Which Religion is the Primary Victim of ISIS Genocide?

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In March 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry declared the Islamic State (also called ISIS or Daesh), an Sunni extremist group controlling territory in Syria and Iraq, guilty of genocide.

“In my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in territory under its control, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims,” Kerry said in a speech at the State Department. According to NPR, this is the sixth time the United States officially labeled state or group actions abroad in this way, the previous instance being against Sudan in 2004 (Darfur).

Kerry was under pressure from Congress to make such a declaration; Republicans and Democrats joined together in the House of Representatives and voted 393-0 on Monday to call ISIS actions genocidal. Congress set Thursday as the deadline for the State Department to accept or reject the designation, a deadline many expected the Obama administration to miss.

Kerry did not suggest that military action against ISIS would increase, the main objective of many politicians, particularly Republicans, that sought the designation. The U.S. currently targets and bombs both known and suspected ISIS operatives using unmanned drones, a tactic that protects the lives of American servicemen but also kills far more innocent bystanders than it does terrorists, according to multiple sources, and aids in terrorist recruiting efforts, inspiring further violence.

ISIS crimes against humanity include mass public executions, torture and mutilation, crucifixion, rape, kidnapping, sex trafficking, expulsion, destruction of places of worship, and forced conversion. Members have set about “stoning alleged adulterers to death and throwing gay men off buildings to their death and using child executioners,” to quote the International Business Times. Shia Muslims, Christians, and Yazidis (who worship one God, honor seven angels who look over the Earth, and believe in reincarnation) are the main targets of ISIS, whose members wish to subjugate others to Sunni Islam (the “true,” “pure” Islam) and their new caliphate.

Journalist Amy Goodman claimed that “ISIS has killed more Muslims than certainly members of any other religion,” which is likely accurate. Shia Muslims (13% of Syrians, 60-65% of Iraqis) have likely lost the most civilians at the hands of ISIS, followed by Yazidis (less than 1% of Syrians and Iraqis) and Christians (10% of Syrians, less than 1% of Iraqis).

In the first 8 months of 2014, ISIS killed 8,500 civilians in Iraq (a country with very few Christians), according to a U.N. report. From mid-2014 to late 2015, ISIS executed an estimated 10,000 people in Syria and Iraq, including 2,000 civilians in Syria and 3,000 civilians in Iraq. Thousands more people have died in suicide bombings, in battles, and massacres. For example, nearly 1,700 Iraqi Air Force cadets, mostly Shia, were murdered at Camp Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq in June 2014 and up to 5,000 Yazidi were mowed down in August 2014 in Sinjar Province, Iraq. Those events are not included in the 10,000 tally. The Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians identified some 1,100 Christians killed by ISIS in the report they sent to Kerry on March 9.

The reports caution these estimates are conservative — the precise number of deaths among all these groups is unknown, but likely higher.

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Who Belongs in Kansas City?

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Three weeks after the election, I found myself sitting between two men: a black man on my right, a white man on my left.

We sat together at the Shoal Creek Police Station in north Kansas City. The black man and I were under arrest for participating in a peaceful act of civil disobedience in support of a higher minimum wage and union rights for Kansas City workers. We’d known each other for a few hours. The white man was a drunk stranger, I believe hauled in for domestic violence.

My companion and I were forced to listen for an extended time to this man’s thoughts, some incoherent, others insensitive, a few overtly racist. We tried to counter some of this, but the man was in no condition to be reasoned with.

Civil disobedience “won’t do anything,” he said, a smug smile on his lips as he readied the punchline. “All you’re doing is disrupting the crack flow in the inner city.”

He explained that Somalis are foolish because they choose to drive taxis instead of finding better work, and how poor Americans in general need to work harder (as hard as he) and get off welfare.

He spoke of how native Africans are poor “because they’re just so stupid,” and how if I ever started a business I should take on my black comrade as a partner because “he looks like he could use a helping hand, if you know what I mean.”

This angered me, but as a white man my indignation was only against attacks on others; it’s not the hotter anger of one who is personally demeaned and defamed. I wondered what my companion was feeling at that moment. When I was able to put aside for a second my embarrassment that a fellow white person, intoxicated or not, would say such things in the presence of a black man, or at all, I saw my companion was stone-faced, eyes observing something far away, something I couldn’t see.

Perhaps it was memories. He’d seen and heard such things before. Perhaps he was simply trying to quell the anger toward this slander against where he lived, his work ethic, his ancestors from another continent, who he was.

I didn’t speak to him about it after our release. But I imagine he didn’t feel like he belonged.

Like the nation as a whole, Kansas City struggles to be a place where all people feel like they belong. That our city should be such a home is not the unrealistic demand of “sensitive, entitled snowflakes” who “get offended by everything.” It is the basic ideal of the American experiment, that all people are created equal, worthy of the same dignity, respect, and human rights. In a decent American society, that lived up to its principles, every person would feel like he or she belonged.

Clearly, this is not yet the case. The Southern Poverty Law Center recorded nearly 900 hate incidents in the ten days following Donald Trump’s election. Trump supporters were emboldened, validated, and set about verbally and physically attacking the people Trump demeaned and vilified. Women were grabbed by the genitals, homosexuals beaten, hijabs ripped off Muslim girls, blacks called “niggers,” Jews called “kikes,” Hispanics mocked and told to leave the country. Vandalism featured swastikas, nooses, and racial slurs.

Whites and Trump supporters were victims also, to a small degree. 23 incidents, or 2.6%, were anti-Trump, and some included physical violence. All hate crimes are wrong and must be condemned, and all hate crimes make someone feel like he or she does not belong. But we cannot pretend all groups experience hate crimes equally. As The Star noted on January 6, only 10.5% of all hate crimes in 2015 were directed against whites (a typical percentage), even though the U.S. is still nearly 70% white. We also must not pretend hate crimes against one group cannot be a reaction to hate crimes against another. Such things do not always come from the same place.

What was the Kansas City experience? A black Kansas Citian found a swastika and noose spray-painted on his car. Alongside “Hail President Trump,” racial slurs, misogynistic slurs, and swastikas were left inside the Kansas City Public Library downtown. A Muslim business owner received threatening phone calls, and “white power!” was shouted at him in person. A student drew a Klansman saying “Kill all blacks!” at Piper High School. A gay man was beat, had a gun put to his head, and had “fag” spray-painted on his car. “Alt-Right” advertisements appeared saying “America was 90% white in 1950. It is now 60%. Make America Great Again.” A white man shot three people, killing one, while hunting down Arabs — he yelled “Get out of my country!” (The victim’s grieving wife, in a public statement, asked, “Do we belong here? Is this the same country we dreamed of?”) Further, a group of teenagers assaulted a white man they thought was a Trump supporter. Anti-white statements like “Kill Whitey” were scribbled on walls of a UMKC building.

