Black Lives Really Don't Matter

I was the white-skinned member in a black church through most of university. Not because I was making a human rights statement. I just liked the blues-based music better than the country stuff across town. Most of the women I've loved have been Latina. Not because of a fetish. Just because I've often lived in places where the hotties within reach were brownies. I care about skin color about as much as I care about eye color. The lack of racism in my heart isn't because I'm righteous. I think I've committed every other sin except orgies, and that's just because no one ever invited me.

Everyone has their personal wounds and temptations. The big problem of the moment is not that everyone's doing racism, but that everyone's justifying it. Those who care mostly about their tribe insist that black lives or white lives matter, but spiritual people care infinitely more about human souls than their packaging. People who take their children to racist clans (like David Duke) or racist churches (like Barack Obama) are not okay. They're doing evil and need to repent or stand in rebellion against the Artist/Creator who chose to paint with many colors.

The journalists say, "No one is color blind and everyone is racist, because such is the world." No, such have you made it with your wicked color obsessions and preferences. I've spent more of my life in black and brown cultures than Barack Obama ever will, but it's not an important part of my identity. People have always sought to boost their self-esteem by viewing someone else as different and less, rather than valuing themselves and everyone else as equal children of God. Whether you're one color disliking another or New Yorkers and Texans looking down on each other, it's just plain human pride.

Children of every skin tone look up at the "adult" world longing to be valued and accepted. Only the deeply fallen can deny such pleas. Those who are obsessed with black lives or white lives or brown lives should stop trying to drag all humanity into your favorite sin. We all have enough of our own. Get help before you meet your maker. Only good or bad lives matter, and we all have very limited time to construct ours. Those guilty of racism cannot escape guilt by calling me self righteous. Send me 100 dollars and I'll send you a list of my past sins that will curl your hair. (Whether it's already curly or straight is interesting but nothing more.) No, I'm not politically correct, I'm just damn correct. Deal with it!

Let me be clear: focusing less on the pigmentation of police shooters and shootees doesn't reduce the need to oppose excessive police force. Innocent lives do matter. The tendancy of some police officers to demand a militaristic tech fortress around themselves while showing little conviction about human rights in general is unacceptable. Still, flooding the media with ethnic data doesn't advance justice.

For example, the recent video of an officer shooting Terence Crutcher is highly questionable. If I were on a jury, you might easily persuade me this short, squatty, insecure-looking officer was underqualified, underconfident, and panicky on the trigger. However, if you insist she was brimming with racism and set out to hunt some dark meat, the defense might cast much doubt and get an aquittal.

Likewise, if a lawyer argues that parking in the middle of the road, ignoring police commands, and giving officers your backside doesn't justify a bullet, I'll buy that. However, if he claims this conduct earns a model citizen award, I might conclude the attorney himself is full of racial bias (among other things) or working for the victim's sobbing mother. Plus, trying to prosecute hate crimes gets the government into probing the human heart, when they're barely functional at reducing human actions like rape, murder, and pillaging.

I'm more of an individual human rights advocate than a tribal rights advocate. If we insist that all cops are responsible for the excessive force often used in their "community" because they haven't stopped the systemic abuse, the police may decide that all black citizens are responsible for the rampant homicide occuring in their "community" since they haven't stopped all of this systemic bloodshed. Establishing individual guilt is complicated, but profiling each other is no decent alternative.

If I'm gunned down in error by law enforcement, I don't want White Lives Matter publishing my photo along with some pedophile to announce that two fine white boys have been cut down in their prime by the system. We're not the same. We're not a statistic. The palefaced kiddie-rapist is not my bro. Human rights include the right to be judged by the content of your character not the color of your skin. The world needs more of MLK's conviction, and each of us can do our part. You don't need to be color blind, just color disinterested. If you're an elegant woman of any color who's not receiving superior service and protection from the police, call me. I never fire off my pistol until it's absolutely the right moment. Serve and protect is my middle name.