“How many of you would like to be treated the way we treat Black people?” asks social activist Jane Elliott of her audience. No hands go up, so she repeats the question.

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me. How many of you would like to be treated the way we treat Black people?” Again, no hands are raised.

“So, you know that there is a difference in how we treat people of darker skin tones.”

 With that acknowledgment, she challenges her listeners to do something about it. Much like Michelle Obama quoting the current Vice President’s mother during the Democratic Convention, “Do something!”

At what point do we move from acknowledgment of a problem to engaging in solutions? No game is won by bench sitters and bystanders in the bleachers. You have to get involved. As the saying goes, silence is compliance.

We live in a fallen world since Eve listened to the serpent in the Garden of Eden and was talked into eating the forbidden fruit. Consequently, sin has been our default setting much like a background application running on a computer. We are prone to tribalism and standing in support of “our team” no matter what.

When Jesus was asked what is the greatest of the 10 Commandments, He replieds with two which are related.

Mark 12:28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?

29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.  

Yet the struggle of sinful man has been to implement these commandments. It seems to be much easier for us to embrace division than it is to embrace unity. It seems much easier to become like crabs in a barrel and hold each other back as opposed to supporting each other and lifting each other up. It appears to be deeply rooted in our sinful nature human DNA. And it doesn’t take much to create those divisions.

Create a tribe and convince people of which one they belong to, and watch the games begin. It’s not about right or wrong but who is on the winning team, and when that sinful nature kicks in, things can get really ugly, and acts of brutality can only be limited by one’s lack of creativity and imagination.

We have watched this play out through history. We’ve had the Roman crucifixions, the mid-evil inventions of torture, the Salem witch hunts, acts of genocide and colonialism, the Jewish Holocaust, the transatlantic slave trade, Jim Crow segregation and lynchings, and the list goes on. We like to think that we are better than that, but unfortunately, our history and continued acts of evil seem to betray that desired self-reflection.

A racist environment has been set into place to condition us into a racist worldview, subtly or not so subtly, consciencely or sub consciencely, just waiting to be respond like muscle memory. Much like a sleeper cell or Manchurian candidate, we find ourselves in a perpetual hypnotic state until triggered to react to various stimuli.

We gravitate toward folks who make “us” feel comfortable, people who look like “us” and think like “us” (the homogenous population), and the data proves this in the outcomes while denying the reality of racism at an institutionalized level. As long as we continue to get the sought-after outcomes of maintaining control of the economics and power structure, the game remains in play, only the rules to accomplish the objective change as needed. Much like playing a game of political Whack-a-mole. And as long as you don’t look like one of “us,” you are by default, one of “them.”   

Our country seems to have become more divided since the former president entered the White House in 2016 than it has been in quite some time. The lines have been drawn in the sand and this will still be a very close election according to the polls, despite the ugliness of name-calling, personal attacks, racism, xenophobia, sexism, and homophobia.

In 2024, when things could not be made more clear, we are still determining as a nation which side represents the high ground. Gross hypocrisy and excuses made and Christians tying themselves into knots trying to fit a square peg into a round hole have become the flavor of the day.  

Many have embraced the cult of Christian Nationalism, ignoring the above-stated commandments of Love for God and our neighbors and recognizing that our citizenship lies in heaven while substituting and justifying the love of money and power at all costs, including one’s very soul.             

In an attempt to maintain control of money and power, the minority elite of wealthy white male landowners in the Virginia colonies hatched an ingenious plan of evil to divide and conquer their subjects, and it has been working like a charm ever since. RACISM/WHITE SUPREMACY.

In spite of having more in common with their fellow man of different skin tones, poor Europeans were introduced to the concept of race and were told that they were innately better than those with darker complexions in every sense of the word. This became their tribe, and many would be willing to literally die on that hill.

They would carry flags and teach white supremacy to their children. It would be reinforced by the school curriculum, media portrayals, and self-imposed segregation. They’d discriminate and come up with various forms of ill-treatment for the neighbors Jesus commanded them to love. And they’d justify and rationalize it and sweep it all under the banner of Christianity at the same time, along with God’s rubber stamp of approval.

But we can be better than that. We can accept the Biblical teaching of the Christ in scripture and learn to LOVE much better than we do. But we cannot sit on the sidelines and simply observe and say, “What a shame.” We have to get involved, and by all means, DON’T JUST SIT THERE…DO SOMETHING to make a change.