Even before election day, things were getting bad. In 2015, religious hate crimes in KC rose 60%, most against Muslims, while general hate crimes rose 35%.

While there has been a great amount of progress in Kansas City since its Jim Crow era, since the heyday of its anti-immigrant and anti-religious minority hysteria, since its very beginning as a slave society in the early 1800s, there is still much work to do to make this city a place where everyone feels like they belong. But how can this be accomplished?

One way is to ensure local and national laws protect the freedom and equality of all people. Many will ask: if the law does not offer all the same respect, why should the individual? We must push for moral and fair public policy. That must be Kansas City’s response to proposals like mass deportations, the registration of Muslims, the repeal of same-sex marriage, the return of stop-and-frisk, and so on.

This is done through people’s movements, when ordinary people come together to force the government to yield to their demands. Progress always comes on the backs of troublemakers: those who organize, agitate, petition, protest, march, strike, sit-in, and engage in civil disobedience. When the powerful realize the trouble will not stop — only grow — until demands are met, they surrender. If enough people unite, they can shut down a city, a state, or an entire country. From Kansas City’s Valentine’s Day strike of 1918, in which 15,000 workers brought the city to a halt, to India’s 2016 strike of 180 million workers that did the same to a nation, the people have the power to take whatever they want — by simply leaving their workplaces and flooding the streets. This will occur in Kansas City whenever injustice rears its ugly head. We saw it at the inauguration day march from Union Station to City Hall, the Women’s March in Kansas City, and the protest at MCI against the immigration ban.

A second way is to help change the way others think. Make no mistake, the activism described above can make bystanders think differently. But in general, Kansas Citians must encourage each other to hold one another to the same standards — that is, you must offer the same rights, respect, kindness, and dignity to others that you expect. That simple maxim, which almost all profess to believe in, could transform society if actually followed.

Under such a rule, one would think registering Muslims as ludicrous as registering Christians. Immigration bans would be a thing of the past, because ethical societies don’t punish the many for the crimes of the few. Tearing apart families by deporting good men and women who came to the U.S. illegally to escape poverty and violence would be unthinkable, because no one would want that done to their family. Homosexuality would be accepted as a natural human trait, like heterosexuality, with marriage rights protected for all. Discriminatory policing against black folk would be under constant attack by all white Americans, who would not want to be subjected to such mistreatment. All men would likewise be up in arms against the constant sexual harassment against women, light sentences for rapists, and other trademarks of rape culture. Hate crimes and everyday racist comments, no matter who against, would be found only in the history books.

That would be a much better society, a Kansas City where all people lived without fear and with a sense of belonging. Such a society is ours to create.

When my black comrade and I were released, we sat in a warm van with many others who were trickling out of the police station.

“You think we made a difference?” he asked, to no one in particular.

I thought of all the ordinary troublemakers before us who had protested and been arrested: those who fought for decent wages and the 40 hour workweek, the end of child labor, equal rights for women, people of color, religious minorities, and LGBT people, and the end of bloody wars like Vietnam. Those men and women rose up against exploitation, injustice, and bigotry. Surely they asked themselves the same question, and surely there was only one correct answer.

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Why the Women Marched

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Conservative criticism of the Women’s March on Washington seems to be revolving around several poorly considered ideas.

First, the notion that the march was simply a tantrum thrown by sore losers. Second, that women already have all the rights that men do, so why are they bothering? Third, that it is hypocritical to oppose a man who says vile things about and does vile things to women but support a woman who is married to a man who acts in a similar way. There are other criticisms, of course (“Feminists want to emasculate and oppress men!”), too absurd to be worthy of comment.

Let’s consider each point in turn, but first note the obvious: the people who are confused as to what the purpose or motives of the march was probably did not actually bother to read the mission, vision, or principles put forth by the organizers. They likely did not attend the march. They may not have even bothered to ask their friends, male or female, why they personally went. I personally feel that if people were inclined to do such things, the misinformation would not be so egregious. I can’t pretend to speak for every woman that went, but by doing those things I got a fairly informed idea as to what it was all about.

Let’s think through the first point. Was it simply that the Republican candidate won and the Democratic one lost? Is it just liberals being sore losers, without any other context? Well, no thinking person actually believes this. The Women’s March was likely the largest single-day protest in national history, with over 3 million Americans participating. Would we have seen such an event if Marco Rubio had been elected? If Jeb Bush beat Hillary Clinton? Is the victory of every Republican presidential candidate followed by historic-sized protests? Perhaps the protest has more to do with anger over the words and actions of the person elected, rather than the simple fact that he won.

Second, while it is true women have roughly the same legal rights as men, there is a certain right men could never possibly need but women might. That is, the right to an abortion. The Women’s March wasn’t solely about abortion rights (another conservative misconception), but it was a big part of it. The principles included “open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people, regardless of income, location or education.” Now, staunchly pro-life people won’t agree with that, which is fine. But women (and men) who are pro-choice believe the right to an abortion should be protected and know it is currently under attack, from Texas (which slashed funding for clinics, forcing all but 20 to close in a state with 13 million women) to Ohio (which joined 15 other states in enacting a ban on abortions after 20 weeks). Again, this may sound like good news to you if you are conservative, but the point is that abortion is a right protesters sought to protect. They wanted to voice opposition to anti-abortion policies Trump and Republicans support and will likely move to enact.

Also on the subject of rights is women’s pay. Many conservatives have made it clear they either believe unequal pay for equal work is a myth or don’t even understand what it means (“My man makes more than me because his job is manual labor and mine isn’t”; “Look at how rich this woman is! The idea we’re paid less is stupid”). It’s the radical idea that a woman with comparable education and experience as a man would make the same as him in the same field or industry. Yes, the wage gap is partly explained by men dominating certain high-paying fields (which in turn is partly explained by sexism in schools, which can slowly push girls away from lucrative fields like STEM), but unequal pay for equal work and equal qualifications within the same field is also a real problem. As the Economic Policy Institute put it,

Women are paid less than similarly educated men at every level of education. And the wage gap tends to rise with education level… Women who work in male-dominated occupations are paid significantly less than similarly educated males in those occupations. So even recommending that women choose better-paying occupations does not solve the problem.

Whether or not you trust research into the matter is your business, but just know that protesters do trust this is a problem and wish to voice dissent.

Beyond equal pay, there’s sexism in general. The EPI summarizes:

One famous study found that switching to blind auditions led to a significantly higher proportion of female musicians in orchestras (Goldin and Rouse 1997).

