen to provide oxygen and cows just happen to provide leather, meat, and milk; concluding that the atheists he was speaking with still wanted to be atheists because they wanted to continue looking at porn and fornicating. These things would take even less time to level, but as they were not the major arguments in the film, and in the interest of brevity, I will leave that to others.

At the end, some of the atheists said Comfort’s points made them think; others actually said they now believed in God’s existence, that Comfort had given them proof of an intelligent designer; a few said, “Yes, I’m no longer an atheist,” and one even prayed with Comfort to become a Christian.

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