I was wondering, as I listened to Alistair Begg chat this morning, about the the 'Black Lives Matter' protests. I mean, protesting a police officer killing someone is fair enough, there are few who would disagree outside f the 'Daily Mail' readership. There again protests such as this raise the polarisation Trump and his cronies wish to use to get votes. His voting public mainly still want him to remain. There again how many parading vociferously in the streets are merely jumping on a bandwagon, this weeks 'cause' and next week back to XR environmentally blocking the streets. We all like a good cause we can join, this is indeed a good one, but are we now over doing it?
Certainly the wee boys who want to throw things at policemen, loot and destroy will always join one, we saw that yesterday in London,certainly the Right Wing trolls will point the finger everywhere but at the guilty, certainly the media will offer a one-sided untrue story of the proceedings.
However what is really going on here?
For one thing I have not noticed any remarks re the dead man's life. What was he like? Had he a record? Was he decent? This is important as having seen two men in wheelchairs shot, one shot dead the other by a 'rubber bullet' to the head from close range, we know the police in the US are often thugs. So what sort of man was George Boyd? I have no idea, and I guess most parading have no idea either.
Brutality from the US cops against a black man is not unusual, why? Is this because the US culture is 'Shoot first and ask questions later?' That is a culture many UK servicemen have recognised in times past, it has not changed. Cops shot at and abused by black men, and women, often involved in drug or other crimes can easily become tempted to consider all blacks the same. Just as blacks then consider all police the same. It happens here in the UK just as it has always done. Bad men have never appreciated the role of the constabulary.
Notice this only concerns Black men and women, Latino's are next when it comes to police abuse in the US, yet they are not mentioned at all, could Blacks be discriminatory? Or do we not talk about that, and indeed the black on black murders? No-one among the white chattering class mentions this or the possible causes. Why?
So we have peaceful protests, a scared desperate President, Brutal police, especially those unidentified, and angst among the caring and the bandwagon jumping set.
Do 'Back lives Matter?' Indeed! 'All Lives Matter!'
I put that up on Twitter several times and when I do the white enforcers call me racist!
You see it is one important item that matters, the 'soup of the day' if you like.
The fact is all lives do matter, but Trump has divided the nation, indeed the west, forcing us to take sides,if we don't we are 'racist,' 'wrong,' or at best 'do not understand.' Poppycock!
We are all human, we all matter, the inept situation in the US should not divide us, instead we ought to recognise what we are.
(Here's the Jesus bit, you can go now)
There was division in the bible. Jesus made it clear that in following him we could divide our family, lose friends and jobs, become considered enemies of the state, all because we stand up for him. That is the price truth costs.
Paul emphasised the need to stick with those who followed Jesus, not those who followed a differing God. The OT is full of the people of Israel going their own way and following the world, no good it did them too.
So there is a division in this world, those who follow Jesus and those who do not, there is no other division. All, whatever colour or lifestyle and called to 'repent' and find forgiveness and new life, no matter the past.
Indeed 'Black Lives matter' Jesus died for them all, so let them come to him and find real life.
Indeed 'All Lives Matter' because God loves us all, he died for all, no matter what some evangelicals in the USA Midwest think. All matter, all require salvation through Jesus cross.
One other thing. Covid 19, how many will be found to have contacted this horrid virus after parading in the streets? How many cops will find guns no use against a virus? Many are annoyed that having remained indoors for the most part others have joined together to spread the virus amongst one another. I hope they survive.
2 comments:
From what I can gather...sources tend to disappear....he was a man with a record of armed violence. The shop workers said he was high on something and that he resisted arrest.
No, of course that should not be reason to kill him...but I don't envy policemen trying to get him under control.
The answer to me is to ban that form of restraint...but that,I suppose, is not dramatic enough.
When you say that all lives matter, you are shouted down...but no one life is intrinsically worth more than another and the concentration on one group in society is yet another example, to me, of how individualism, group tribalism, is sapping any chance of working people in general to achieve a better life for themselves and their children.
And the sheer folly and disregard for others of going out en masse...now we shall see whether all this social distancing has been effective or not...another Cummings moment coming up...
And kicking up about slavery in the U.K. is so cock eyed it is unbelievable...never heard of Lord Mansfield? 'One may be a villein in England, but not a slave.'
When in France, there used to be accusations that the English burned Joan of Arc, to which I would reply..'And who sold her?'
Might give the same reply to those bleating about historic slavery...who sold these people?
I would have a lot more respect if they would turn their attention to modern slavery, wherever it is found, but that would be to break out from the self justification by victimhood which seems to mark these actions.
Fly, You put it very well.
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