An experimental study of résumés submitted for job openings found bias against women and mothers and a preference for male applicants (Steinpreis, Anders, and Ritzke 1999). Another résumé study showed discrimination against women in the sciences (Moss-Racusin et al. 2012).

Researchers have also found that women are viewed as less competent than men, and that mothers are judged as even less competent than childless women (Ridgeway and Correll 2004).

There are of course other issues, such as the fact that any boy under 18 can buy condoms without a problem, but girls face all kinds of legal barriers to birth control in many states. But abortion, equal hiring practices, and equal pay are the main legal rights women seek to maintain or achieve.

However, this was only part of the event. An equally important matter was standing up to sexual harassment and sexual violence. This protest was not the whine of a losing side in a typical election, it was an outburst of anger against the disrespect and abuse Trump exhibited and the culture that too often excuses, tolerates, or embraces such things — tolerates to the point of voting for a vile man like Trump. Boasting of grabbing women by the vagina, calling women fat, ugly pigs, saying Hillary Clinton couldn’t satisfy her husband, making jokes to women about blow jobs, and going to trial for rape would, in a sensible world, enrage everyone. Most of the speeches, signs, and shirts I saw, and the conversations I heard, were about sexual violence, sometimes Trump’s, sometimes someone else’s. From demeaning catcalls to nasty comments (a government official in New Mexico said women protesting “have the right to be slapped”) to the absurdly light sentences for vicious rapists, feminist liberals wish to build a society where women are safe, treated with respect, and see justice done to the worst of humanity. Surely everyone, regardless of political persuasion, can support what the organizers wrote, that women should be “free of all forms of violence against our bodies.” Days after the march, Oklahoma ruled that oral sex is not rape if the victim is unconscious from drinking.

Which brings us to the third and final point, the infidelities of Bill Clinton and the rape accusations against him, and how these things affect whether the Women’s March was an event worthy of praise or scorn. Conservatives posit: “This march wouldn’t have taken place if Hillary Clinton had won. You oppose Trump and his nastiness, yet support Hillary, whose husband is a cheater, a liar, and an accused rapist. That’s hypocrisy.”

Well, one might suppose not all of the 3 million American marchers supported or voted for Hillary. How many Bernie Sanders loyalists were there, for instance? Just because one despises Trump’s words and deeds against women does not mean he or she is a fan of Hillary or Bill Clinton. Perhaps some, like me, are critics of both. Regardless, even assuming all attendees voted for Hillary, there are obvious problems with this idea.

Most sensible people would consider Hillary a victim in this regard. She was cheated on countless times, likely lied to. Should she be punished for the crimes of her unfaithful husband? I think not — even if she stayed with him to maintain political power and opportunities. He should be frowned upon for infidelity and thrown in prison if rape charges are determined to be true. But his wife shouldn’t have to wear a badge of shame because of what he did. Hillary is the victim of Bill’s infidelity, and that in no way means people should automatically not support or vote for her. Unless she is staying mum about Bill raping women, which there is no evidence for, she is an innocent bystander to his crimes (if factual). Believe it or not, one could support imprisoning someone for a crime and support his wife, a victim, in her career pursuits. Hillary is not Bill.

In the same way I do not pretend Bill was running for president, I do not yet suppose he and Trump are of the same character. If they are both one day found guilty of rape, they can rot in prison together and we can call them equally awful men. But put aside the accusations against both for a moment; suppose they are all false. At the time of the election, and the march, and today, neither person was tried and convicted of rape. So what is left? Bill is a cheating husband, but not known for demeaning women. Trump still brags of sexual assault, tears down women for their appearance, and makes lewd remarks about contestants on his show, political enemies, etc. So is it hypocrisy to protest Trump but not Bill over how they treat women? Perhaps there is a tinge of hypocrisy, but not much. When it comes down to it, if using what we know at the moment, Donald Trump is more worthy of a protest than Bill Clinton when it comes to the treatment of women. If you add in the other stated principles of the Women’s March (like “Disability Rights” and “Civil Rights”) and consider Trump’s treatment of other groups (disabled Americans, Muslims) compared to Bill’s, this might make the case that Trump deserves a Women’s March more than Bill even stronger. His support for restrictions on abortion and other right-wing policies would make the case stronger still, in the eyes of those on the left.

(Conservatives speaking of hypocrisy should ask themselves: If Bill is worthy of protest and disdain, is not Trump worthy of even more? Those crying hypocrisy shouldn’t be saying the Women’s March, this stand against Trump, was wrong. They should be saying it was right. More specifically, “It was the right thing to do, but you should protest against Bill as well, to avoid hypocrisy.” The alternative is to protest neither. But that does no good for anyone — including Bill’s alleged victims. Liberals must ask ourselves: If Trump is worthy of protest, is Bill? I think Trump is much more worthy of protest than Bill, yet am not opposed to a mass stand against infidelity or worse crimes that he committed. I believe both would be positive things. If conservatives wish to make accusations of hypocrisy, they must also decide if both are right or if both are wrong. Currently, the absence of a theoretical march against injustice is being used to criticize a march against injustice.)

The idea that Trump is more worthy of a protest than Bill (putting aside unconfirmed accusations) when it comes to treatment of women is my view, and you are free to think differently. However, given that view, you can see why I don’t see much hypocrisy between a Women’s March for Trump and none for a theoretical First Man Bill Clinton. Same for opposing Trump’s presidential campaign in general but supporting Hillary’s. For there to be full-blown hypocrisy, different standards must be applied to two things that are essentially the same.

A man running for president is not the same as a man married to a woman running for president. Committing infidelity is not the same as committing sexual assault. A man may be worthy of protest, but a worse man can be even more worthy. And so on.

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The Atheist’s Soul: Hard Times in a Godless World

Posted on by under Religion

This writing should not be viewed as an exploration of how or why I became an atheist. I have written of both those things elsewhere; this is simply a reflection on how it feels to be an atheist compared to a believer. How does it change the way one copes with loss? Thinks about death? Thinks about knowledge or morality? That sort of thing. So no, I did not become an atheist because bad things happen to good people or because I wanted to decide for myself what is right and wrong. The following are thoughts and feelings that came after I decided God was fictional.

I start with some of the ways being an atheist is easier on the soul than being a religious person. Then I will discuss how it can be harder.

As an atheist, you are free to think more independently and make up your own mind. As a believer, knowledge is generally accepted or rejected after being crosschecked with ancient writings of primitive Middle Eastern tribes. The more fundamentalist you are the more consistently this is true. So if the bible indicates the years from Adam to today number about 6,000, a mountain of evidence for humanity’s presence tens of thousands of years ago must be labeled false immediately. If the bible says there was a worldwide flood, it happened, regardless of the fact no actual evidence can be found for it. As a nonbeliever, your mind is free. You don’t need to filter an idea through the bible, the Qu’ran, the Vedas, or any other book. You can weigh it based on its own evidence. You can decide if the evidence is strong or weak, and change your beliefs accordingly. You can change your mind without fear of crossing a deity. You’re free to doubt, to question, to say, without some big crisis of faith, “I don’t know” (even to the question of whether a higher being exists — atheists can believe one doesn’t, yet admit knowing is impossible, something most believers will not do).

Also, as an atheist you are free from worrying about the beliefs of others. As a Christian, I fretted over whether friends and loved ones were saved, because eternal life was on the line. This agitation prompted proselytizing, no doubt annoying at times. As a freethinker, as much as I enjoy deconstructing religious arguments and outlining different ways of thinking, what others believe doesn’t really concern me — whether someone is a person of faith or not is no skin off my nose. With no eternal consequences at play, who cares? It’s wonderful to be unshackled from that mental burden.

Further, you can decide for yourself what is right and wrong. A Christian determines what’s right and wrong using the bible, an atheist creates his or her own guidelines. For instance, suppose one were to say that what’s wrong is what hurts other people. In most places, Christian ethics and nonbeliever ethics would align with this idea, but not in all. Homosexuals who fall in love, have sex, and get married aren’t hurting anyone. Nor are a consenting man and woman having sex out of wedlock.

These things may be awful wrongs in the fundamentalist Christian view. Christians may conjure all sorts of ways they cause harm (“It’ll encourage others to be gay!”; “There’ll be a harm when they’re burning in hell”; “It drives them away from the Lord”; “If it’s just a fling for one of them, the other will be hurt”; “If she gets pregnant and he leaves, the child could grow up without a father or even be aborted”), but these types of reasons either already assume the act is wrong (which is circular reasoning, and therefore doesn’t make any sense when deciding if something is wrong) or is a possible, but in no way inevitable, outcome of the act, which isn’t an argument that the act itself is wrong (if the couple instead falls in love and stays together forever, was the act wrong? If the woman gets pregnant and the man stays and they start a happy family, was the act wrong? If you rescue a child from drowning, and the child grows up to be a serial killer, was your act wrong?). There is simply no way to say homosexuality or extramarital sex hurt people (and are therefore wrong) without relying on your religion or illogical arguments.

As an atheist, you can create your own set of ethics. Now, atheists will say they can create much better moral guidelines than Christians, who will say the reverse (and even spew nonsense like “When atheists choose their morality they’ll all be stealing, raping, and killing; no one can be good without God”). Christians will say morality only came from God in the first place, atheists will point out evolution and societal factors actually explain morality, no deity needed. My point here isn’t to resolve those arguments, only to say, having experienced both, it is liberating to make up my own mind on what’s moral, rather than consult and obey decrees from a book written thousands of years ago. You can think through things, change your mind, build a better code of ethics than you used to have. Just as Christians ignore the most cruel ethical guidelines in the bible (some even found in the New Testament), you can ignore ones that are backwards but still taken seriously. You’re free to base your ethics on, say, what does actual physical or psychological harm to others.

One last uplifting fact about atheism. As a believer, you sometimes struggle with what to make of the hard times, the horrible things that happen to you. Perhaps a loved one dies far too young, perhaps your spouse cheats on you, perhaps you lose your job right after your bank account takes a huge hit. Sometimes it is simple impatience (why have I not found the love of my life yet?), other times serious grievances (why was I born disabled?).

These events often conjure familiar questions: why would a loving God allow this to happen? How could this be included in his Plan? Why couldn’t his Plan not have involved me becoming paralyzed in a car wreck or my husband leaving me? That wouldn’t have been hard for him to leave out.

At times, darker thoughts arise. What did I do to deserve this? Why would God do this to me? Is it a punishment?

It can cause some believers to start to doubt God’s existence, but I have always marveled at how this can be (my own deconversion was a rather different story). Did you not realize horrific things happen to believers before they started happening to you? Were you so caught up in your own little world that you didn’t notice other faithful people losing loved ones to cancer, falling into poverty, being raped, and so on? If a personal tragedy makes you question your belief in a caring deity, why wouldn’t a tragedy that befalls other believers? How exactly are you different than they?

Regardless, the religious tropes in response to your questions are familiar, if varying. You must not be living according to scriptures; God’s teaching you a lesson you won’t forget (this is the most extreme fundamentalist view). Well, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, who are we to question it? In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God! Well, God didn’t do it, he just allows it. He doesn’t want anyone to suffer, but we live in a fallen world. He could intervene, but he won’t, because of Adam and Eve’s original sin. Well, we can’t see God’s Plan; don’t worry, he’ll make some good come out of it. It’ll bring you closer to him. Closer to your family. It’ll change your life path. It’ll help others, maybe even bring them to Jesus. And so on.

When it is all said and done, there remains a puppet master who either allowed something awful to destroy your life for his own purposes or caused it in the first place to punish you.

What a relief atheism is! What an immense mental burden that dissipates and simply never returns. When you believe there is no god who loves you and cares for you, the hard parts of life — from daily annoyances to the most painful real-life nightmares — start making more sense. There is no unseen being pulling the strings, deciding whether or not your daughter will be kidnapped, raped, and killed. There is no caring Father who decided no, you shouldn’t get that raise at work. There is no struggle with the question of why. Bad things happen because of human interactions (and natural disasters like viruses and tornadoes). That’s all. Why isn’t even a question worth asking anymore. No higher power gave a green light to your suffering. It’s just us — we human creatures do everything we can to avoid suffering, but since we cannot control all other people or natural events, there will be pain. Some experience more than others, but few avoid it completely before they die.

As someone who’s experienced the loss of family members while both a believer and a unbeliever, it is my personal testimony that it is easier to cope when you’re no longer asking, “Why did God let this happen?” Instead, there is no question. There is no why. It’s just life. It’s what it means to be human. It is sad, but life simply often is.

On the other side of the coin, of course, is the fact there is no God to comfort you when bad things happen. For comfort you must rely on friends, family, and yourself. This is not so bad — and not all that different from when you were a believer, as believers need and want a real shoulder to cry on. Sure, there’s no higher purpose to your little brother dying of Salmonella poisoning and no God to make you feel better, but considering if there was a God he could have prevented such a senseless death it’s really a beneficial trade-off. In the end, you don’t need a deity to cope with grief. It can actually be easier without one.

But what of the burdens on the atheist’s soul? Those things that are harder as an atheist?

First and foremost is the hardest truth any human creature can face: I am going to die. I will cease to exist. My mind will be no more.

If only I could be like Mark Twain, who said, “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” Was this sincere? Was it just bravado? Who knows. But I am afraid of death.

The idea of returning to that state of nothingness — just disappearing forever — as we imagine the birds, the butterflies, our dogs, and all other creatures do is an uncomfortable, frightening, saddening thought. Accepting we are mortal and trying to go through life without fear of it all ending at some moment is a heavy yoke to bear. It is much easier on the soul of the believer, who thinks he or she will live forever, plus in a paradise, plus with all his or her loved ones. While I believe this is wishful thinking (“If something seems too good to be true…”) and is in fact the reason religion persists and will do so for a long time more, it is certainly a more pleasant belief than that in 80 years I’ll be gone forever.

How does one deal with something like this? Well, while the dread of nonexistence is something I haven’t conquered yet, I will say it encourages me to cherish each moment in a way I did not do as a believer. After all, if you have eternity, what is this mere “pit stop” on Earth? Each second just isn’t as valuable. Now I am more mindful of the time. I’m reminded to show more love and do more good in this place, to create a better world for people living now and my future children and grandchildren — should I live long enough to have them. With death, you also must accept that you will never see your loved ones again when they die. That’s hard and sad — but reminds me to spend more quality time with them in the here and now. 

Second, becoming an atheist can do a number on your relationships with those you care about. I consider myself lucky in this regard. Sure, it created a little tension here and there with family members, made some friends avoid me on social media, and a girl I wanted to marry did not appreciate my deconversion and moved on. But overall, I am still so close with many strong Christian friends and my changed beliefs were accepted, if sadly, by family, who still love me as much as before. It goes quite differently for many new atheists. It can destroy people and families. Throw this in with the feeling you’ve said goodbye to a dear old (if imaginary) friend, someone you fell asleep talking to, someone you trusted and knew, someone real and always looking out for you, and becoming an atheist can be a painful experience indeed.

Finally, purpose. Along with wishing to live forever, people tend to want a purpose for their existence. They don’t want to be a creature that only exists by chance, with no ultimate point to their being here. That’s the nature of being an animal, not a human! They would rather be foreseen, designed, existing to serve, love, and be loved by a higher power. Without God, life has no meaning!

The randomness and pointlessness of it all can seem depressing at times, leading to painful existential crises and nihilism. Why bother living? Why bother doing anything at all? Some nonbelievers struggle mightily with this, but to be honest I have not. I have my moments where these thoughts creep in, but mostly I am simply happy that I exist at all. I could have easily not been around to feel depressed about being around! As Richard Dawkins put it,

The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

Because of this (to go back to the topic of death for a moment) he says, “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born… We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”

And since I exist, I can give meaning and purpose to my own life. That’s what’s wonderful about it. No, there is no “ultimate purpose” decreed by an invisible god. Instead, you have to decide what your purpose is and how you will spend the time you have. To give your life meaning, do something meaningful, as Carl Sagan once said — something to help make the lives of other human beings better or to just find inner peace and happiness.

To quote former pastor Dan Barker, “Asking, ‘If there is no God, what is the purpose of life?’ is like asking, ‘If there is no master, whose slave will I be?'”

Elsewhere, he said, “There is indeed no purpose of life. There is purpose in life… Life is its own reward. But as long as there are problems to solve, there will be purpose in life. When there is hunger to lessen, illness to cure, pain to minimize, inequality to eradicate, oppression to resist, knowledge to gain and beauty to create, there is meaning in life.”

Not everyone will choose the same purpose for his or her life. But the point is we all choose — and hopefully, given how short life is, we choose wisely.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.

Short Thoughts on Racism

Posted on by under Race Relations

 

April 22, 2021

Ma’Khia Bryant would be alive today if police didn’t go straight for the handgun when de-escalation isn’t possible (as it sometimes won’t be). We have nonlethal tools and tech.

“No opportunity” to de-escalate isn’t an excuse. “Obeying training” isn’t an excuse when your training is shit, incorporating nothing between de-escalation and shoot to kill. I know this really sidesteps or ignores what allegedly happened to Daunte Wright, people harmed or even killed by nonlethal weaponry, who should respond to violent calls, and the whole debate on whether police are needed in a modern (or radically changed) society — but assuming they are, they should stop pretending nonlethals don’t exist and can end many violent situations without loss of life.

December 23, 2020

On The Star’s apology series (https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article247928045.html):

Has The Kansas City Star also devoted itself to pushing for new policies and funding organizations doing the same?

June 3, 2020

During the George Floyd protests: 

The only marching cops should be doing is to HQ to draft radical policy changes.

May 28, 2020

Four cops had George Floyd handcuffed, pinned on the pavement. It was over. It could have stopped there, a lift of the knee. Instead the police chose to continue. Instead they killed him.

But maybe it couldn’t have stopped there. To lift the knee would have been to acknowledge wrongdoing, to listen to the screams and begging of victim and bystanders. To offer a nod of legitimacy to grievances against absolute power. But police don’t obey people. People obey the police. The police don’t take orders from civilians, much less black people (yes, I believe this tragedy is rooted in racism, conscious or subconscious) or victims. As the knee rises, so the authority falls. That’s inherent to policing and to power dynamics in general — the pressure to continue what you’re doing even if it’s wrong, to avoid undermining your own authority. They kept the knee there because they were told not to. “Power trip” as a phrase hardly captures the merciless brutality here, but I believe it is so.

May 6, 2020

On the Ahmaud Arbery killing:

White people, just leave black people the fuck alone. It is not your responsibility to get your guns and confront someone you think (likely due only to his skin color) is a thief. Black people have enough to worry about with the police racially profiling and confronting them. These white men deserve prison, nothing less.

September 10, 2018

On unnecessary police force in Westport:

You can punch someone in a place other than their face. You can punch someone’s arm. And you can do it to break up a fight. For some reason other than “because you can” or for fun. It can be proper police protocol. And it can STILL be unnecessary force. It can still be unnecessary violence against a black woman. These things aren’t mutually exclusive.

July 26, 2018

It’s funny how you often hear “The Democratic Party was the party of slavery and the KKK” but rarely hear “The Democratic Party founded the Confederacy and the Confederate flag was a flag of the Democrats.” Both are true statements.

I think you don’t really hear the latter because it raises uncomfortable questions (not least of all: “Does this imply a connection between extreme racism and the Confederacy? Shouldn’t we burn all these flags?”). Questions like: “Why, if the Confederacy was a Democratic institution, do only conservatives and Republicans care about it and fly its flag today?” Or: “How is it that Democrats ruled the South during that era, but today Republicans rule the South? Was it a liberal bastion back then?”

These questions might lead to a serious study of history that reveals the obvious but not commonly discussed truth: the Democratic Party was the more conservative party in that era, the Republican Party the more liberal party. https://bit.ly/2OoRUiH

May 31, 2018

On the police shooting of Nell Lewis:

The Lawrence Police Department and Johnson County, KS Sheriff’s Office have some explaining to do.

1) Was ordering the driver out of his car absolutely necessary? Was it not in the realm of the possible for the officer to simply issue a ticket and head out, even if the driver wasn’t cooperative? Is it a natural law of the universe that the police MUST exert power over an uncooperative person? Could an officer not be the bigger person–swallow the pride, skip the power trip–and just tell an uncooperative person to have a good night and get that ticket paid on time? Instead of ordering him or her out? Is de-escalation just too difficult? Is escalation–“step out the car”–the only way?

2) Was a second officer absolutely necessary? When first responders learn to handle things in a better manner there will be no need for backup. This was another pointless escalation.

3) Was use of the handgun absolutely necessary when other, less lethal weapons are available? The use of any kind of weapon could have been easily avoided of course, if the first responder had better training, but why was the first weapon used the most lethal? Do stun guns not exist? Do rubber rounds only exist for crowds and protests? Will we not try anything else before simply resorting to the bullet?

December 8, 2017

Many whites who lynched and segregated black people are still alive. #ItAin’tOver

October 30, 2017

This article is good because it educates residents on excessive force deployed by the KCPD ($6 million in settlements for brutality over just 5 years), but a bit odd because it feels as if 41 Action News framed it to imply the big payments to victims of brutality, criminals or not, is the major problem here. The headline, the first two sentences, the section headers (name, $$$), including Washington’s rap sheet to emphasize he’s a criminal, including his grinning mug shot, and so forth make it seem like police brutality is primarily bad because it ends up giving money to criminals (one victim, by the way, was not charged with a crime for the incident in which he was brutalized). Well, no, police brutality is the problem. Police brutality is wrong in and of itself. Big settlements wouldn’t happen if police brutality didn’t happen. Whether you see payouts as proper compensation for police crimes or hate seeing criminals get a dime, that’s the simple truth. Perhaps I’m making mountains out of mole hills or reading too much into the article, but local news is so pro-cop one can’t help but wonder if this framing is a way to make a story on police brutality go down easier.

September 26, 2017

On the Fraternal Order of Police letter to Marcus Peters:

Hopefully Chiefs player Marcus Peters can gently explain to the Kansas City Fraternal Order of Police that it is the responsibility of the police in this country, and theirs alone, to not kill unarmed people. It is the responsibility of the courts to imprison officers who use unnecessary force. Improving community-police relations is a positive thing and should be done, but won’t end the atrocities Peters and others are protesting. Police need to radically change their policies, training, and weaponry. They need to explore implicit and overt racial biases and how they influence police behavior in documented experiments. They need to learn to de-escalate. They need to learn to handle wounded pride and not ask people to step out of the car because they don’t like their tone or won’t cooperate. They need to stop investigating what four black men on the corner chatting are up to if there’s not a shred of probable cause for anything. They need to use non-lethal bullets. They must stop planting evidence and lying. They must never again investigate themselves. They need to submit to stricter civilian oversight and control. And yes, they need to have the real threat of rotting in prison to keep them in line. Again, connect with communities and build relationships. If Peters and others will join you, great. But it’s on YOU to end racial profiling, to stop beating and killing people for minor slights, over your unreasonable fears and implicit or conscious racial biases, or for nothing at all. Until that happens, the protests will continue, and hopefully Peters will remain involved. It’s not about personal “fulfillment.” It’s about voicing opposition to what YOU, and the Kansas City Missouri Police Department and departments across the US, are doing and have the power to end.

September 26, 2017

White people, let’s talk. Let’s talk about why many of us suddenly give far fewer shits about rights when black people need or use them.

Protest rights, speech rights, gun rights, due process rights, the right to life, privacy rights, equal treatment rights, voting rights, and on and on. When black people boldly use or demand these things, they are the enemy. They are “uppity,” “ungrateful,” “disrespectful,” “dangerous,” “un-American.” “No-good n—–s.” They have crossed the line. They have pushed against the walls of the box white people require them to remain in. They broke the rules.

I get it, you don’t think black people are treated any differently than white people. You think police brutality isn’t disproportionately against black folk due to unreasonable fear, you think racial profiling is fiction, you think verdicts and sentencing in the courts are the same for people of all colors according to their crimes, you think a black man can walk around with a gun on his hip as freely as them good ol’ white boys, you think you’d be just as pissed if a white person knelt for the anthem to protest God not being in schools anymore, you think loud protests and blocked streets and civil disobedience and property damage and riots were only acceptable for white people in 1773, and you couldn’t care less if stricter voter ID laws decrease the black vote. I get it because white ignorance is real; whites in the era of burning black people hanging from ropes and taking home their genitals as trophies thought black people had it pretty good too, and should just shut up and stop complaining. The U.S. was, after all, the greatest nation on earth in 1950 as well, was it not?

The thing is, whether you stupidly think black people are simply making stuff up or in it for attention, that DOES NOT MATTER one iota. Citizens have rights regardless. They have them no matter what. Rights aren’t offered conditionally; on the condition, say, that what a black person is saying about his or her own lived experience has been fact-checked by fucking white people. Black people can exercise their rights however they please. Anywhere, any time.

So fuck the white line, the white box, the white rules. Let’s do what we can, fellow white people, to utterly purge these things from our own minds and those of others.

September 24, 2017

On Colin Kaepernick and those who knelt with him:

Progress comes on the backs of troublemakers, not they who worship the State.

August 12, 2017

A word to my fellow white people:

Have you spoken up yet? It is sometimes said that in times of injustice remaining neutral aids the oppressor. You cannot be neutral on a moving train. When racism rears its ugly head will you speak against it? Will you show up when it rallies in your city? Will you go tell it on the mountain that bigotry is unacceptable in our country? Look upon what your fellow whites are doing in Charlottesville:

Whites organizing a “Unite the Right” rally using imagery reminiscent of the Nazi Imperial eagle in response to the removal of statues of “heroes” who fought for a new nation founded explicitly to preserve black slavery, a “pro-white” rally to “advocate for white people.”

Whites hosting a KKK-reminiscent night march with torches, raising the Nazi salute with free hands, surrounding counter-protesters and assaulting them. They chanted “White Lives Matter” and “You will not replace us” and “Proud to be white.”

Whites attending the main event with their shirts bearing Hitler quotes, their Confederate flags, their red Klan robes, their “Jews are Satan’s children” signs, free hands again raising the Nazi salute. A sea of white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and Alt-Right symbols, such as the Klan cross and Nazi flag. A chant rises into the air: “Fuck you faggots.” That was alongside “White Lives Matter” and “Blood and Soil,” an old Nazi slogan.

Whites from “militias” with rifles walking freely through the streets. It is difficult to imagine the police allowing black people to do the same, as with surrounding other groups.

A car running over counter-protesters after violence breaks out between rally-goers and counter-protesters. One person has died. A black man named Deandre Harris was assaulted. A State of Emergency declared, the “Unite the Right” rally disbanded by police. The white rightwing extremists are regrouping at another park.

Sitting in history class, we whites often imagined what we would do if we had lived in that generation where people proudly raised their arms in the Nazi salute or condemned diversity as a threat to white power and glory. Well, here we are. This is our generation. And as in prior eras, white silence is violence. Speak up. Show up. Make racists afraid again.

June 21, 2017

On Quincy Blakely’s arrest:

Look at this cop. There is no reason here to ask Blakely where his gun is or to get out of the car. He’s done nothing wrong. Think on this, this is Texas! You don’t even need a license, a CHL, to carry loaded guns in your car. So what if he’s got a gun? Are all people with guns in Texas dangerous? Or just black ones? Do the cops in Texas ask everyone they pull over for a burned out bulb if they have a weapon in the car? Do they make everyone who is armed step out of their vehicle? I somehow doubt it, think of the absurd waste of time.

Why ask questions about the weapon at all? If he does have one with him then he’s probably just a good ol’ boy like all the white Texans packing heat. He even has a CHL…again, which you don’t need…which was presented honestly and voluntarily. His wife and child are in the fucking car. Why not just take the driver’s license and see to the task at hand? Instead the cop gets on the typical power trip. Wants to get the man out of the car because he can. Because you have to demonstrate your power and authority. Why did he do this? What activated the power trip?

He’s scared. Look, he can barely form words when he learns he’s facing a black man with a weapon lurking somewhere. Is he that scared with the good ol’ white boys? No, he’s scared of Blakely because Blakely is black. And as a black man, Blakely knows what’s happening. He hates it, it’s hurtful, he’s scared for his life. Frustrated with the cop’s stupidity and racial profiling, and knowing he is likely safer in his car, Blakely refuses to obey. Refusal of course can’t be tolerated, so force must be used. An incredible relief that no one is dead. But of course the woman is also ordered out of the car, part two of the power trip. She did nothing wrong either.

This video is a good example of how this all works: a cop mistreats a black person, the black person reacts in way that doesn’t please the powerful, and the powerful must nip that in the bud no matter how dangerous escalation becomes or who dies. This was the fault of the injustices and pride of the powerful, not the very human reaction to that injustice and pride. This is why we say #BlackLivesMatter.

Blakely is being held on a ludicrous $500,000 bond.

May 25, 2017

It’s funny how some white people think “My wife is black” or “I have lots of black friends” somehow makes them incapable of racism. It may help, but doesn’t make us invincible. You could be in love with a black woman and still stereotype blacks as on average lazier than whites, whether she is included or excluded.

Time to turn away from white hubris.

January 7, 2017

It seems to me that some conservative whites, and others, struggle to understand that racial hate crimes can be equally vicious, but not equally punished.

In late 2015, 3 white students in Idaho held down a mentally disabled black student and inserted and repeatedly kicked a coat hanger into his rectum, requiring hospitalization. The leader of the assault was offered a sweet deal by prosecutors, and will not go to prison. He gets probation and community service.

Recently, 4 black students in Chicago bound and gagged a mentally ill white student, beat him, made him drink from a toilet, and cut his hair and clothing with a knife. These black students are not likely to get a pleasant deal. They will almost certainly go to prison for years, if not much or the rest of their lives. I — and YOU, probably — would be quite shocked if this was not the case.

I’m not saying these cases are precisely the same. For instance, the black students’ records are longer and uglier than the white students’. The incidents are in different states and cities. But each case can be called twisted, sick, evil, and a hate crime (it is also remarkable some liberals insist the Chicago case was not a hate crime, despite what the students are saying in the video they made). Most Americans have an expectation that a decent society would punish such horrific acts roughly equally — not let the white kids go.

Nor am I saying convenient anecdotes like this should be or are our only indication that this nation has a major problem when it comes to sentencing blacks and whites. Research into the matter overwhelmingly confirms blacks are punished much more harshly than whites of the same background for the same crimes in the same cities and states. Such studies are not hard to find — but they do take a long time to read, considering the volume. This isn’t just a made-up social ill. Anecdotes hint at a pattern, which can be confirmed or disproved using scientific methods.

We’re living in a time that’s very divisive. You’d think we could at least all agree (black and white, right and left, etc.) that comparable crimes should be punished comparably. If you’re white and think so too, when an incident like the Chicago one occurs don’t just say, “Well, well, well, looks like blacks can commit hate crimes too!” and leave it at that. Yes, condemn it. Condemn all hate crimes, no matter who commits them, and then speak out against inequality in sentencing. Because while hate crimes can be equally horrific, our justice system’s response to them is not equally just.

January 2, 2017

A major problem in the U.S. today is that many whites have adopted the strange idea that Jim Crow oppression was eons ago. That because anyone can make it to whatever career or income they want in America and because it’s been “so long” since blacks were paid less than whites, confined to menial work, refused entry to colleges, denied home loans, etc., the only thing that explains disproportionate black poverty today is some special flaw in black people (that’s what we call racism, and it’s quite common).

Well, putting aside the fact that widespread oppression and mistreatment did not completely end after the 1960s and even continues today, 45-odd years is NOT THAT LONG. Many black people who experienced the worst of Jim Crow are still alive. Many white folk who oppressed them are still alive. The whites foaming at the mouth in rage at black kids joining their kids’ schools? Some are still around. They are our parents, our grandparents. If you’re older, perhaps it was you. Yet racism is supposed to be over? The 1960s were so long ago that all black folk should have caught up to white folk economically? Yet so recent people remember it? When you study how intergenerational poverty actually works, you see that overcoming it is a slow process indeed.

The truth is finally eradicating the last remnants of Jim Crow is going to take a bit longer than 45 years. That speaks to how effective it was at keeping black folk down — not how blacks are somehow lazier than whites and therefore haven’t caught up financially yet.

They say time heals all wounds. Instead of bathing in racist fantasies, why not consider this wound is still healing?

October 2, 2016

It is fitting that Black Lives Matter should have the same initials as the Black Liberation Movement.

September 23, 2016

Truly, it’s easy to feel that when you’re calling out for social justice you’re just shouting into the wind. It’s easy to take that one meme seriously: “Wow, your political posts on Facebook totally changed my entire worldview, said no one ever.”

Don’t believe it. Don’t ever believe it. I’m living proof that people can change. I spent 18 years a hardcore conservative, 2 years middle-left, 4 years a liberal, and 4 years a Marxist. From devout to atheist, too. I’ve watched others change, too. People I’ve debated for years have changed their minds on issues, even if reluctant to admit it. Someone told me my writings changed him in a huge way. Someone bought me a beer to apologize for old ways of thinking. People I haven’t spoken to in years message me asking for my opinion because they want a take different than their own.

Never give up, folks. Don’t be discouraged. Take heart. When you speak, people listen. And while it doesn’t come fast, people do change.

Peace and solidarity.

September 22, 2016

Dear conservative white people: How can I say this? If the ONLY time you bring up the welfare of black people is when you’re trying to get folks to shut up about Black Lives Matter and focus on black on black crime, or trying to score cheap points in a debate over abortion or gun control by pointing out racist influences or racist supporters of yesteryear…we notice that. If that’s the ONLY time, just serving a momentary, special function for you, we see that. And we see through it.

September 21, 2016

Dear fellow white people: You know how when you’re speeding you keep a sharp eye out for cops and suddenly every other car you mistake for a cop? How you start to see what you’re wary of?

Now think about the police and unarmed black men.

September 13, 2016

The most important question to ask white Americans is this:

“In American society today, blacks are disproportionately poor. Do you believe that if the roles of blacks and whites were perfectly reversed in U.S. history, if WHITES faced Jim Crow oppression, would whites still be disproportionately poor? In this alternate reality, would they still not be at economic equality with blacks?”

If the answer is Yes, the white person has accepted that an ugly racial history — not personal flaws like the racist myth of “black laziness” — created our massive racial wealth gap. The effects of past oppression can still be felt and seen.

If the answer is No, whites would not still be disproportionately poor, that white person is a racist. He or she believes in the fundamental superiority of the white race to overcome things like poverty. Racism, pure and simple.

July 28, 2016

I did not know #RyanStokes. But I do know he did not deserve to be gunned down from behind by the Kansas City Missouri Police Department. #3YearsTooLong

July 27, 2016

As white people, one of the most naive and ignorant things we say about race is this: “If racism has been such a problem, why are black people only raising hell about it now?”

First, whether or not you hear complaints about discrimination kind of depends on your skin color, doesn’t it? This is a sign of our white privilege. As a white person, you don’t ever have to think about race if you don’t want to. It’s certainly not something you worry about. It’s not something you had to talk about at the dinner table. But according to our black brothers and sisters, it’s a different story for them. Black kids get “the talk” about racism, racial profiling, how to handle themselves around the police, and so on. White mothers generally don’t have to worry, when their kid hops in the car, if the police will harass or harm them. For white mothers, the police are out there to protect their kids (even though sometimes this view is incorrect). Polls show minorities today view racism as a much greater problem than whites — no shit, as they are the ones experiencing it (the polls are nearly identical, by the way, to those taken in the 1960s; whites have a bad habit of being oblivious). Do you actually think that if you were black, you wouldn’t experience much more discussion on race and modern racism with family and friends?

Second, there is ALWAYS someone raising hell. It doesn’t always make the national or even local news, but activists ARE working against discrimination and segregation in your community — no matter where you live. But if you don’t care about social and racial justice, you’re not going to hear much about them and their activities. If you don’t have activist friends, if you don’t follow groups’ pages on social media, you won’t hear much of it. But there are always protests, rallies, marches, vigils, meetings, forums, even civil disobedience. Personally, I was ignorant of the groups in my own community until I started focusing on social justice issues. Then, all of a sudden, they were everywhere — and many existed long before Black Lives Matter, long before Mike Brown. One Struggle KC. Ida B Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality in Kansas City. Communities Creating Opportunity (CCO). Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity – MORE2. Una Lucha KC. Urban League of Greater Kansas City. Freedom Incorporated. SURJ KC – Showing Up for Racial Justice, Kansas City. The NAACP, CORE, the Panthers, and SNCC didn’t pack up and disappear after the 1960s, either. They are still at work today. Just because you’re sleepwalking, doesn’t mean others are.

July 6, 2016

“If he was holding a weapon and was trying to kill a bystander or a cop.”

That is the only time I would think a policeman justified if he killed my son, father, brother, or friend. How about you? If your brother got disrespectful with the cops? If your son ran? If your daddy resisted arrest? If your friend was illegally selling something? Would it be ethical then? Bullshit.

Hold others to the same standards you use for yourself and your family. #AltonSterling

June 7, 2016

Too many whites seem confused as to what racism actually is. It isn’t just dropping racial slurs or some vague dislike or irrational hatred of black people. It’s finding out that the average black person is more likely to be poor than the average white person, and (instead of acknowledging how our racial history created large pockets of minority poverty that still exist today) conclude that black people are simply more likely to be lazy than white people, under the guidelines of conservative ideology where people are poor due to laziness. In other words, ascribing a special flaw to a racial group.

That’s racism by definition.

March 29, 2016

In 1963, 60% of whites thought blacks were treated equally in America. In 1962, 85% of whites thought black kids had the same educational opportunities as white kids.

If we whites could be that delusional while blacks were being beaten and lynched for seeking their basic human rights, do we really think whites couldn’t possibly be delusional NOW, when racism is much more SUBTLE?

September 12, 2015

An interesting public forum on race relations last night put on by Second Presbyterian and Communities Creating Opportunity (CCO). I admire Kansas City Missouri Police Department Deputy Chief Robert Kuehl for being a panelist and being willing to take the “hot seat.” He seems like a good man concerned about racial equality and justice, but obviously should have foreseen how his phrase “All Lives Matter” would be taken by most black members of the audience, and many liberal whites there as well. Anyone who has paid any attention to the news or social media knows that “All Lives Matter” is largely a white conservative backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement. “All Lives Matter” could have easily been a phrase created by progressives, antiracists, civil rights activists, but it wasn’t. It was a direct reaction to Black Lives Matter birthed by conservative whites who confuse the pursuit of justice (an end to the disproportionate police killings of unarmed black men and women) with some sort of juvenile demand for special privileges. As Airick Leonard West pointed out, to huge applause from the crowd, All Lives Matter masks the different needs of different communities. All Lives Matter, created by conservative whites who refuse to believe that discrimination could possibly be an issue in 2015, is at its core an accusation of reverse racism: “How dare you elevate black lives over all others!” This only distracts from the real issues that birthed the Black Lives Matter movement.

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